Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Critique.
Those Bloody Loopholes!. Honorable Mention in Self-Editing Epiphany Challenge.
Often writers close loopholes in stories, leaving the reader clear about the message they intend for the readers to glean from the piece. In one of the early pieces, I accidentally left a bunch of dark details ambiguous. People who read it shared their different interpretations of the story which I found enjoyable. I discovered that not fixing loopholes allowed people to explore for themselves a meaning that was potentially deeper than I had intended it to be.
By Lisa Pulliam10 months ago in Critique
Professor Andrew's Self-Editing Epiphany Experience
Professor Andrews left the gothic artistic designed lecture hall whose sole delegated epiphany task instructed, ‘remind the future about being sincere and trustworthy’. Stepping outside the collegiate building, adjusting the trench coat, making sure the overbearing jacket representing adulthood respect, could handle engaging the elements.
By Marc OBrien10 months ago in Critique
Few Words Lead Me Home
“I cannot sever myself from what I’ve been taught. Pencil fades over time, so I always use a pen to write on the backs of photographs. The secret to good penmanship is going slowly. There’s a place for everything, and everything in its place.”
By Justin Black10 months ago in Critique
Stripped Journaling. Content Warning.
Forgiveness: a conscious and deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment towards someone who hurt you. Why is forgive and forget so hard? Something done by someone I’ve yet to see again haunts my reality as if it happened yesterday. Like a scar that is deeper than the ones carved by my hand. A person unknown to me, yet forever tied to my soul through one terrible night. The fear of feeling powerless again lingers with me, paranoid, afraid of my own shadow. Am I safe anywhere? Will I be hurt again by another insignificant person who can decide if I am prey? Someone so hungry that they don’t care about their actions. Someone who could easily overpower me and enjoy watching the struggle.
By Emmie Falbo10 months ago in Critique
Fast and Dirty Editing - Pre-Prepared, Pre-Packaged Pleasure
So I thought as a last entry for the Self-Editing Epiphany Challenge, I'd partake in what I am calling "Fast and Dirty Editing". What do I mean by "Fast and Dirty Editing"? Well, rather than drill down into the dos and don'ts of writing poetry, or worry about the format (aside from any formatting rules that need to be applied) I am going to take an existing piece I wrote for the Tautogram challenge, but published it too late to be accpeted for the challenge, from a couple of years ago. I am then going to decimate it, without labouring over it too much, and go through the changes as I make them in this critique.
By Paul Stewart10 months ago in Critique
Artificial Intelligence: Revolution or Threat to Humanity?. AI-Generated.
Introduction Itelligence (AI) is at the heart of global technological and economic transformations. From virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa to self-driving cars and AI-assisted medical diagnostics, AI is everywhere. Some see it as a revolutionary advancement that will make our lives easier, while others worry about its implications for employment, security, and ethics. Is this technology a major asset for humanity, or a threat that must be strictly regulated?
By AB Channel10 months ago in Critique
Beauty In The Mess
When I write, I usually tend to type the whole thing up on my laptop, and then make passes over the same document to edit. As a result, I am not in the habit of keeping my rough drafts. For this prompt I thought, where's something where I've left behind evidence of the process itself , both the beauty- the final product- and the mess that final product wouldn't exist without? One is not possible without the other, but it took some searching to find evidence of the latter anywhere.
By Raistlin Allen10 months ago in Critique
A Catch-and-Release Critique
In this self critique I’ve decided to take a recent short story that was entered in a writing competition and reflect on my revisions to the piece. This story is one that didn’t exactly do so well. In fact it was the worst I’d ever done in this particular writing competition. So I "caught it up", made some necessary revisions, and released it back into the wild (published it on Vocal).
By D.K. Shepard10 months ago in Critique
