Writing, Editing, and Critiques

Two stories, both related, about me having a story critiqued, and critiquing another.  Similar outcomes.

First, a friend sent me a short story she had sold, and was settling in to revise.  I read it over and had a generally good reaction, and sent her some of my comments.  Soon after, I got an email that primarily read "THESE COMMENTS ARE AWESOME".  (That's a nice feeling, by the way, when your efforts are so appreciated.)

So as a follow-up, I took the short story I thought was in the best, most sellable state, cleaned it up a bit more, and sent it to her for comments.  She... well, she didn't tear it apart, but she pulled it into many pieces, and explained how those pieces kept the story from being as effective as it could be.  In particular, I had extra exposition at the beginning that was probably unnecessary, I could introduce more conflict and handle the exposition by having an oppositional character (rather than just the circumstances), and the ending could be more life-altering, maybe.  I'm really not sure about the last one yet, but the others are advice gold.

Of course, that means the story I thought was in good enough shape to submit for potential sales, I have serious doubts about.  On one hand, I need to wrap it up as best I can sometime, and send it along.  On the other hand, I don't want to send less than my best work, or at least work that I feel fully realizes the story... and I now know how much better the story could be.  I don't think I can send it like that.  I will be missing my goal to submit a story, unless I somehow both revise that story and get another round of critique in somehow, but after some other discussions about how magazines can now easily track a submitters previous submissions and how they improve (or not), I'm pretty sure I don't want to put anything too terrible out there.

Not that this is, but still.  Goal officially abandoned, for another month.

On the other hand, I also recently did a critique where I didn't see much of a story in the short story.  Others disagreed, which is their right.  It's good to remember that some critiques aren't just what the story needs either.  Writing them out may help me figure out my own stuff, but that doesn't mean they will always be helpful to the recipient.  It's when it is helpful to neither that I should really be careful about even posting the critique.