...at how subjective writing critique can be. The judging I was participating in for the Cafe Doom 7th Annual Horror contest finished up today. I had all good intentions of critiquing and writing comments about each story as many of the readers/judges do. I'm less daunted by the work involved than by the overwhelming confusion.
I guess I shouldn't read what others said about stories before submitting my own comments. Here's what I don't understand: several people wrote exactly what I thought about some stories. The same people wrote things like, "This story grabs your attention at the very beginning and the ending is an unexpected twist" about a story that I would have said, "Starts slow and the reader knows by the second sentence exactly how the story will go and how it will end." How can two people have the same thoughts and feelings about some stories and completely opposite opinions of others?
The whole experience makes me wonder how helpful the comments are to the writers. This is where we remind ourselves that the way to benefit from critique is to listen to everything, consider it carefully and choose to act on it or not, remembering that if several people say the same thing, there's probably some merit to what is said.
www.jennifermballard.com
www.daylightsend.weebly.com
www.trustindarkness.weebly.com
Showing posts with label critiquing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label critiquing. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Rejection disclaimer
Anyone that has had a piece of writing rejected by an editor, publisher or agent is familiar with some form of the following statements: "Our rejection of your story is in no way a reflection on your writing", "We read a lot of great stories we are unable to take", "It might be a perfect fit for someone else".
Any and/or all these statements might be true. Or it could be that your writing sucks. This phrase used to be as pointless to me as, "This isn't right for us". Thanks to an experience I had last year, words like those above now serve as a confirmation and reminder that any rejection of my work does not mean it isn't great.
I entered a short story contest (Cafe Doom) in which all entrants had to read and judge all the contest submissions. We were to pick our top three choices for first, second and third place and provide feedback when and where we could. I have to say this was an incredible experience that all writers should participate in!
There were 60 entries, ranging from 3 to 20 pages and the stories were mainly of the fantasy/sci-fi/horror/paranormal variety. A lot of them I just hated. However, I loved a lot of them, too. Choosing the 10 I liked most was hard, cutting it down to 3 was impossible. Even among the 3 I finally settled on, it was hard to decide which I loved best.
The most difficult thing was figuring out why. Some I loved everything about. Characters, setting, writing style, plot. Some stories I loved one or more things about, but not other aspects of the work. How do you decide what facet of a story should be more important?
What I did learn first-hand from this was how hard an editor's job is. Most importantly, the statement "Our rejection of your work does not mean it isn't great" is no longer ambiguous to me. I know exactly what it means and that it is true.
www.jennifermballard.com
www.daylightsend.weebly.com
www.trustindarkness.weebly.com
Any and/or all these statements might be true. Or it could be that your writing sucks. This phrase used to be as pointless to me as, "This isn't right for us". Thanks to an experience I had last year, words like those above now serve as a confirmation and reminder that any rejection of my work does not mean it isn't great.
I entered a short story contest (Cafe Doom) in which all entrants had to read and judge all the contest submissions. We were to pick our top three choices for first, second and third place and provide feedback when and where we could. I have to say this was an incredible experience that all writers should participate in!
There were 60 entries, ranging from 3 to 20 pages and the stories were mainly of the fantasy/sci-fi/horror/paranormal variety. A lot of them I just hated. However, I loved a lot of them, too. Choosing the 10 I liked most was hard, cutting it down to 3 was impossible. Even among the 3 I finally settled on, it was hard to decide which I loved best.
The most difficult thing was figuring out why. Some I loved everything about. Characters, setting, writing style, plot. Some stories I loved one or more things about, but not other aspects of the work. How do you decide what facet of a story should be more important?
What I did learn first-hand from this was how hard an editor's job is. Most importantly, the statement "Our rejection of your work does not mean it isn't great" is no longer ambiguous to me. I know exactly what it means and that it is true.
www.jennifermballard.com
www.daylightsend.weebly.com
www.trustindarkness.weebly.com
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