The other day I wrote a piece of microfiction in response to the prompt ‘A spring memory.’ It was a nice enough bit of writing, answered the prompt and reproduced a real childhood memory. One reader was kind enough to say that she liked it as far as it went, but in her opinion it would be better if it started with the end.
I thought about it, took the end and made it the beginning, and let the story develop from there. It turned into a much more satisfying piece, a combination of two memories, still real enough, but artistically better.
This experience typifies the frustration I currently feel with the publishing industry. All it needed to change a bit of solid, workman-like writing into a piece of good writing was a suggestion. How many manuscripts are turned down by publishers and agents on the grounds that they ‘aren’t…
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