My short story, The Hall of the Mountain King has been rejected about a hundred times. Ok, maybe a dozen. The last rejection was from On the Premises for a contest entry. But this time they offered a critique for a $15 fee. I went for it. The critique was totally correct. I fancy myself as a decent editor, even of my own stuff, but the pointers I got with that critique was an eye-opener. The result of making the suggested changes was a reduction of about 600 words, almost all of it in the first half of the story.
Will the resultant editing lead to a sale or contest win? To repeat a cliché I don't like, only time will tell. But I've submitted that new version to a contest already. The old version is still waiting on a decision as well.
However, the example of what was wrong and how it was fixed will carry over to other stories. I've had that in the past, where an editor actually edited my submission. I've kept copies of the before and the after and they were very helpful. My biggest flaw is that I tend to say the same thing two or three times. I say it differently each time, but it's still a repeat of the same information.
Will the resultant editing lead to a sale or contest win? To repeat a cliché I don't like, only time will tell. But I've submitted that new version to a contest already. The old version is still waiting on a decision as well.
However, the example of what was wrong and how it was fixed will carry over to other stories. I've had that in the past, where an editor actually edited my submission. I've kept copies of the before and the after and they were very helpful. My biggest flaw is that I tend to say the same thing two or three times. I say it differently each time, but it's still a repeat of the same information.
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