Saturday, November 15, 2014

One of the publishers of flash fiction not only reads your work but they even send back comments. This is what I got back on a very short work (200 words):
Thank you for submitting to xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx. We have decided not to publish your piece, "Xxx Xxxx". Some reader comments:

"This was funny. Amusing. I know it was a build up for a punchline, but I liked it. It made me laugh. I can picture the over-dramatized man, struggling with this terrible 'burden', only to find out it's a lawn mower. It's clever. I guess I like that it starts out super-dramatized, but it's all for a laugh."

"I'm not charmed. I felt this relied on narrative tricks to get readers to like the piece. A lot of space was wasted on describing heat; that bored me. The piece doesn't go anywhere because there's no story here."

"The setup didn't interest me, and I didn't find the joke reveal at the end funny."

"There's no story here for me to emotionally invest in, because the whole piece is just a setup to a punchline. I almost never enjoy twist endings because I feel they deliberately mislead readers. Essentially, they set up a situation in which the joke is on the reader. I prefer a narrative style that takes readers into its confidence and treats them with respect. I say: put aside the cheap-twist gimmick and just tell me a good story with solid layers of humor and depth."

Best of luck, and please feel free to submit to us again in the future, 
 One out of four liked it, I'll take that as a win.  It was only 200 words long, their comments run 198 words.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6rWM60jINiidnc5R1lMSkxHNzA/view
The author reads a bit of his story, I would like to hear him read my story in the same collection. Read it yourself in Cutthroats and Curses, priced at almost nothing on Amazon and the link is here on this blog.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/488846
I have a story in this collection, tried to sell it around but no takers so I gave it away. Hard to sell a holiday themed story. As I wasn't the only one willing to give away a story the whole collection is free at the moment on Smashwords, get it while you can.