Okay, I have considered the kind of good-natured ribbing this topic is likely to inspire; I have decided that I’m willing to accept the risks and snarks in the name of guileless wide-eyed trust in the collective wisdom of the SDMB. (which wisdom has in fact never failed me.)
Will you please share with me any good rules of thumb relating to how you can tell whether or not a short story you’ve written is crap? I have a number of opinion-and-musing-type articles published online, and a blog that has had fleeting moments of moderate attention. I know my writing skills are okay; and I’ve written stories before that were just what I wanted them to be – pretty much my measure of having succeeded.
But this one, well, it’s a story that I wrote to please myself. I am wondering if it is worthwhile as fiction to anyone else and I just can’t tell.
a) phouka has an excellent point: put it away for a bit, then come back to it. Does it still rock?
b) industry readers or academic readers: pass it along to those folks. Get their feedback. Take it to heart.
c) submit it to literary competitions: preferably some with decent pedigrees and with written review.
d) take a creative writing college class: it never hurts to get feedback from fellow writers/students and professors.
I agree with the suggestion to set it aside for a while, then revisit it. The distance of time gives you a new perspective on the piece.
Have other people read it. More than one person. Good feedback is invaluable.
Work on other writing while you’re waiting; don’t stop writing. Having other projects going will give you something to occupy the writing part of your life while the piece mellows or is out for feedback.
brujaja, keep in mind that you might write a really fine piece of literature and have it rejected the first one hundred times you submit it for publication. You may become famous and people will still debate the worthiness of a particular work. There is no way to be certain.
Finding your own voice is primary, so do write to please yourself. Then do set it aside for six months at least while you write other things. Then have someone read it aloud to you so that you aren’t stopping to edit.
One of my friends swears by her agent. (She is a novelist.)
If you want to know if you are good enough for publication, that is an entirely different matter from being “good.” My two worst pieces got the most attention.
Emily Dickinson didn’t publish. Van Gogh sold one painting, so I have been told.
If you want to be good, read great writers half the time and write half the time. If you want to be published, submit, submit, submit. Don’t let the rejections discourage you.
IMO writing needs to be set aside and revisited with fresh eyes later.
Realize too that some pieces may be good at certain things, like setting or characterization, but not good at other things, like plot development or imagery.
The #1 rule of creative writing, said an English teacher I know, is “Show, don’t tell.” I.e. let the reader participate. Don’t write, “He was sad.” Rather, write, “He couldn’t sleep or eat, and his beloved guitar lay silent.” Let the reader infer as much as possible.
And since you’re talking about short stories, remember Poe’s “every word toward a preconceived effect.”
This could be a thread in and of itself. In some senses, this rule is right on the money; but I get pissed off at writers who seem to have taken it as an excuse not to tell me what the hell is going on. Dammit, tell me what I need to know to understand the situation. Just because you know who these people are and where they are and what they’re doing and why, doesn’t mean I know, unless you’ve somehow told or shown me in what you’ve written.
lobotomyboy63, to shorten this hijack (too late, you say?):
The travel guide you referenced has a primo reputation. Ms. Shapiro is backed up by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam which sent me to this incredible website: for all things Van Gogh.
Thank you for fighting my ignorance.
brujaja, speaking of Paris, read Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast” just before you make a trip to Paris. Be sure that your hotel is in the St. Germaine-Blvd. Mich area. Go to Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore and hangout your first day. It is on the Seine right across from Notre Dame.
“Write one true sentence.” --Hemingway
Take a course in the basics of art for inspiration. Hemingway used to study Cezanne’s paintings – but after he understood something about why they were good and not just why they were appealing.
I don’t do creative writing, what I do is technical writing based upon environmental studies and investigations, but our rules for reports and tech memos are pretty much the same as Savannah’s advice, we call it a “peer review”. I agree about leaving your stories alone without looking at them for awhile, even your own fresh eyes can turn up flaws or missing stuff.
Also, (this might sound a little funny but it works), an old boss of mine shared some advice from one of his college writing profs who said “read back what you’ve written in the voice of a prissy old english lady, english accent and all”. It’s funny, but in a lot of cases it works.
Good luck with your writings! I’m jealous, the most creative words I get to write are phrases like “… the trichloroethylene levels are indicative of…” not exactly heartstopping drama!
Good advice, all of you. And food for thought. Let me ask you this: Has anyone read any of the Weetzie-Bat books? If you have, what do you think of her style?
I remember when I first read, “The Illustrated Man,” that here was this science fiction with hardly any technology and fancy gizmoes and complicated physics in it at all – it was mostly about the insides of people, and their relationships to each other. The otherworldly part was sort of incidental. That is how I write.
I guess you could call it quirky. I think that’s part of why it’s hard to see from an outside perspective.
