  Short Stories
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This Short Stories Newsletter is dedicated to readers and writers of short fiction and to those who want to know more about the art of telling big stories in small spaces.
This month:
The Next Step
How does implementing critique really work? Make the most of the reviews you receive. |
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Recently, while I've been working my way through Wonderbook again, I've spent a lot of time on revising some of my older stories, and in that process I've also spent a lot of time looking at feedback sent to me by others who have read my stories and been kind and generous enough to tell me what they've thought of those stories. Since I have my sights on some of the most competitive markets for the stories I'm revising, I like to have a wide variety of opinions to pick from-- and among those opinions a variety of goals to edit towards, based on the feedback I've received.
This may seem like a very straightforward notion, but as I've found in the past, revision can be a convoluted process. It doesn't take much to completely alter your perspective on your own work. Since I do workshop some work in an online group which operates in a chatroom in addition to the context of the reviews system on WdC, I have found that I receive a lot of different input as I develop my stories. For me, this has been a good way to achieve balance. Not all of the feedback I receive is truly useful, which I think is a pretty normal experience-- but sometimes the back pats have their place in our ecosystem, too. 
The system that I use for organizing feedback is somewhat inexact, because each story's unique characteristics ensure that no single routine will be singularly effective, but the approximates -- based on some suggestions from Jeff VanderMeer in Wonderbook-- are:
 Sort feedback in terms of utility: this might be as simple as something like "Grammar," "Plot," "Overall," or whatever applies best to the review material. Prioritize useful reviews over fluff. It may not be immediately apparent what "fluff" is, in this context. In the process of sorting feedback, I usually tend to have one pile that ends up being, "Why didn't I think of that?!" by the end-- but it's important to let every reader's opinion have value with you, even if ultimately their suggestions don't mesh with your vision of the story.
For grammar, spelling or other perfunctory fixes-- implement the appropriate ones. Factual errors, if someone's been kind enough to point them out and they should be corrected for believability-- implement those as well. For fixes to plot or character, it's a much stickier fix-- and one that I personally feel many folks on WdC are reluctant to assist with, probably out of inexperience or of not wanting to seem too "picky" about a story. Plot and character suggestions should be consistent with the goals you have set out by writing this story. (If you haven't got goals for the story action, feedback from other writers beyond "I liked it," is probably not that useful to you, which is a whole other set of problems, in my view.)
Revise accordingly-- hopefully with a clearer vision of what works on the page to help capture the readers' imagination.
Ultimately the process of revising a story should leave you feeling stronger, more confident, and probably even a little excited about your story. Sure, you've just spent an intensive amount of time reading feedback which might make you feel a little squeamish about your story, but ultimately, in many cases, it should help you to improve your work.
In any case, as with all things in this business, revising is a process-- which means it's something that's never truly "done," if it's done right. 
Until next time,
Take care and Write on!
~jay
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Feedback from last month's newsletter: "Meta-Problems in Storytelling"
Leger~  writes:
"Maybe you pulled it out of the oven too early, or didn't set the temperature high enough, but something just isn't cooked through, and now your readers have word-salmonella poisoning."  Giggling here, great newsletter with some awesome pointers.
Hah! Preparing this newsletter for print, I forgot all about that line, so I got a giggle out of it as well. Here's another thing feedback is good for-- reminding us what all is in there.
Quick-Quill  writes:
Jay, this is the best line in the whole newsletter. (Think Bilbo Baggins here-- the one thing he wants is to be left alone, and JRR Tolkien was resolute in not allowing that to happen. ) In all you wrote this is what it all means. Get your character out of bed somehow. Get them arguing, fighting, yelling because the line between love and hate is very thin and easily crossed. I am going to pin this little verbiage right above my computer! Don't let your character ever go to bed at the end of a chapter either. It gives the reader the same opportunity.
Exactly! 
Elfin Dragon-finally published writes:
It's very true. Sometimes we forget about the plots, especially if we're writing Sci-fi. I've started reading many of these books in where the author got lost in the technical aspects and dropped the plot altogether and the characters were "going through the motions". We need to remember our characters and plot go together.
Yep! This is a big problem in a lot of styles of fiction, honestly-- it's just more visible when it happens in sci-fi and fantasy because the foreign setting and other features can be distracting.
brom21 writes:
Thanks for the three points; I can identify with all of them especially the idea of a drifting narrative where you just kind of wing it the whole way through and the whole product gets separated from your vision and it drags. I have found that if you really enjoy what you’re writing and it goes on with smooth transition, then the reader will like it too. I hope this helps someone. Thanks for the newsletter and I look forward to the next one. Kudos!
Thanks! Yeah, if you don't enjoy it you certainly can't expect your reader will. It's a tough balance!
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Short Stories: April 02, 2014 Issue [#6240]
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