everyone's a critic
I've been reading short stories recently; micro-fiction, flash fiction. This morning I've been dipping into 'Stories On The Go- 101 Very Short Stories By 101 Authors.' Edited by Andrew Ashling. This book was the culmination of an idea launched by Hugh Howey (author of the Wool trilogy) on 'Kboards', a forum for Kindle readers that has attracted a community of indie authors too, it tells me in the introduction at the front of the book. 'Stories On The Go.' is an anthology of indie writing and each of the 101 stories is of 1,000 words or less and can be read on laptop, tablet or phone in under five minutes, even when you're on the go. I tore through a dozen tales this morning in no time so I know that last fact to be true.
As ever, with an anthology, I found I liked some stories more than I did others, and they were of varying quality. Each story is followed by a short author bio and I fancy I could soon tell by the quality of the story writing whether I would go on to discover that the author was published or well regarded or bestselling, the bio will usually say as much. I suppose what I am getting at is that good writing lifts off the page and is easy to recognise amongst the not so accomplished.
This is pertinent to me at the moment because I just re-read one of my stories, written not so long ago, to see how it would stand up to scrutiny. And some of my writing was rather poor, I thought, clunky and obviously rushed. It's hard to be completely objective because I remember the writing of it and so bring memories and baggage to it that a fresh reader wouldn't, but I still know clunky when it trips me up mid-sentence. It is difficult to be honestly self-critical but I'm pleased that I can be honest with myself when I can see I've written something that isn't good. I'm taking another positive from the experience too, and that is that I think my writing has improved with practice, which is what you'd hope for after all.
I think 'Stories On The Go.' is a great idea. I think anything that gives indie authors more exposure is a great idea, and there is strength in publishing as a collective, as there is breadth and depth in this collection. Go, check out this anthology, there is some good writing, some good stories, some good ideas and some inspiration to be found, and it's free to download for heaven's sake. Meanwhile, I'm going to go and investigate Kboards to see what else is happening over there.
As ever, with an anthology, I found I liked some stories more than I did others, and they were of varying quality. Each story is followed by a short author bio and I fancy I could soon tell by the quality of the story writing whether I would go on to discover that the author was published or well regarded or bestselling, the bio will usually say as much. I suppose what I am getting at is that good writing lifts off the page and is easy to recognise amongst the not so accomplished.
This is pertinent to me at the moment because I just re-read one of my stories, written not so long ago, to see how it would stand up to scrutiny. And some of my writing was rather poor, I thought, clunky and obviously rushed. It's hard to be completely objective because I remember the writing of it and so bring memories and baggage to it that a fresh reader wouldn't, but I still know clunky when it trips me up mid-sentence. It is difficult to be honestly self-critical but I'm pleased that I can be honest with myself when I can see I've written something that isn't good. I'm taking another positive from the experience too, and that is that I think my writing has improved with practice, which is what you'd hope for after all.
I think 'Stories On The Go.' is a great idea. I think anything that gives indie authors more exposure is a great idea, and there is strength in publishing as a collective, as there is breadth and depth in this collection. Go, check out this anthology, there is some good writing, some good stories, some good ideas and some inspiration to be found, and it's free to download for heaven's sake. Meanwhile, I'm going to go and investigate Kboards to see what else is happening over there.
Photo courtesy of Amazon
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