As some of you know, I recently had another story published - a piece of flash fiction called "Dying Flower."* While this is a first for me, in that I've never had a flash fiction published before, all of my other published works are also quite short (under 2,000 words), and densely visual. It also continues in my comfort zone of being vaguely historical (though this is my first about an actual historical event).
*This can be found on my My Works page, if you're interested: https://www.iveyink.com/myworks/
I actually wrote this story several years ago. It was one of three or four that was in my very first round of submissions to contests and to a service that helps you determine, based on your style, what journals are best fits for you. I wasn't sure what to do with it for a while, as I've only just recently started seeing "flash fiction" and "micro-short" or "short short stories" included in "we are currently accepting submissions of" lists.
About six months ago, I remembered this piece and took it, along with another flash fiction I wrote more recently, to my writer's critique group. It was also the first time my group and our leader had been presented with flash fiction for critique and, while some of them were initially a little surprised at the premise (two complete stories, each in less than 500 words), the feedback was good.
My writing critique group is kind of a sounding board for me. I write short, usually dark, literary pieces that generally straddle the history/fantasy line. They all have rich sensory imagery - even the one that is much closer to a main stream humor piece. In short, they're the kind of pieces I would enjoy reading myself.
Because of that, it's helpful for me to have other people read my stuff and tell me if it makes sense, if they like it, if it's too wordy, too weird, too dark, etc. I can read something and say, "gosh, this is cool/beautiful/awesome." But having a children's author, a memoirist, a non-fiction humor columnist, a realistic/modern fiction writer, and others weigh in helps ground me as to whether my assessment of my on work is on point.
Having a diverse group of reviewers also helps in that since I am so big on both history and symbolism, I often make vague allusions to stuff that make perfect sense to me, but are also perfectly likely to go over people's heads if they are not as well versed in history, cannon literature, and archetypes as I am.
When I first wrote "Dying Flower," I asked my sister and my now-husband to read it. Katrina, who, in addition to being very interested in history, like I am, also was particularly fascinated by the Titanic when she was in middle school (before the movie came out, before that was what all kids were into), said that it was TOO obvious that the story was about the Titanic. Jason, on the other hand, is not a history buff, and asked, "is this supposed to be a reference to something?"
But Jason and I were discussing this this week, after I brought home my contributor's copy. He pointed out that he's not my target audience. He's into biographies, straight forward slash'n'hack adventures, and horror. And that's OK. But I do have to keep in mind my audience. And I guess my audience is people like me - people who like fantasy, history, and literary works, with heavy imagery and rich allusions.