The Ballad of Victor Flame: Part I
Alumni, aspiring novelist (32M) looking for feedback regarding debut noir novel set in UMass
Author’s Note: If you haven’t yet I highly recommend reading the first chapter of Scared of the Rain to get acquainted with the story that this post references.
I wrote the first chapter of Scared of the Rain my senior year of college after a night out. I came home from the bars and felt the urge to write something outrageous and Victor sprang to life. The chapter was shaped by a few different factors: the yearlong creative writing capstone I was completing, Raymond Chandler, whom I had been reading, and those final bar weekends as a student when I was feeling especially reflective about the college experience—specifically my freshman year and the anxiety and reluctance that had accompanied it.
The piece sat on my laptop for nearly a decade until I rediscovered it a few months ago. Right away, I knew I had something. The voice was realized and the genre, which I like to call “neckbeard noir,” still seemed fun to work in. I wrote chapters two and three and ended up making a Substack for it:
Then I decided that I would try to share it with the world, for better or for worse.
But how could I possibly drive any meaningful traffic to those introductory chapters? Substack Notes is useless, my aunts are on Facebook, and due to their strict rules it’s impossible to self-promote in most subreddits, especially the popular ones that can actually get you clicks.
Well, almost impossible.
As it turns out, I had an old trick up my sleeve. It would ultimately garner me 4 million impressions on Reddit and send thirty-thousand visitors to Victor’s Substack in a single day. How did I accomplish such a feat?
Naturally, it began with a college.
Alumni, aspiring novelist looking for feedback regarding debut noir novel set in UMass
Umass alum here. I graduated a decade ago with an English degree and creative writing specialization and proceeded to do absolutely nothing with it. Lost my job recently so I was killing time deleting some old files and rediscovered this novel I began in college, a campus noir piece set of course on the very campus I inhabited at the time, UMass Amherst.
I usually cringe when I read old writing but I picked this up and it was...surprisingly good. Like probably the single written thing from college that holds up most. So I decided to return to it, and now I’m taking myself seriously as a novelist again for the first time in a decade.
The novel is set at UMass in 2013 and draws heavily from my time there, specifically my first semester, freshman year, fresh off the heels of a devastating summer breakup. The library, the Southwest towers, the back of Monkey Bar...these places serve as the backdrop for a piece that is part bildungsroman, part mystery and ultimately a deep meditation on human belonging and human frailty.
The first chapter takes place on a rainy Saturday night and includes a stop at Antonio’s. (Picture included for proof) I’d love to know what my fellow Minutemen think about the depiction of Amherst and its student population, especially if you went to UMass around that era? More general comments regarding character, plot, theme, etc. are also more than welcome.
Just hoping to take advantage whatever tenuous connections I can at this age and stage in my (non)career. I figured my alma mater would be a decent place to start. For anyone who decides to read and leave feedback, thank you in advance.
Link in comments
And then I dropped the link:
Many criticized the vivid descriptions:
Others condemned Victor himself:
Despite the cool reception, the post sent a few dozen users to my site, proving that the concept had legs. I would just need to keep taking shots until something caught fire. I tried /r/Substack next, hoping the discourse might spill over onto their website where Victor would be patiently waiting.
Does anybody on Substack actually know how to write??
I’ve been writing seriously since I was 13 and it drives me crazy the amount of garbage writing I see on the platform masquerading as something profound. Just because you can start a newsletter and hit publish doesn’t make you a writer and it doesn’t make your inadequate grasp of literary conventions any less glaring.
Before you try to publish on Substack maybe try picking up a book that isn’t Colleen Hoover or Rupi Kaur.
You might say it’s a place for anyone to write but the fact of the matter is that real artists are being drowned out by people pretending to be; writers that don’t have even the most basic understanding of proper punctuation or varying sentence structure, never mind tone, voice, or cadence.
I don’t mean to gatekeep but it’s true. There should be some bar for quality in order to preserve what little literary legitimacy the platform still has. Your thinly-veiled memoir about finding yourself after your divorce isn’t it, trust me.
I did my best to defend my credentials:
But the Substack subreddit was too small and nothing went beyond its walls. It sent a few more readers my way but got me no closer to virality. And so I tried yet another sub, /r/self, with 1.7 million users, few rules, and seemingly lax moderation.
The world no longer recognizes creative genius. I’m a casually of that
I’m in the midst of serializing what is the best thing I’ve ever written on Substack and I’ve been publishing to crickets. Meanwhile thousands of people who picked up a pen for the first time in their lives last summer are accumulating thousands of followers for drivel, usually some thematically-hollow memoir about divorce or parenthood drowning in cliches. No grasp of tone, cadence, or voice, yet these frauds are making a career off of the written word.
And then there’s me, with a background and formal education in the English language, writing in my own invented genre, with a deep understanding of literary conventions--and nothing.
Makes me wonder if this optimized, algorithmic world is the final nail in the coffin for art. When the mommy memoirist is making more than Morrison ever did, we’re cooked.
Again, traffic wasn’t much, not nearly enough to expose Victor Flame to the masses. I decided to try the UMass subreddit one more time, a week after my first post, just for shits and giggles.
Chapters 2 and 3 of my Umass noir novel are out
I posted in here last week soliciting feedback on my campus noir novel set at UMass and received some encouraging private feedback although many publicly derided it. A big criticism was that you never get cheese at Antonio’s which just shows me those commenters have never gone there after the bars and so their opinion is moot anyway.
For those who were intrigued by the work it’s your lucky day: two more chapters are out featuring our beloved library, the Southwest towers, and a Zoomass Halloweeen. Looking for more feedback on the world building: does it feel like UMass to you?
Links in comments
Over the course of the week, the gambit sent around 500 total readers to Scared of the Rain. Some loved the work and many hated it, but I had confirmation that the voice of Victor was indeed provocative enough to get eyeballs and get people talking. Five hundred visitors, however, was a drop in the bucket. The smaller communities were never going to cut it.
The formula required to put up big numbers was missing two fundamental components: a more judgmental audience and a girlfriend. Thankfully, I knew where to find both.
The Shitpost Diaries will be back soon with Part Two. Please subscribe if you haven’t for the next installment and over at Scared of the Rain too. If you’re liking the trolling stuff and haven’t read the rest of The Shitpost Diaries yet, start here.
Was Alexander the initial inspiration for Victor?