This is one of the most exciting, and terrifying, parts of writing a short story or novel.

Feedback.

If you’re like me, you go into asking for feedback with the idea that you already have a golden short story. Maybe I missed some punctuation or spelled a word wrong, but surely the story itself is perfectly fine. Then the feedback comes…

Plot holes. Inconsistent character voice. Confusing logic. All these things come up in the feedback. So I usually smile and nod and completely agree with the person’s viewpoint, then I go home and cry, wondering if I should just delete the story and start afresh (Never do that!).

That’s why feedback is so important!

Getting someone else’s, or multiple people’s, perspective on your short story can completely illuminate things in your mind that you may have missed, or can improve. However, getting that feedback can sometimes be a challenge. Reading a story takes time, and even more to provide thoughtful feedback.

But please… do seek out feedback! As painful as it can be to receive criticism toward your writing, it’s even worse to miss out on an opportunity to improve your storytelling. So below are some resources, and advice, for getting feedback to improve your short story writing.

1. Agent Query Connect

Agent Query Connect was a hugely impactful resource for me when I started writing short stories and novels. From my experience, the focus within Agent Query Connect is largely on novel writing and getting published, but there is a dedicated thread for finding writing/critique partners for any type of writing, including a short story.

On top of that, Agent Query Connect is pretty responsive. From experience, I would get at least a couple thoughtful responses within 24 hours of posting something. But be warned — people on Agent Query Connect are seriously looking to be published, and so, they can sometimes be relentless in their criticism (it’s tough love!). So just make sure you spell-check and fix obvious grammatical errors in your short story before circulating it there.

Check out Agent Query Connect here!

2. Friends (Not Family)

There’s a reason I say Friends, and not Family. If you’re like me, your family will like anything that you write. Or if not, they will say they do. Either way, I’ve found that the most honest feedback resource is from a friend. Even better is to sit near your friend when they read the short story, since they’ll probably let you know immediately if something doesn’t make sense to them.

And always, always make sure to listen to their feedback. The nice thing about having a feedback friend is that they will likely read more than one of your short stories, and unless they’re a writer as well, they won’t give you something to read and critique in exchange. But try not to defend yourself while they give their opinions. Instead just listen, and thank them for their time, since you want them to keep reading more of your work.

3. Take A Break From It (So you can be your own resource!)

This is always crucial. You can be a resource to yourself, but you have to take a break from your writing. I recommend at least 3 days. When you get so caught up in the writing process, your mind will automatically fill in holes for you during revision.

Set your writing down to the point where you start to forget about the short story, so you can come back to it with fresh eyes. From then, you may see that the killer plot twist you wrote at 2am actually needs a lot of work, or makes no sense!

4. Read. Share. Write.

If all else fails, you always have me as a resource here at Read. Share. Write. I love reading stories that writer’s are in the middle of working on, and will always provide constructive feedback. Building a community of people with differing writing styles and opinions is always helpful to improve a short story, so definitely reach out with the Contact Us form!

Besides contacting me directly, you can also post to our forums, where I and other people can read and comment. I promise we don’t bite! Plus, Read. Share. Write. can serve as a smaller resource to the next one mentioned…

5. Honorable Mention: Reddit

I list Reddit as an Honorable Mention for a couple reasons. Reddit is an incredibly vast resource, with multiple subreddits dedicated to writing, so I definitely recommend checking it out. The only caveats with Reddit are that, for one, it is a very massive community. One of the popular subreddits, Writing Prompts, is very active and always has new threads coming in, so it can be difficult to break into the community. Second, from my experience, it is harder to get in-depth, meaningful feedback from Reddit users.

However, with that said, Reddit is still a huge website and definitely a resource to check out for getting feedback. If anything, read through the writing subreddits and you may find yourself a cool story, or new writing partner.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully I have now drilled the word “feedback” to be forever associated with writing in your mind. Writing a great, even good, short story or novel is not easy; so why not make use of all the resources that you can?

Now, one thing I forget to mention: use the feedback! This can be a point of contention for writers, as there are definitely times where the feedback you get can be bad. To avoid that, I recommend getting the opinions of at least two people. Even if both people criticize different things, if you sense they have issues with understanding the short story, I recommend taking another look at your writing.

And that’s it! Now go out there and get some feedback on your short story.