The only critical opinion that really matters is that of someone who might pay money for the thing that's been written. Felix Lance Falkon

Call me crazy, but I think we learn more from writing a story and then writing another one than we do from engaging extensive analysis of the first story at the cost of foregoing the next. Make mistakes and keep writing. Retrospective analysis pays modest returns, compared to sheer experience. Writing fifty stories will teach a writer more than any number of criticisms. The difference between smart people and dumb people is not that smart people don't make mistakes. They just don't keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Malinov

After some 25 years of editing fiction magazines (which mostly entails reading bad fiction and rejecting same), I've come to realize the difference described above is very, very true. A few writers get better solely from experience; the rest of us need to be told what we are doing wrong. The worst are those who keep making the same mistakes over and over again, regardless of criticism or experience. the other Felix, Felix Lance Falkon

Howe