Received an email rejection for Running of the Deer today from John Bowker, Associate Fiction Editor over at Ideomancer. The letter was very personalized to the story and he explains why he won't be purchasing it, even though he liked parts of it.
Now, I did send John a thank you note, and I meant it seriously. It was a really nice rejection letter and he liked much of the story. In fact (if I may quote him) he says "there are a bones of good story in there." If you don't think that didn't make me squee, you don't know me very well (hint, check the name of the blog).
But here's a good teaching point for new writers. Mr. Bowker's main concern over the story is he felt there was extraneous workcount for things not related to the story. I disagree with his assessment. Many readers of the story keep asking for more detail. When I write, I tend to up word count with most revisions, because, as my wife says, "(I) know what's going on in (my) head, (I) just forget to explain it all" (yes, I cut words for final, and many of those original words get rewritten). However (and here's the big "however") all that doesn't matter because Mr. Bowker is the Associate Fiction Editor for Ideomancer. He felt the story was padded. Fair cop. Because he's the friggin' editor. He knows his market, he knows his readers, he knows his other editors.
Some new writers at this point would get all wacko. Just ask Nick Mamatas about this (he's banned people for life from submitting to Clarksworld for being wacko, and even though he's leaving, those bans are still in effect). There's also a website out there that has angry writer's responses to rejection letters (it's not worth my time to google it for you, because that's bad behavior you all shouldn't be emulating). Get over yourselves people. They're the editors. They don't care what my readers have said or asked for, they don't care if my Mom thinks it's a good story (actually, I don't share much of my writing with my Mom), they care what their readers ask for because that's how they stay in business. It's their professional judgement.
As Wil Wheaton says, "Don't be a dick!" This is good advice for us all in many aspects of our lives, but very much so for our writing careers.
So, in conclusion, thank you Mr. Bowker for not only reading my story, but taking the time to personalize the rejection letter. It is very much appreciated (including the "bones" comment, I don't know if that was intentional, but it made my day). I'll reread the story to see if I can cut more (well, I can always cut more). I like Ideomancer, and I will certainly send more stories and poetry your way.
4 comments:
You can't take it too hard when editors don't buy your work. It might be completely right for someplace else.
Sending out older stuff over and over until it finds the right home is great, but the key is to keep producing ~new~ work. I know I'm a better writer than I was a year ago.
Many readers of the story keep asking for more detail....
Aha! But that doesn't mean that you needed more detail! That means your readers had a problem with the level of detail, or the kind of detail, or something that is nearly like detail but may in fact not be detail at all...
Okay, I don't know, I haven't read the story, maybe it did need more detail, but I have grown exceedingly suspicious of critique, and when I hear prescriptive advice, I back very far away and examine it with extreme prejudice anymore. What works best for me (I emphasize that to say, no, I'm not giving you prescriptive advice, being so leery of it myself) is to realize that things like "needs more detail" is the smoke--but it's still my job to figure out if the fire needs to be put out, controlled, redirected, or even stoked.
Uhm, I'm probably being way too passionate about this. But it was such a big lesson for me... And one I need to remind myself of constantly...
And if you're getting "padded out" feedback from an editor, it's actually almost the same pointing out of smoke as the writing group did.
My two bits.
I concur: Ideomancer is my hero.
Camille, oh I don't. I get a little disappointed, but that's mostly a "rats, gotta send it out again" feeling. I keep trying to do new work. I think I said in another comment that this freelance work (design and writing a brochure) is consuming my thought process. Pieces of stories keep popping out. And right now I have four short story partials (that I like and want to finish), and the novel (which only gets a hundred words a week, on good weeks). When I get less than a thousand words at a sitting, I just don't feel like I'm writing (unless it's poetry, and then it's how many revisions or if I get the whole poem out).
Mer, well, yeah, I guess so. Always leave them hungry for more. I think the comments were more along the lines of "this is very confusing here, can you clarify." But, the editor used the words, "padded." I didn't do it intentionally. I didn't send it out again because I'll reread it and see if I can see what they felt was over long. Cutting is the easy part of editing.
One of my writing problems, or writer's ticks, is to do the "then he did this, then he did this other thing, the thing gleamed brightly, then he turned the key in the lock and twisted the handle" level of description, when all I need to say is, "he pulled out the key and unlocked the door," or just "he went through the door." I have a feeling it's something along those lines. That and I keep using the word, "back."
Samuel Tinianow, they are very cool people, that's why I like submitting to them. And hey, congrats on the sale to Leading Edge.
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