Sunday, May 27, 2007

She's in the Army Now

A short piece on Muzzle Flash (D.Z. Allen) brought about by a news story I heard on NPR. It may be too political and angry to function well as a story. Do you ever find that? The pieces you care most about are not often your strongest pieces?

http://www.muzzleflashfiction.net/

2 comments:

Christa M. Miller said...

I read it... it's definitely a complete story, but maybe could stand to be lengthened? I felt a bit removed from her. You could explore her thoughts and feelings a lot more - why she joined, what she thought it would be, how she's feeling about the Army at the time of the rape... then how her life is forever changed and consumed by this event afterward.

That said, I definitely have had that happen with short stories. I wrote one as a reaction to a police officer friend who committed suicide, and I never did get it published. Later, a friend who critiqued it said it didn't have much of a point. At this point I'm too close to it to make it work, so I'll just leave it as a "practice" short story!

pattinase (abbott) said...

I find the limit on flash fiction difficult if you have anything that needs development or anything you want to say. It's more about a moment in time or a sudden action than this story idea demands.