Have you ever heard of the agentless writer who converted a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel into a double-spaced manuscript, changed the author’s name to his, created a new title, and sent it to 20 or so publishers? He kept track of the numerous rejections, including one from the book’s actual publisher, as well as those that never responded. One small house in Florida did offer a contract, but he knew better than to accept. The name of the book: The Yearling.
I first read about this incident in Jeff Herman’s Writer’s Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents. Although I’m not actively pursuing an agent, I often think of this scenario when receiving rejection letters and emails. I’ve never submitted a book-length manuscript—I’m not sure I could go the distance, preferring short-stories, flash fiction, and the occasional nonfiction piece instead. I guess the rejections are much more tolerable knowing that I haven’t wasted too much time on a writing project.
This brings me to the following rejection email from Matt McGee, the editor of Falling Star Magazine. After being informed that my story made it to the editorial review board and after waiting approximately three months, here’s the final message:
JR,
Thank you for your submission on our theme “Hide Your Love Away.” Rather than send along a simple rejection notice, I thought you & your writing may benefit from reading what one of our editors had to say about the work.
Re: Ruth Mondo
This is a very interesting characterization with a somewhat hopeless protagonist who is incredibly strong and resilient. It needs work; serious work in terms of making the sequence easier to follow. Stream of consciousness stories are often like that because they sometimes exhibit broken synapses of the mind.
First of all, I would strongly encourage this author to rewrite for accuracy and refinement and then point out where he might start; punctuation would be a good place because it is not merely a “refinement” or a “convention”. Instead, it is a need of the flow. Without a doubt, there are images and moments in which there is very sensitive pathos.
In a word, I like this a lot even though it cries for rewrite.
My response: None.
Wait: … Thanks, Anonymous Reader/Editor.
10 comments:
It's like dangling candy in front of a child and saying "You're good enough to have this but I don't feel like giving it to you."
As rejections go, that one is pretty good. I prefer the ones that provide some constructive criticism - although my ego doesn't!
I tend to agree with Beth. If they acknowledge your existence, that's a good sign. One of my favorite rejections was when an editor scrawled "are you out of your mind?" on a form letter. I must be out of my mind, because I have favorite rejections.
The upshot is, they didn't care for it. Someone else might.
Aw, JR. Your work was read, considered, and critiqued. Give you an idea of someone else's perpective. Maybe Charles is right. Carry on, dude.
Man! At least they gave you the courtesy of this! What are they saying, if you add a period in sentence 12 we would have accepted it? Could they not just do such a thing? Sigh. I'm proud of you for submitting at least. I haven't got to that point yet. You kick me in the behind with your rejection JR. :-)
ok jr... that perch is too small to eat, unless you have another couple dozen to make soup ;)
as for the rejection: that sucks :(
"Fuck 'em" buy another stamp and press on.
I would very gladly be rejected by anybody who writes "very sensitive pathos." Doh, what other kind of pathos is there?--Homer Simpson
Brutal. All sorts of "canonical" writers would be rejected. Forget where, but somewhere read a publisher say he couldn't have published Kafka now, for instance.
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