Ouch: or, two for one
Two, I say TWO rejections in one day! It's never happened before.
The first one, simple, straightforward:
I'm sorry about the delay in getting back to you-one of our managing editors recently returned, and we're catching up on all of our second reads. (I was a second read? That's cool.)
Although there's a bitter-sweet edge to the your story, we are going to have to pass. Unfortunately, we felt it's too long for what it accomplishes and that it needed more specific setting details to make the reader feel
the desolation without as well as within.
A few of these sentiments are echoed in my second, grander, and more thorough rejection:
Thanks, but not for me. We get endless numbers of end of the world stories here, and most of them beggar the imagination a bit. Yours was fairly well-written - the dialogue, anyway - and I did enjoy elements of it. The little bit of cooperation - was also good.
But what was lacking was world: why do I care about these people? Ann is described, a bit, and so is the little gangleader, but if there are roving gangs why didn't people take precautions? Did these people migrate to this place, or did the world end while they all lived in the same neighborhood? Why don't they know one another already? I can go on, but the idea is to flesh out the setting and make it feel lived-in, otherwise it just reads as though you're pouring a bucket of misery on a pair of paper dolls.
What does he want, a novel? For the record, rejections do not really hurt my feelings. I take them as part of the territory and I welcome the feedback.
The second one was breath-taking in its poetic harshness. I heard the editor (who I'm pretty sure wrote it) speak on a panel recently though, and that's the way he talks. It's not just me. I mean, it was me, because he obviously did not like my story. What I mean is that I suspect all his rejections sound like this, not just mine.
This story is still being held by one place. If they reject it, I believe this particular story is going to get shelved for a while.
(Yes, as you can see, I committed the simultaneous submission sin. But one of those places had it for almost a YEAR, so too bad.)
The first one, simple, straightforward:
I'm sorry about the delay in getting back to you-one of our managing editors recently returned, and we're catching up on all of our second reads. (I was a second read? That's cool.)
Although there's a bitter-sweet edge to the your story, we are going to have to pass. Unfortunately, we felt it's too long for what it accomplishes and that it needed more specific setting details to make the reader feel
the desolation without as well as within.
A few of these sentiments are echoed in my second, grander, and more thorough rejection:
Thanks, but not for me. We get endless numbers of end of the world stories here, and most of them beggar the imagination a bit. Yours was fairly well-written - the dialogue, anyway - and I did enjoy elements of it. The little bit of cooperation - was also good.
But what was lacking was world: why do I care about these people? Ann is described, a bit, and so is the little gangleader, but if there are roving gangs why didn't people take precautions? Did these people migrate to this place, or did the world end while they all lived in the same neighborhood? Why don't they know one another already? I can go on, but the idea is to flesh out the setting and make it feel lived-in, otherwise it just reads as though you're pouring a bucket of misery on a pair of paper dolls.
What does he want, a novel? For the record, rejections do not really hurt my feelings. I take them as part of the territory and I welcome the feedback.
The second one was breath-taking in its poetic harshness. I heard the editor (who I'm pretty sure wrote it) speak on a panel recently though, and that's the way he talks. It's not just me. I mean, it was me, because he obviously did not like my story. What I mean is that I suspect all his rejections sound like this, not just mine.
This story is still being held by one place. If they reject it, I believe this particular story is going to get shelved for a while.
(Yes, as you can see, I committed the simultaneous submission sin. But one of those places had it for almost a YEAR, so too bad.)