Any kind readers for two short stories?

So, as some you may have noticed from my previous blog post… I am actually still alive, despite the long hiatus for this blog.

Recently, I’ve been trying to get on top of some things that I’ve been meaning to deal with for too long, and get back to some positive habits that I’d let fall by the wayside – this blog included (though no promises on frequency going forward).

As part of that (and partly triggered by some computer issues I’m having), I was looking the other day at some old files of mine, including two completed short stories, from many years ago.

Normally, as time goes by, I hate anything I’ve written more and more, as my satisfaction with what I intended to write is gradually replaced by disappointment with what I actually wrote. In this case, though, I find I actually still (or once again?) really like these stories. Maybe the passage of time has eroded my memory of my original intention enough that I can just read them for what they are – or, maybe my standards have just dipped…

In any case, I kind of feel it’s high time for me to actually think about what I want to do with these stories – whether that’s selling them, putting them up online for free, deleting them, stuffing them back in a metaphorical digital drawer for another decade, or I don’t know what. “Eventually I’ll know what to do with these” doesn’t seem like a strategy that’s been working.

The first step, though, is trying to persuade some poor fools to sacrifice a little time to read them for me and give me their impressions. Each has been read by one or two people before, but some time ago, and I’d like as broad a survey as possible (which, I’m aware, will not be very broad, but I can try). I’ve always thought “oh, I should try to persuade some people to read these stories and tell me what they think of them”, but I never got further than asking one or two people; so, now I’m asking. [and will probably still only hear from one or two people, I know, but at least I’m trying!]

[if you follow me on Goodreads, yes I’ve made the same request there, but maybe some people who subscribe here don’t follow me there, or may have missed my post there, so what the hell, I’ll ask wherever I can, it can’t hurt]

I’m not looking for copyediting (obviously any mistakes a reader happens to mention will be gratefully noted, but I’m not expecting anyone to go out of their way to proof them for me, and frankly that’s not even what I’d value most at this stage). I’m just looking for honest – even brutally honest – first impressions. Along the lines of:

• did you like them? dislike them? have mixed feelings? have no strong feelings?
• what did you like about them? what didn’t you like about them? what did you feel was different about them, or familiar?
• do you imagine anyone else might like them?
• how would you describe them, in terms of genre and style? I don’t have an obvious answer to that myself. Do they remind you any other writer in particular? (if nothing else, maybe I can sneakily get some book recommendations out of this!)
• perhaps for context you might even mention who/what you usually read, or who your favourite authors are?

I’m not trying to formulate a specific checklist there. Just giving an idea of the sort of feedback that might be useful to me. Oh, and another one:

• how confident are you that you actually understood what was happening, in which order, to which people?

That should be a given in capable writing, I guess, but both these stories (one more than the other) have somewhat non-linear narration and are light on names, dates and places, and a previous reader clearly had difficulty understanding what order of events I was trying to convey with one of the stories, so I’d like to see whether that’s a universal problem people have with my storytelling in that case, or if it’s just me and that one reader not being on the same page.

What I’m not looking for is flattery, support or ego-building. I mean, you don’t have to be rude or cruel, but I’m not doing this to get encouragement. For once, I’m actually happy with my writing – I really like these stories (though I doubt I can still write like that). This is just testing the waters of seeing (probably just for my own curiosity) whether anyone else likes them, and who, and why/in what way.

To give you some concrete ideas about what you’d be getting yourself in for:

• one story is 4-5k words; the other is 6-7k words
• both stories could broadly be described as SF&F genre stories, but both are perhaps more ‘literary’ than normal for those genres. I hesitate to say “literary SF&F” because that sounds pretentious and may be getting your hopes up undeservedly, but… yeah. The interest lies more in the psychology of the characters, and the prose and manner in which their story is narrated, rather than in the plot or the worldbuilding
• the longer story is more conventional – the events are more like a normal fantasy short story, and told in a more concrete way, just a bit more ornately (with sections from alternating perspectives, and some over-written prose) and probably with a different emphasis from normal
• the shorter story is weirder, with a bit more of the tone of a fable, parable or fairy tale, although it’s not really any of those things and I’m not sure what to call it. It does still have characters and events – it’s not all just philosophical waffling – but the narrative voice is more intrusive (and even more over-written) and this is the one where it may be harder to work out exactly what’s going on.

As I’ve said, these are not new stories, and maybe some of you may happen to have read one of them (or an earlier form of it) before. In particular, Hans, if you’re reading, I know you very kindly read a version of the longer story (probably not that far from this final version, to be honest) many years ago (perhaps too many for you to remember!).

So, there it is. If anyone happens to see this blog entry and feels generous and self-sacrificing enough to donate the time to read about 10-12k words and give an honest impression – and again, I’m genuinely not looking for flattery here – I’d be very grateful. Although I totally understand why you may not want to (it’s not like I’ve been giving feedback on all your fiction either, is it?), and that’s OK too, no blame attached.