Franky... sweetie baby darling
I just got the judges feedback on Paint it Black. See below
Short Story Competition 2008: Paint it Black
Judges’ Report
Angelica non grata
The judges felt that this is a wonderfully light and entertaining story – one of a very few comic choices in all of the entries, but strong on its own merit. It is neatly written, the characterisation of the two oh-so-slightly-gay angels are clever and cute, and their dialogue is fresh and witty. It would make a nice addition to any anthology.
Possible areas for improvement:
We do not foresee any major structural changes here. A general and thorough self-edit would help to pre-empt minor fixes.
Other than that, a giggle! Thank you.
*************************
So, I was wondering, if you would have a go at this self-edit thing for me? I can't see the problems in my own writing.
Pretty please. Mail me at k.chasu@gmail.com or just dig through my blog - or i will paste it again here.
Please.
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Comments
Kachasu
I would love to read your story, Angelica non grata. Not to crit, just to enjoy. Getting published is a major accomplishment in any writer's career, congratulations!
Personally
I think you are all being a little harsh. It was after all a blog thing and most everyone wrote a diddy. It was never for a Booker award and no one raised concern about the credentials of those who own the company hosting the competition at that time. I think it is great that KC got a postive response, or was rejection the aim?
So when KC asked for help I don't think she requested a full blown crit of her personality and whether she will make the grade. Lets keep the thing in context. There are a few really great writers here and I am sure some who lurk in the shadow. I think with the right encouragement they could go on to develop and grow. (God forbid they get published)
Vaps
I think it is gallant that you should seek to defend Chasu. I don't think she needs it though. The thing about this blog is that you can put things out there but you can never predict what comes back.
If Chasu wants to be taken seriously as a writer then she needs to be able to take the good on the chin with the bad.
That and she needs to write her own stories and edit them herself. Seriously bru - I know you like the chick - but if she wants the credit she's got to do the work.
Lastly she needs to know that that little empire is a vanity press. It's a sick industry and rather that she finds out about it sooner than later.
Look Franks
KC's taking a big step. No not the writing she said yes to Van Gogh and now she's getting married in the land of the Dragons( Only so that she can like be the tallest person at the wedding, bloody little welsh ponies)
I hear what you're saying. Well it's just that...well OKAY OKAY they published two of my stories and if anyone says anything...
Fucking "YOU" indeed (get it,, you know the Pun)
Ja, Andreas.
I was going to read it again.
You made some good points.
KC
Maryjane is good with this sort of thing....BTW, where is she?
no - maryjane
was scathing as fuck about this piece.
i don't want her anywhere near it.
Bullshit, and you know it
You, yourself, pulled the piece, saying it was a fluffy piece of nonsense. You reposted it after we asked begged you to put it back. You knew that marijayn had been asked to give criticism on everyone's piece, not just yours. Everybody else took their criticism with good grace.
Seems you can't take as good as you give.
Dusty Muffin
It's easy to chirp from the sidelines when you never get into the ring.
Love her or hate her, Chasu steps into the ring almost every day. She writes. She puts it out there. She steps up to the plate.
Day after fucken day after fucken day.
What do you do?
I think you've got some fucking temerity trying to tell Chasu how to take criticism as a writer when you can't even pretend to be one.
that is harsh
no everyone has the luxury of time to churn out as many blogs as you or kachasu. nor does everyone apsire to be pretentious self appointed writing gurus such as yourself. personally, if i had to be confronted with the likes of you on this blog everyday. i might not bother.
many of us simply blog to escape.
as perceptive as you pretend to be, i am suprised you have not picked that up.
Frankly
I have been in the ring several times recently. Just because you don't read my posts doesn't mean they're not there.
KC
Where is you "Paint it black" story? Couldn't find it on your blog....
Chasu
neatly written?
nice addition?
Seriously Chasoo I would buy a cheap AK47 off Jackie Selebi and shoot anyone who said that about my writing.
Mind you they are a bit of a knitting club who pretend to write, so I wouldn't take them seriously. And serves you right for sending your story into that lot. They are vanity publishes of the worst kind.
And the pruning my dear princess? Well maybe Dan Brown now employs serfs who does his stuff for him.
And you? Well sweetie pie there's no ways in hell I'm going through that torture. I've got my own stuff to do.
The function of writing is to kill your own children. To murder those very things that have sprung from your own creative loins. Seriously Chasoo, running that agency has made you way too lazy.
If you want to consider yourself a writer you have to get in there and get rid of the shit yourself.
Well said, FW...
The only person I know who had anything to do with that vanity publishing outfit was the bored, middle-aged, never-worked-a-day-in-her-life mother of a friend of mine who decided she could write romance. They told her she was great and that she should sign up for a course, which she duly did (the chick who runs the Write Co once got something published in Fair Lady…so, gee, I guess she really knows her stuff). My friend’s mom was duly published in one of their anthologies and her future seemed a glittering one, involving promises of literary New York luncheons with Marisha Pessl and massive dollar advances secured by fawning agents. Thus far probably a dozen cheap ‘n nasty publishing houses have resoundingly rejected the first chapter of her execrably bad “novel”, which now lies like an aborted foetus somewhere in an overstuffed bureau drawer.
Andreas
.
Oi!
This comment was a helluva lot fucking longer just a few short minutes ago. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone here, one minute somethings there and then wooosh, zoom its gone.
Andreas!
Why did you delete your excellent observations about the writing of short stories...?!
Marijayn / Ramon / Spoegs
Sorry, guys. I kinda felt that a mini-treatise on short story writing would be wasted here (also, fuck, who am I to criticise, anyway?)
But fine…
I’ll stick it back up:
Incidentally, Kchasu, if you’re serious about asking for criticism (as opposed to this post simply being your third or fourth ego-trip on this fucking topic), here’s something to think about: most real writers regard the short story as a much more difficult literary form than the novel. There are seven categories of short story form, each with its own distinct set of techniques and challenges. To be able to write well you have to have the tools to do so…and being widely read is one of them (introspection, empathy, honesty and self-criticism are just a few of the others). I’m guessing you haven’t read that many short stories…and that you’ve almost certainly never read any by Anton Chekov, Amy Hempel, Vladimer Nabokov, John Updike or even Ernest Hemmingway. I reckon your short story reading is limited to the “twist-in-the-tail” school of Roald Dahl, Jeffrey Archer and various children’s writers, with all the dated contrivances that those stories entail (even if the better ones are kinda fun). Your story wasn’t terrible, but it was only of a maybe-better-than-average grade 11 or 12 high school standard. Essentially it was a single contrived joke with a pretty weak punchline, which would only make sense to someone able to relate it to the lame ‘theme’ set by the idiots at the Write Co. As a stand-alone short story it wouldn’t have much relevance at all. I love the short story genre for its covert complexities and for what isn’t said…suppressed narration is the key to great short story writing (you want an example of that , read George Eliot’s blogs). The fact that a great short story takes maybe ten minutes to read is irrelevant, its efficacy is unequivocal. William Boyd called the short story “a sort of aesthetic daisycutter bomb of a reading experience that does its work with ruthless brevity and concentrated dispatch…” A truly good short story should stay with the reader in exactly the same way that a good novel does (as opposed to leaving the reader feeling irritated and mildly cheated by a silly contrivance). And that’s just technique, KC. I haven’t even begun to talk about those elements of honesty, introspection and empathy that you need to create compelling characterisations. That’s a personality issue, and I’m kinda of the opinion that you either have it or you don’t. It just comes down to the kind of person you are (it’s the reason why, say, John van der Ruit is a truly shit writer and always will be, whereas our own George Eliot is capable of great things). But I’m not gonna get into that here.
Andreas
Why do you think it would be wasted here? If I may ask?
Dankie, Andreas.
Dankie.
ja
thank you.
actually...
i'd be really interested in finding out more about the 7 different categories...
briefly?
Hey, marijayn…
It’s not like the categories I mentioned are prescribed by the Koran or anything...they just serve as a useful way to classify the short story form. The categories often overlap, or borrow from one another but, generally, all the species of the short story genus can be roughly pigeonholed into several distinct types. A basic listing of the types won’t really mean anything though…but, lucky for you, I actually posted something on this on the old ‘Mark (which disappeared during one of that site’s frequent breakdowns). I might still have it - if I can find it, I’m not gonna repost it all here on poor old Kchasu’s blog, but I can mail the précis version to you if you like.
thanks Andreas,
I'd appreciate that.
marijayn@gmail.com
Done
and as for you franklymeanie
allow me this single moment of glory will you?
Chasu
Feuds and stick poking fests aside. Let me get real with you here.
Every week day night my son comes to me and asks me to help with his homework. He's a really smart kid so somewhere within his genius lies one lazy little puttana. I know because I gave birth to him and I'm just like that. So when he asks me (in the sweetest, cutest way to help him) very soon I'm ending up doing his homework.) Now if I do that every night Chasu - how the hell am I helping him? So now I tell him: "I'm going to help you by not helping you." It pisses him off and he gets moody, but he gets it. I'm helping him by not helping him.
Chasu if you seriously want to be a writer you have to write your own stuff. Edit your own stuff. And rewrite your own stuff. You have to do the painful, boring, crap shit. That's how it is because like eating cabbage it's good for you. You learn about yourself and your writing like that - you can't expect anybody else to do that for you.
Then let me tell you another story. When I first started writing poetry I submitted one of my poems to a US anthology. Surprise surprise! My poem was one of the finalists. Imagine how thrilled I was and how I told all my friends and family. Hell I even got a discount copy of the book that was shipped from the States with an offer for me to by more copies for my friends and family.
When I held the badly printed and bound edition in my hands my heart sank. I read through the volume and saw that every other poem there was as crap as the one I'd submitted. I can't tell you how crushed I felt. How worthless. That's how I found out about the Vanity Publishing Industry and how it feeds of the hopes and dreams of everyone who ever wanted to be a writer.
As I said in my comment to bluepete: "there's a whole battalion of vanity presses that pray off people who desperately want some fame and glory. Who want more than anything else in the world to be called a writer. So they enter these inane competitions and buy these books, which have absolutely no literary merit. In short if you're a writer it's the biggest fraud or con. And when you discover that you feel hollow and cheated. Basically it's an industry built out of a bunch of vampires sucking on the insecurities and creative blood of people who struggle. It's fairly sick."
So Chasu it is not that I am being a meanie. If you have serious ambitions about being a writer then you need to get off your lazy ass and edit the story yourself. You also need to recognise the vanity publishing industry for what it is.
Then Andreas can be a major arrogant prick at the best of times, but he makes some pretty good points. I fucken hated him when I first started blogging at Blogmark, but there were many times when his cruel (but intelligent) comments helped me to become a better writer.