Living the Fictional Dream

A few weeks ago, I got a rejection letter in my in-box. Not an uncommon event, but this particular rejection has a strange history.

The market in question deals solely in reprints, which is unusual enough, but on top of that my impression of this market is that a group of children/teens have a great deal to do with the running of the place. It is a Y/A market, by definition, and all the editorials, etc., I’ve experienced were done by younger people.

I sent a story into this market quite a while ago — last summer, actually. After two or three months with no response to my submission, I queried the market and asked if my story was still in their reading queue or if it had been lost in cyberspace, in which case I would be happy to re-send it. No response.

The months crept by. After a couple more months, I pondered sending them a note withdrawing my story from consideration, but it was a reprint, after all. It wasn’t like there was somewhere else this story needed to go. And there was still a chance that they reason it was taking so long was because they liked the story.

Then, approximately six months from the original submission date, I get the rejection note. One of the highlights of the note was that it addressed me as a Mr. instead of Ms. — maybe this is unfair of me, but that gaff makes me believe that someone more youthful wrote the response.

Basically, the note says that they liked my story and it sat in their maybe pile for quite a while, but because of the limited number of stories they produce per month (only 2), they eventually had to reject it.

Now, that is all fine and good. I am no stranger to rejection, and a story that was classified a maybe is way better than a story that is rejected flat out with a form letter. I’ve gotten some harsh rejections in my time, and, despite the gender-bending typo, this one was pretty nice.

Here are my problems with this situation, though. If this market wanted to be more professional, I think they need to make a few changes in their submission response system. First of all, if someone queries the status of their submission, they should reply, even if it is just a short response that says, “Your story was received and is still under consideration. Thank you, the Editors.” Second, if you’re going to tie up someone’s story by keeping it on your maybe pile, you should let them know. Most authors would be thrilled to have their story make it to the next round of consideration — just tell them about it and tell them how long you think you’ll need to make your final decision. Don’t leave them hanging out there with no news, wondering if the market has closed, if it didn’t actually recieve the story, or if they just don’t care.

Part of me really wants to reply to the rejection letter and, very calmly and professionally, give them the above advice. However, replying to a rejection letter is typically one of the biggest faux pas in this business. I’m torn… what would be the better course of action?

I guess, in the long run, I will just let it go. That’s probably the right choice. I think the reason I am so much more tempted to reply and give them this advice is because of the perception I have that they are all young. But that perception could be wrong — there could easily be adults behind the scenes, even if that would mean they aren’t very experienced adults.

I don’t know… what do you guys think? Would you reply, or would you leave it alone?

I think that the line between a story that’s cliche and a story that breathes new life into an old trope can be very fine indeed. Sometimes, I think that the line is more in the head of the reader than anything else. Of course, the writer has to do his or her part. You’ve got to give that old idea new trappings, new characters and settings to make it interesting again. A new twist on the plot, if you can think of one, is good, too.

But, sometimes, there’s nary a new twist to be found. After all, there are a finite number of plots out there — depending on who you listen to, it’s 10 or 12 or maybe 36. You can boil so many radically different stories down to “man vs. man” or “man vs. machine,” etc. The thing that makes them stand out is how the writer told the story.

I’ve been thinking about this recently because of two stories that I submitted to Every Day Fiction. One was a ghost story, and it was rejected for being too cliche. The other was my recent acceptance, “A Million Faces.” The acceptance email actually said that they felt I’d breathed new life into an old trope, which was really nice to hear. I’m really excited about sharing that story with the world — I had fun writing it, and I felt like I really connected with the main character.

But I wonder what it was that made AMF work, while my ghost story still languishes without a home?

I started thinking, maybe I, as a reader, am too close to the ghost story. The stories that spook me the most are ghost stories. Hack-em-up stories gross me out, but they don’t really scare me. Ghosts, however… whew! I still think the pilot episode of the show Supernatural, which dealt with plenty of ghosts, was the scariest one they ever did — followed by all the other ghost stories. The ones about various earth-bound monsters or demons… still interesting, but not as much with the creepy chill factor.

I was never a big fan of The Sixth Sense, but I think that’s because it was built up to me way too much. I didn’t see it until DVD, so by that point, after all the hype, it would have had to be a much more impressive film for me to be blown away. I did think the twist was cool, though. The movie The Others, however, was totally creepifying to me! And there was the other movie that I saw where a guy had this whole life on an estate with a wealthy, eccentric family, and at the end it turned out that the estate was a crumbling ruin and they’d been ghosts all along. That one totally freaked me out, too — though, sadly, I have totally forgotten the name of the film.

So, maybe because ghost stories really affect me as a reader/viewer, it’s harder for me to write one with some distance? Maybe what seems cliche to other people, doesn’t feel that way to me because I still enjoy that trope?

I don’t know if that’s the case, but it would make sense… I struggle with the same thing in my urban fantasy stories. I love stories about vampires, werewolves, etc., in all their forms. I like the classic stories, but I like the ones that twist the myths, as well. To me, it’s about the characters and what they do with these ideas — it doesn’t bother me if the vampire has a reflection or not or if the werewolf can only change on the full moon or has full control of the shifting abilities. The creature’s abilities and flaws are tools that help the writer tell the story they want to tell with their unique set of characters.

But, I’ve gotten rejections on my urban fantasy stories because the editors of that publication felt the stories didn’t do anything unexpected enough.

On the flip side, I absolutely hated the novel Eragon. I couldn’t even get through it. It felt too cliched, and I didn’t like the writing style. I’ve always loved stories about dragons, but I didn’t feel like this one gave me anything new to hold onto. In addition, the characters were achingly flat. So, not only was there no new twist, but there were no characters to really get behind or get involved with.

But, I’m definitely in the minority on that one, if the way the novels are selling are any indication. I even had some friends who read the book say that, yes, they thought it was derivative of basically every fantasy epic in recent history (everything from Tolkien to Star Wars), but they still enjoyed reading it. And, heck, they made Eragon into a major motion picture, so a lot of people out there have to like it.

In the end, I think luck continues to play a big role. Write a good story — the story that you want to write, not the one you think the market wants you to write — and then send it out. Sure, you may get rejections if the editors feel that you didn’t twist the trope into something new enough. But, there is probably someone out there who will get your story and who will love your voice enough to publish it. It’s the idea of the right story, in front of the right person, at the right time.

I recieved an interesting rejection today. The editor of a fairly prestigious e-zine said, “No to this, but please keep trying us?” Short, sweet, and to the point, but also a rejection with a grain of hope. And not a dreaded form rejection, either.

After I read the note, I stared at it for a while, trying to parse the appropriate meaning from that question mark at the end of the sentence. It seems a very deliberate punctuation choice. A period would be the norm, but a question mark means something else entirely.

This particular market has rejected quite a few of my stories. Perhaps the editor meant that question mark as an acknowledgement of that, and also hopes that I will continue to submit to them despite the number of rejections? If that’s it, if the editor actually remembers who I am and that I’ve sent stuff before, maybe that means that they really like my voice, and, as yet, I just haven’t sent them a story that quite fits with the e-zine? That I’m almost there…

That would definitely be a nice thing to believe! It’s a market I would particularly like to appear in, both because it pays better than a token payement and it is a fairly well-known market, at least in e-zine circles.

I probably shouldn’t overthink it. It’s just as possible that the question mark was a typo. That thought brings to mind Eats, Shoots and Leaves and the example of the difference between “the panda eats shoots and leaves” and “the panda eats, shoots, and leaves.” Gotta watch out for those gun-toting pandas, yeah?

Either way, the rejection leaves me inspired on two counts. First, I need to keep pressing on that particular story. There must be a home for it somewhere! And, second, I need to write more of the kind of story that this particular e-zine publishes so I can try them again.

The eternal question of a writer trying to get published, right?

The thing is, it’s so hard to tell. I doubt there’s any way to really answer that question. Perhaps if one knew an editor (publishing company, magazine, etc.)… Interviews, such as D.L. Snell’s, might give some clues, but even that is based on how the editor was feeling on that particular day.

I’ve been reading and listening to stories in more of the professional publications lately, and sometimes it’s hard to tell why those stories got accepted and mine didn’t. Now, some of the stories there are blow-away, and that’s obviously why they were picked. But others… not as much. And I’ve read stories that blew me away in smaller publications, too. “Junk Drawer” in the previous issue of Allegory (the issue before the one in which “The Widow and the Stranger” appeared) had me thinking about it for days. Some stories I’ve read at EDF have amazed me, too. So the professional publications don’t corner the market on the best fiction. Far from it!

In the end, I guess reading is just too subjective to quantify. And if my reading is that subjective, editors’ reading must be as well. My first writing prof (taught undergrad fiction writing) said that publishing was 10% the work of writing a finely crafted story and 90% the luck of getting that story on the right editor’s desk at the right time (i.e., when they were in the right mood for the story to appeal to them). I don’t remember the exact percentages, but it was something quite lopsided like that.

Of course, reading the stories or books published by a market will give you some insight into what the editors want. But the stories can vary so wildly in quality, style, subject, etc., that it really seems to become more of a crapshoot.

I suppose there is no secret to this (though if you’ve found it, please share in the comments!). The best thing to do is to focus on honing one’s craft and making each story the best it can possibly be, then sifting through the multitude of markets out there and submitting repeatedly until you find one that sticks.

I got a couple or three rejections while out of town for the 4th of July. My answer to these rejections? Resubmit the story somewhere else! There is no shortage of markets out there, so there is no excuse not to resubmit!

Of course, it’s the stories that I like the best that I’m still waiting on responses. Isn’t that always the way?

I got lots of writing done over the holiday weekend. I worked on revising three (count ‘em, three) short stories while on my trip to South Texas. The rain down there kept us inside and kept me working instead of leaving my laptop in the suitcase.

I’ve nearly completed the second story in my urban fantasy universe (“Alpha,” my werecoyote story, takes place in this universe). This second story is a monster — over 8K (and that’s after significant cutting… originally it was over 10K). It will be hard to find a venue willing to consider a story of that length!

Well, that’s enough randomness from me today. I’m feeling quite brain dead after lack of sleep on the trip and a challenging Monday back in the office. It might be time to call it a night! Whew!

If you send your stories out into the world, you’ve gotten rejected. It’s just par for the course. Getting published is a mixture of hard work and luck (getting your story to the right editor at the right time).

I think one of the hardest things about writing fiction with the hope of publication is the frequent rejection. These stories are our babies. We work on them, endlessly tweaking one word here and one paragraph there. We cut for flow and add for understanding. We craft characters out of thin air and breathe life into them with quotation marks and semicolons.

But, rejection isn’t all bad. If you can take rejections with a grain of salt and see them as something professional, not something personal (I know that’s hard… what is writing if not personal?), it’s easier not to lose heart. I know… I lost heart when I was in high school and again in college. But when I started submitting short stories in 2007, I promised myself that this time I wouldn’t give up. And I didn’t! And now I actually have a publication list, which thrills me to no end.

Rejection notes still have a sting to them, but it’s so much less now than it used to be. So, if you’re a new writer out there who has yet to garner that ellusive first acceptance letter, I would encourage you to keep trying. Craft the best stories you can, and eventually someone will want to publish it. It might take a while to find that first right fit, but it’s out there.

Also, try to learn something from your rejection notes. Sometimes rejection letters include comments from the editors. That is especially nice – you’re not left wondering why they didn’t choose your piece. (Every Day Fiction is one market that takes the time to do this. Haurah: Breath of Heaven and flashquake do, also.) However, you have to be able to take the criticism. If you fire off an angry response (or even a pleasant, but argumentative one), not only are the editors not going to change their minds, but they’ll probably be glad they didn’t accept your story.

Even if you recieve a form rejection, sans comments, you can still learn something, even if it’s just something about what kind of stories that market likes/dislikes. The more rejections you get for a story, the more it might be that there is a flawed element in the story that needs work before sending it back out there.

So, for all you new writers out there, I say brave the rejections and start submitting. The worst anyone can say is no!