Short Story Reviews
Critique of “A Mistake of Measurement”
Word Count:
393 words
This is one of the first submissions that our team highly considered for publication. There was some debate amongst us around whether or not the writer might benefit from a second draft to be reconsidered next semester. Though there was an excellent comedic voice within piece, the three main characters were in need of more characterization (to decipher them from each other) and the ending, as it stands, fell flat. Ultimately, we decided not to publish this piece (yet).
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Critique of “His Eyes”
Word count:
268 words
Several of us on the team enjoyed this piece because of the beautiful prose it possesses. The biggest critique I had was around it's overall lack of plot development. It seemed more like a stream of consciousnesses. It's fluidness, lack of plot structure, and stunning prose made it seem more fit for the Poetry section, rather than the Fiction section. This piece challenged my familiarity with the genre of fiction with it's unconventional structure, but ultimately increased my ability to dig for plot within pretty prose.
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Critique of “Shards”
Word count:
413 words
For me, this piece acted as evidence of the impact that dialogue can have on character development. Unfortunately for this story, there is only two lines of dialogue in it and those two lines do very little for providing the reader with a sense of who the two main characters are as individuals.
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Critique of “To Tie the Knot or Not”
Word count:
393 words
This piece had a lot of great components, but ultimately missed the mark with the ending. My main issue with the story was its missing conclusion. Too many questions were left unanswered and there was no resolution for the conflicts taking place between characters or even within the mind of the main character. Upon my first read, I felt unsure of how to articulate my dissatisfaction with the cliffhanger. I took it upon myself to research the proper use of cliffhangers within Fiction and have gained the ability to give effective criticism for that element of fiction writing.
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Critique of “The Storm”
Word count:
300 words
This was another story that was left on a cliffhanger, except this piece gave even less concluding information -- to the point where it seemed unfinished. Because of my experience critiquing "To Tie the Knot," I was able to give effective feedback and informed suggestions on how to better the ending of this piece.
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Suggestions for “Right as Rain"
Word count:
584 words
At the end of the semester, once we had finalized our picks for publication, we were asked by our Fiction Editor, Isabella, to choose a piece that we enjoyed (that did not make the final cut) and write out constructive suggestions to send to the author. I chose "Right as Rain" because of how much I enjoyed reading it and how close I believed it was to being ready for publishing. This gave me experience in providing direct feedback to a writer that is both effective and sensitive to the writer's personal attachment to the work.
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Reader's Report for "She is a Flower"
Word count:
551 words
For weeks when our section did not receive a lot of submissions, we as Editorial Assistants, were expected to choose one of the week's stories and write a formal reader's report. These reports were generally longer and more formal than the critiques I was assigned to write for weeks that brought in several submissions. "She is a Flower" is the very first submission we got and this was my first go at providing formal feedback on fiction writing.
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Reader's Report for "Full Circle"
Word count:
612
This piece really brought out my eye for details when it comes to editing fiction writing and providing constructive criticism, because if its multiple conflicting details. Though several of the details were small and one can see how the writer could miss the contradictions, as a reader it really impacted my understanding and perception of the story. This story taught me that problems in fiction writing don't just lie within big elements like plot and characterization -- they can be present in the small details of the story as well.
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Reader's Report for "The Night Of"
Word count:
617
This submission had a lot of issues. The most challenging part of writing this reader's report was ensuring that I paired my constructive criticism with positive feedback. I've learned through my experience with the Kudzu Review that it's just as important to inform writers about what they are doing well as it to inform them of what they need to work on. This is certainly a transferrable skill that I see stretching outside of my work with this undergraduate journal.
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Collection of Final Submission Critiques
Word count:
3284 words
On the week of the Kudzu's submission deadline, we received 15 submissions. This was the most challenging week of the entire internship. Our deadline happened to fall in between midterms, and having a week to read and critique 15 stories was daunting to say the least. I believe this week gave me a taste of what larger literary journals experience and I have to say, I somewhat thrive under this sort of workload.
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