Grading Reality: The Bush/Cheney Novel

Before I give you your final grade for the senior project, I wanted to explain myself in greater detail than just a simple report card. You’ve put a tremendous amount of work into this, and you’ve clearly learned the basic principles of writing a novel. Where I think you come up short is in the execution. You simply overdo it and it turns what would be a compelling political narrative into a dark farce.
The assignment was to write about a mediocre leader who seizes power and then gets involved in a scandal of incompetence and corruption. Right from the beginning you telegraph your intentions way too much. “Bush” as in “bush league”? “Dick Cheney” as in “dick”? It’s not exactly subtle, is it?
But then you hammer away at what your fictional administration does wrong with such an overzealous excess that the reader is swamped: Lying the nation into preemptive war? Torture? Wild spending? The NSA? The mad power grab and the shunning of the Constitution? This is overkill, don’t you think? Your work would be better served if you had toned it down a bit. You present such monumental incompetence, arrogance, and downright meanness that the reader loses track of your original intent. Besides, it isn’t realistic. Ask yourself if it could ever really happen in America? Not in your worst nightmares.
Finally, in our midterm conference, I stressed the need for subtle nuances in your characters that expressed a bigger picture. When you see a great movie or read a great book, the message isn’t hammered over your head. Often a small detail symbolizes the larger themes of the work.
How did you react – or should I say “overreact” – to my advice? To convey your theme of a reckless military foreign policy, you have this “Dick” character accidentally shoot his friend in the face with a shotgun?
Don’t you see this is overdoing it? It is simply bad writing. You understand the concept but by your wild excess, you turn tragedy into farce.
I’m sorry but I must give you a C minus. Don’t be discouraged. The student in your book got C’s, and he went on to be president. Forgive me - I shouldn’t be glib. Frankly that was just another detail in your book that didn’t make any sense.