Hi Nell, everyone
I'm very unfamiliar with all this, but I wondered how your story could be 'graded' at 80%, yet not be amongst the top ones that made it to a shortlist? How many points/marks are the top ones getting?
In most exams 80% would secure you the very top grade, no problem, yet here its not even enough to get you to the next round of selection..seems a bit strange to me, and leaves me wondering about the marking criteria?
As to the general idea of 'expert' crits, (not the WW experts, I hasten to add!), I've had one very good one which helped my writing immensely, and one terrible one which, after saying how good my work was, proceeded to massacre it and turn it into something entirely different..and it did make me doubt things, and my way of working, for a while. But I decided it was MY writing and I have to be happy with it. Others can make suggestions and often have a point, but in the end it's my name at the bottom, and my ideas on the page. Trust your writerly instincts, they serve you well.
Oh, and I've read the story and enjoyed it very much. Very sophisticated work, I thought, if that's any use to you!
x
tc

<Added>

This has made me think how I would feel if I changed a piece of work because of someone else's opinion, even though I didn't agree, and then it went on to be very critically acclaimed, make me the poetic equivalent of J.K. etc..you know I think I'd still be unhappy about it, but I don't want to ever have to test it out!

Oh, and Colin, my Grandad turned down a job as a very early equivalent of an air traffic controller just after the war..he thought air travel wouldn't catch on!

Tc, thanks for your thoughts, and glad you liked the story. I've no idea what marks one needed to make it to the shortlist, although that wasn't really what bothered me with this. I agree with your last point about being unhappy with a piece of work that had been altered solely on someone's instructions even if it went on to be critically acclaimed, although I suppose that editors and publishers do this all the time, so perhaps I'd be OK as long as I felt the book had been improved. It must be very hard when one doesn't like the result. The story about your grandad made me smile - I wonder what he'd have thought of the Internet?

I don't know why you'd want to blame it on the pixies. Do you mean the band or the actual fairy pixies who live in the tops of flowers and sit on mushrooms etc.?

Joking aside, I think critique is also a tricky area. After all, it is only ever one persons opinion.

I'll read the story tomorrow Nell.

James x