Confusion

There's a story I've written that I wish to send into a contest with an end-of-the-month deadline. I took it to writers group and I sent it to my cousin and sister, both of whom I trust to give me good feedback.

I feel like I should trust the opinion of the latter two over that of my group. After all, Steph and Jen have been writing like mad things for years upon years and are extremely widely read. Not only that, they're used to reading things in the genres that have most influenced me.

The general consensus with both groups seems to be that it's good. Possibly even very good. "Beautiful" was a word thrown about in both spheres, which is a lovely thing to hear. However...

I got far more criticism and suggestion from the writing group. That maybe the end could be stronger---more deliverance that I offered. That I needed dialogue throughout (which I think I'm actually going to ignore. I feel like so often writing teachers hit "Dialogue, dialogue!" as a necessary strength of all writing, but some of my favorite authors write incredible things fairly consistently with a minimum of chatter. I think it's a good rule of thumb, but if one's particular voice isn't dialogue heavy, does it HAVE to be?). And a few other things.

I thought they were valid at the time, and I took some notes on how to fix it. But now I'm not sure I should. There are a couple of things I definitely want to add. Sometimes, though, I feel like the folks in my group want EVERYTHING shown to them in a story, and, well, stories don't necessarily do that. They show you the important, relevant bits. One woman said that she found herself making things up about the family and the main character's life outside the story because I didn't put it in there and she thought I should add those things so she didn't have to imagine them. But isn't that actually a good thing? That you connect to the characters so much, you respond to them as you would a real person, imagining their life outside the moment you know them in?

I suppose the only thing to do is to tackle yet another rewrite, then look at them side by side and see which I prefer. Because while I'd very much like to win, in the end, I don't want to win by being someone else.