In revamping ticon, one of the things we’ve had to cut back on is feedback to unsuccessful writers.

In previous years, we would sometimes give 500 word responses to stories, to give writers some guidance on how to improve their writing.

Giving feedback isn’t an easy process. Good, constructive criticism is a skill that not everyone has, and even those who can do it, many find the process tiring. It can take a lot out of the critic: being balanced, getting the story’s strengths and weaknesses across, and also making sure that the feedback reads as criticism of the story, not the writer.

It can make a 100 metre dive into a glass of water seem easy.

The effort and time this level of feedback took eventually ended up in a backlog. The backlog grew, and grew, until our response times could be measured in hundreds of days, some even approximately 2 years.

This isn’t fair to our writers. We have now3 changed the way we do things. If you check out our submissions page, there’s a form to use to send us your story. There’s a little tick box to request feedback, too. If you don’t want feedback, we aim to respond within 7 days. If you do want feedback, we cannot guarantee a response time, though would hope to keep it under 6 months.

We owe this much to our writers, this choice. We’re a small operation, and can only give so much.