Short Stories

[alonso ramoran]

My initial reaction is that, while there are obvious similarities, the crafts are too different.  And, practically, the logistics of creating and reading critical markup of even a hard-chair length short story are daunting.  

I don't think a requirement of 5 sentences or something like that for basic critique, then scaled upwards for mild-moderate & intensive, would be that daunting. Of course, line-by-line feedback would be impossible. And I feel like the work you have to put in to properly digest a short story isn't that different from digesting a poem when poetry compresses and relies heavily on metaphors and images.

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If you ask for feedback you might get lucky

You could also get lucky if you post a poem in one of the feedback forums, thing is you don't have to ask and there are also rules to guide the writers in those forums. That's something that I think could be cool for short story writers

It would also be nice to see what some poets could do if they were to build a narrative, if one of us wanted to give it a go

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That call can only be made by billy as it would drastically affect the core purpose of the site and the members it attracts.  

In my opinion it would be extremely difficult to navigate such a change and not worth the amount of work it would require.  (It would be SOOO much work.  Reconfiguring the site, adding mods, making new rules, separating poetry problems from the story problems to name a few.)

Ideally, this sounds exciting. But I know this would be a ton of work for you guys, so I understand.

However, for the sake of discussion (and because I dearly love short stories), I’ll address the hypothetical: 

I know CRNDLSM has posted at least one short story in the sewer.  And during novel writing month one year there was some sort of challenge. So there is a possibility of a crossover of member interest.  But enough for a new forum?  

I'm being reactive, but the only reason I stirred up conversation about this topic is because I'm giving this a try right now. So, as far as who is interested, you can count me in that group as well.

As far as increased moderating, it wouldn’t be possible without adding several mods whose sole purpose would be overseeing that section.  We cannot increase our current workload without adding moderators.  

I doubt that section would need the different levels.  Just the one “short stories” forum and then the author would indicate desired level of feedback.

No indicator to set for what constitutes appropriate feedback for a beginner and a long-time writer would be problematic I think

Also, would people who gave feedback on poetry then able to post a story? or people who gave feedback on a story then be able to post a poem? Or would they have separate feedback to posting requirements? 

I think people who want to post a short story must give feedback on short stories, and the same as it's been for poetry. That feels fair

The mods dedicated to that section would have to feel comfortable judging whether or not feedback on the stories is acceptable.  I would imagine the requirements for what makes good feedback on a short story is a bit different for what works with poetry.  That section would need a different set of rules.

For instance, what is the cut off?  Is there too long or too short?  Does it have to be complete or can it go in installments?  Can it be any genre?

Well you can do installments with poems on here as well as I've seen some members done. Some poems I've seen on here can range from really long to short. Any genre of poetry is allowed in the forums as far as I know. I don't see why that freedom can't be extended to those who'd want to workshop a short story, they'd just have to understand that longer pieces are gonna take longer for people to respond to.

In conclusion, as a member (and a short story writer), I’m intrigued.  As a mod, I would only ask to not be in any way in charge of said new section.