Rejectomancy

[raefinlay]

Level One: Form Rejections

I launched my first short story onto the rejection circuit in Sept. 04. (Wow! Almost a year now.) For the first several months, it rained form rejections. Then I started to get a smattering of these:

Level Two: Helpful, Personal Rejections

For instance, "Nice, but too many adjectives," or "competent, but misses depth." This was stuff to go on, stuff I could use to make my stories better. This was a good level. Alas, came:

Level Three: Unhelpful, Personal Rejections

These rejections are near-misses. They have nothing constructive to say, except of course, "not quite good enough." Some examples from the last month or so:

Although interesting, this story did not appeal to me enough to accept it....I welcome additional work from you.

Nothing really wrong with this story, it just did not stand out enough...feel free to try me again.

Ultimately, however, I found the prose did not quite have the sparkle it needed to push the writing from competent to great...I hope we will see more of your work soon.

*sigh*

I don't know how to fix this except to write more and submit more.

*revises*
*submits*

Comments

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

*hugs and offers a tube of glitter*

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

*g* Your problem is that you've stopped doing stuff wrong.

The editors are now all holding their breaths, because what happens next is that you either start doing stuff right, or you quit.

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

I'll never quit.

*g*

[everyonesakitty.livejournal.com]

YAY!!!

[cristalia.livejournal.com]

Yay! and condolences, because it's such a frustrating place to be, but it's a good place, because you're getting better.

Yeah...just keep on plugging. :)

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

Thx, Leah. :)

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I hate the Level 3 rejections. They totally drive me up the wall. Pft.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

"Not quite good enough" is, I'm afraid, the constructive thing. Do more better. Frustrating, but there it is.

You can, if you can, pinpoint specific things you'd like to do more of, better, and work on those. But, I think your fix is really the only fix there is. For any of these, really.

Congrats, and condolences. *g*

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

Yep, and yep. Thx, Hannah. *loffs*

[aaron-mag.livejournal.com]

Dude. I've read some of these stories. There are no 'fixes'. They are good stories. Easily as good as stuff I've read in F&SF.

The main problem is lack of space. Tons of submissions by better known authors plus limited space in the magazine equals rejection for no concrete reason. That, unfortunately, is the way it works.

Those crappy gunslinging stories by Stephen King, for example, were published by F&SF. Really, really, bad stories I could never finished. But written by a well known author. So they took the place of good stories purely due to name recognition.

[britzkrieg.livejournal.com]

Make sure you're submitting to the right markets, too. Analog prose, for example, rarely "sparkles" -- but neither does it get in the way of the stories. If a story is great, sometimes merely "competent" writing suffices.

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm with you on the Analog thing. I rarely see prose that's sparkly, come to think of it. I think sparkle-izing one's prose runs the risk of screwing it up.

The exceptions are the online mags: Ideo, SH, SCIFICTION... for me anyway. But then, one man's sparkle is another man's dross, so... *shrug*

[britzkrieg.livejournal.com]

I think sparkle-izing one's prose runs the risk of screwing it up.

Absolutely. I ruined "Genescape" that way. :-(

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

You're on the right track - it's only a matter of time. (go, you!)

[navicat.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

*Has no glitter so offers kitten to pat*

Really Long Comment to Encourage and Inspire

[cricketshay.livejournal.com]

Congratulations. I know you may be confused after reading that first word. Why would I congratulate you on your rejections? Because you are moving up in the world. You have came from Level one rejects to Level Three rejects in the course of one year. That is remarkable.

Rae, you are a kick ass writer(not just saying that cause you're on my friends list either). I'm with Aaron and saying that they are wanting name brand writers over new and up and coming. I also agree with Brit, that you might not be submitting to the "right" mags.

Whatever you do, don't revise so much you loose your original message in your tale and don't give up. Just think after you publish your first novel, you can go back and take all those rejects that weren't quite good enough for the mags and combine them into an awesome book of short stories to sell to your new readers. (I expect an autographed copy by the way)

*great big huge gigantic hugs* I'm getting ready to brave the water myself.(in about 6 more months) I need to spend more time reviewing others and submitting my stuff to OWW. I can see where my strengths are and where my weaknesses are now and I'm committed to becoming a better writer. It's hard work, but I wouldn't have it any other way. It is my bliss.