Feedback

So I've been passing around my short stories to some people who said they were interested and slowly I've been getting feedback. It has been very exciting to see what others might think of my work. And for the most part, the feedback/editing process has been going well and all of the feedback has been very positive. Strangely though, I find that the overall themes of the stories urks people.

I guess that's the point, seeing as at the base of it that's what I was trying to do. I'm trying to show a situation where an ordinary person experience an extra-ordinary event and how it can affect them. And also, I've been showing how a person can reject the opportunities those events can give. I'm trying to break the trend of hero novels so I might be stepping on metaphorical toes as to how we expect a story to progress. Still, it's still a bit of a surprise. I've actually had people argue with me about how my characters should act. And argue with me they should I say because on the most part, I agree with them. My characters are closed minded, are cowards, are mindless and will react accordingly.

I remember the first time I explained one of my story ideas with someone. It was with my cousin, and I told her about a story with a man and a vampire. The man asks a vampire to kill him because he is sick of life. The vampire agrees, but only if the human performs a task for her. Through the task, the human realizes that life is worth living and that he doesn't want to die. And just as the vampire goes to kill, he wakes up. He's not dead, but it was not a dream as the vampire left him a token of her appreciation. My cousin was like, but that's not fair. He should have been made a vampire and try to fight for his humanity. It was quite the experience and one that has been repeated often since with many other critics of mine. The story shouldn't stop their. The characters should fight, they should continue, they should do this, they should do that, they shouldn't ignore what happened. They shouldn't misinterpret the lesson. They should behave like a proper hero.

And what do I say? Yes. They should. But they don't. What do you think about that? How does that make you feel?

Hopefully I'll get more feedback and maybe get an idea about who my greater audience shall be. Until then, this is exciting.

Peace and blessings
Eric Rawlinson
20110207