Paula’s Comments (group member since Oct 28, 2015)

Paula’s comments from the Science Fiction Microstory Contest group.

I'd imagine it depends on the publisher's budget. If it's a bigtime big-budget press, it pays for a text-and-title search all over the Net for some luscious line somewhere in the text (and using wildcards etc. to catch mild disguises; but if it's an impoverished start-up e-mag, it just googles the title.
Then it contacts the author and says "Sorry, we can't use (title) after all. Try us again sometime. Like, in 2180 or so."

So just changing the titles doesn't do it, eh?
Oh my. ;)

I really want to thank you, J.J., Marianne, Andy, and Ron, for your votes for my story this month. Coming from you all, these form an honor.
Heather, those stories that speak about something in our lives while seemingly about something else are so important! Like others here, I found this one definitely your best here so far. As for ways to tighten prose, one that really works is to write news stories, paid or unpaid but as a staff reporter or regular stringer/contributor, for some journal. They have tight wordcounts and one has to meet those; it's very effective.

Congratulations, Sharon. And J.J. Terrific stories from both of you.

Carrie, I loved your "edge" image; I just want you to carry it through the story when you (I do hope) redo this into what may be one a serious award-winning tale. Seriously.
Heather, , better to private-message personal stuff. You may also from the votes that your story was in my top choices.
Andy, no exiting in tears. Not your doing that we Americans are ignorant--of, among other things, contemporary and historical English doings.
Richard and Andy, thank you. I do think, if people wish to challenge one another's critiques as critiques (or to simply point out they disagree), in giving their own opinions, that's cool. Otoh, *emphasizing* disagreement is anything but professional; I think some of us here have had more critiquing experience than others.
Jot, I wish the cable being dangling were enough; it's not--unless we see him grab for it, at least a couple of lines ahead of where we see him saved. And truly, better then if the woman too sees or know that he's grabbing for it--or he says "Hey it's okay, babe" or something--so she, like the reader, is not kept in false suspense those last few mini-seconds up to the end. Because, except for that issue, it's such a very strong and publishable story.

Richard, you are correct, and I have in fact removed my post replying to certain objections to my critique, for the very sort of reasons you mention. Most writers groups in fact eschew comments on critiques and simply encourage participants to give their own critiques.
Andy, your stories normally are crystal clear; this one, though, seemed less so--and yet Diana was clear. Perhaps too much of history and referents/references for the story? (But I'm not sure.)

Ah Carrie! I was about to add something--namely, that I felt the story working up and up to something about to be divulged--and could be something about her, or even them--perhaps in some final remark by the man to her; and then it wasn't. And yes, certainly the word constraint could do this. I bet you could go back to it, trim from the midsection, add a few words (maybe from the guy), and have something. . .tremendous. The story has enormous potential, in fact, especially if you work in a tiny bit, in mid- or end- segments, to integrate the imagery (the squared-off edge, e.g.) that you mentioned at the start.
Anyhow, thanks. I usually only public-critique here stories I very much like, but still one worries about hurting feelings. I appreciate very much your response.

Now the votes are mostly in, and since the following does not relate to the two finalists' works, I want to do a general critique of this month's stories, mentioning specifically however only two that came within an inch of being superb but then showed serious flaws.
First, nearly all the stories were well written and did what they set out to do. A few, otherwise excellent, simply had no (or barely-sketched and nonevocative) characterization, so that one could see the story nicely develop and play out but without a connection to make one care. I'll not mention these, except to say mine this month was probably among them, and I think the authors of other such tales this month probably have suspected this lack in their pieces here.
Second, two stories this month could drive one up a wall. These were Jot's and Carrie's.
Carrie's is beautifully written, evocative, full of feeling and elegant lines, a tale of loving concern amid despair---until, beginning about 3/4 way in, one still has no clue what the young woman's despair may concern, and looks for it in vain. Maybe I missed its content, and I'm sure Carrie didn't mean the tale as one of "adolescent angst," but it seems to lack content entirely for the despair.
Jot's story had me totally caught up, right up to the last few lines. Then, following a description of the two characters' hands and the loosened grasp, suddenly--like a deux ex machina--the guy is holding onto a cable and climbs back up to her and happy ending ensues. Well, but hey--did that cable just appear? With no hints earlier from the author that it might? And does the guy know all along there's this cable (and perhaps is even holding it)? And meanwhile are we supposed to be feeling for the poor guy and the poor couple--suspended with them on the suspenseful edge, all the time that the author (along with perhaps the guy character) knows very well there's no danger to the guy? That's playing falsely with the reader's expectations/emotions. Not to mention that, if the guy knows the cable's there, he too is playing falsely. . . with the woman's feelings. I don't know if this flaw occurred because the author's fairly new to writing stories, or what, but it ruined what could have been a good story. Perhaps the last section should have been more worked, and if that went over word-count, pieces should have been taken out instead from earlier sections.
A couple of other stories this month also suffer from rushed-ending flaws. Sure, we've all been too busy this month--but sure, too, it affected the ending paragraphs and thus the quality of two or three other stories (at least), unfortunately.

Hey, Gary's back! Yay--good to have you back, Gary!

Sounds like great snow, everybody! Enjoy.
I wrote a story-song, "What was snow?", a few years ago, for a local ecology group.
Let's enjoy the cool flakes while we can.

Hoping you're okay, Carrie--and Kalifer--and Jot.

I think we all understand, Richard. Thank you so much.

Excellent point, J.J. This way, people'll read all the stories, hopefully before voting.
Richard, I'm not following you re the GR problem. Once on GR, I click on "groups"; there, I click on this group, then on the relevant discussion/thread--then on the highlighted ("new") item(s), if any, else on the group name--and I'm here.

Marianne, probably. Usually a change of address--for anything or anyone--loses a huge proportion of members/correspondents. And Goodreads software, while hardly a steep learning curve, is "just one more thing" perhaps for people. Too bad, as it's a good venue for us.
Good work, Ben!
Good idea, Jeremy. Maybe you can post something there (on LI) for people, yes!

I was making a general point, Heather.
Jeremy, no problemo.

Just a thought--persons posting possible spoilers on the current month's stories might either rephrase to carefully avoid possible spoilers or else begin such posts with ***SPOILER*** across the top.

Good points, Heather!
Jeremy, great--looking forward to reading it.

It's a good story, Heather--great that writing it has worked for you so well. I am struck by your point about "the need to permit the reader to feel empathy for all the characters," a point of particular import in a culture recently full of online ads regarding "teaching empathy" as if it were not humans' (or mammals'?) natural response. Your point is thus most refreshing.
As for reading-aloud times. My experience in directing poetry (and other) readings in my old museum job was that readings work best if kept to *no more than* five minutes, preferably four or fewer minutes, and very very well rehearsed.

Photographs to Nowhere
Copyright © 2016 by Paula Friedman

I, Memorek, am, after all, the 5th in a family of 5 children, 2 mi-parents, 3 parents-of-origins. You see—here, in my imagenes, on my old Screener. Yes, indeed an old Screener, ancient really, yet it has, these years on years, held up even in conditions of Beneath.

“Beneath the Bridge?” you ask. Yes, of course. Well, where to begin?

I, Memorek, came 5th to a family, 2 mi-parents, 3 of-origins, here in NiYerston. Being so very many, 4 over the legal limit, we, most of us, would not have survived to infancy, needless to say, had not Pa-Pa been very rich. Yet rich he was; so of course we did. Repaying, indeed, such a “debt to society” by our striking success. See, here we are on my Screener; no, not the pretty one, never mind her, that never reached fruition, she sought “someone more successful,” but these here, my siblings—see: Donal, Tilda, Robert, Dorin. Donal became a major robosurgeon operator; Tilda is among Earth’s foremost holo artists; Jana stars on holo-ballet screens worldwide; Robert’s shares in ZoomEr rock the market upward each week there’s a launch of Search-Worlds capsules; and Dorin’s prime discoveries in algebraic coconcatenoidics have remade our understandings of geology.

Well, that leaves me. The runt, the wimp, the “loser,” “failure-genius,” “crazy,” black-sheep of this family. I, Memorek, now porting on my back my clothes, my tent and blanket, cooking gear, no food, and of course my Screener with these imagenes of someones I once knew. I, Memorek the Proud, the Glad-to-Meet-You, Memorek who ports his all beneath the Bridge here with these others, 13 million from our land alone, who each await our turn.

Thank you, ma’am-sir. Yes, thank you for these dollarnotes. My, you are kind. I shall Click these into my account, that I may go tomorrow for my portion at the closest NiYerston dispensary. You're most magnanimous, gentle sir-madam; please accept my thanks. (Fuck you, fuckitfuck. Thanks for your BIG charity--2 dollarnotes. Fuck that.) Basta! To bed.

Yes, goeth I, now to bed, yeah right. Here—right here in the bellowous, noise-shattered failurous hordes of our nonfellowship, here Underneath the Bridge. All bedded semi-demi-sheltered from the elements. As if upon our crowded world much of the elements of "weather" remain. However, here we wait. We wait for disposition.

Disposition? Of course. Of course; for, that some few may, even in these years, live in wealth, so must we “fuckin’ failures of the Under-Bridge” swiftly leave. Go forth, go step by step, each one of us, the morning our turns come, upward and onward step by step, porting perhaps a coat or tent, porting what's left of our memories, carrying one single Screener of our imagenes, and our emptied lives above your river, ladies-gents, above the sea and upward, always, up-yours and onward, once more in the light, the smog-light of this once green Earth, higher, higher and farther, farther, walking the Bridge to Nowhere to

we know what end

Not sure where to post this, but I have just begun reading Richard Bunning's novel Spiderworld; based on its prologue and chapter 1, it's one of the best sf novels I've read in years. Seriously--page-turner, sophisticated, excellent world-building, and so on.
So, Richard, I hope the rest of the book's this good. If so, it really really needs to be well known.