Today was the day we were to come to fiction writing class and critique one another's sudden fiction pieces. Not all of them, of course, but just the ones we had been assigned to look at over the weekend. Mostly I was looking forward to it, though knowing you'll be receiving critiques on something you put time and energy into always comes with a bit of dread.
To be honest, it didn't go too well. Everyone in my group who was assigned to read my story understood what was going on... except for the person who did the write-up for mine. And as non-judgmental as I try to be, it does sting when I write eight pages of both positive and negative feedback for the person I was assigned to, and only get 3/4 of one with very choppy sentences and evasive, noncommittal responses in return. Especially when we were instructed to write in complete sentences. Oh well. At least I got one.
My story was basically an elevator pitch, except the guy doing the pitch was trying to convince his boss why he should be fired... and manipulated him into granting him a promotion. I thought it was pretty straightforward, and everyone else seemed to think so too, but it's always helpful to get the perspective of someone who wasn't onboard. If you didn't catch the subtleties early enough, I can see how the end would be confusing.
I also found out that we had a 4-page limit on our sudden fiction piece instead of a 3-page one, which is what I'd confined myself to. That might work out in my favor when I do revisions, since it gives me more room to work.
The person I was assigned to be "main editor" for wasn't actually here today. She was an interesting case: Her writing style was too much instead of too little. She went into extreme details about little things that weren't very important, like the sticky cheese on the nachos a side-character was eating, and the way they rained down when he threw them up into the air. Interesting, but very confusing at times. It wasn't clear why the nachos were raining from the sky a moment later- had he jumped up and thrown them? Was he excited? Startled? And why were people on the soccer field holding the ball and their heads? Had someone fallen? Was someone hurt? In soccer, players get down on one knee when someone is hurt. Had a player just tried to make a winning kick but failed, and was now falling to the ground in shame, clasping his hair? It was a bit jumbled up. Still, I had a lot of fun looking over her story and making comments. It was an enjoyable read overall.
