Two days ago I got the notification that the NYC Midnight Short Story contest final results were up. I delayed opening the email, because I knew my third round story had not been as strong as my first two and I didn’t expect to do well. I finally clicked through, scanned just enough to confirm that there had not been a miracle, and I closed the page. Another email came with my feedback — every story in the contest gets feedback from multiple judges — and I didn’t even open it. I was busy, it wasn’t going anywhere, and I already knew there were problems with my story.
Yesterday morning, I opened the feedback email. Their feedback format is to collate the positive notes first, followed by the collated critical notes. I read the first couple of sentences on what the judges liked, then read down — and I realized that I was barely skimming, skipping over all the nice compliments to look for the coming negatives on what the judges felt needed work. Continue reading