Believe it or not, yesterday’s crit group crucifixion could’ve been much, much worse. This is what I get for bringing a story that was scribbled down after a Friday nite conversation over too much wine and untouched until the yesterday morning before the meeting. This is why John Rogers’ description of first drafts as “puke drafts” (which I’ve adopted) is so apropos.
Anyway, it was an untitled 280-word flash piece, eviscerated thusly…
FTW
- Great idea (the opening hook, fashioned from Friday’s conversation)
- Good opening.
Story!Fail
- It only takes one wrong word in a flash piece (in this case, “Princess”) to throw off most readers’ sense of time and place.
- Only 2 out of 5 readers understood my ending (better than none, I guess)…
- …and everyone else thought it was disconnected/disjointed from my setup.
- Minor Tense!Fail in the first paragraph
On the upside, one reader felt it only needed a “bit” of revision. And writing it did feel like a victory since I’m finally getting the hang of combining my genre and my flash writing. Hey, don’t take my word for it! (Okay okay, that was such a shameless plug hehe.)