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May. 16th, 2009 11:12 amWearing one's editing brain is rather handy for receiving short story rejections.
I write very few short stories. I'm fine about rejections because it's always been a case of the second publisher taking the story if the first doesn't. And besides, my heart is in reading short stories and editing short stories, rather than in writing short stories.
I have a story that doesn't quite work. I've done everything I can, but it remains askew. I've submitted it to a few markets, but my heart was only halfway in finding it a home, because there's something not-quite-right with it. Maybe I listened to too many comments on it early on. Maybe I tried to do too much in it. Anyhow, it's imbalanced at the core. I thought this might be the case, but I have allowed myself to be persuaded to send it off from time to time. My beta readers like it.
The latest rejection proves that my views are almost certainly correct, so I shall retire this story and claim it as a learning experience. Which it was. If I get the understanding to fix the imbalance then sometime, one day, then it might appear again, but otherwise, not.
My suspicion is that it breaks some conventions. It doesn't fit current taste or current markets and it's just a little too far off to be adjusted. It's very feminist, full of emotions (mostly negative), and would have to be superlatively brilliant to be publishable. The negative emotions alone raise the stakes to that level, perhaps.
It's an OK story, but it isn't superlatively brilliant. Which is a pity, because I had an important point to make about scientific research. The important point about scientific research leads, of course, to the heart of the problem - emotional and character-driven stories that are about political points to do with scientific research and policy decisions are not easy, and I probably chose the wrong vehicle for it and loaded the story with negatives. It's not a likeable tale, on any level.
So why did I need my editing hat to read that rejection letter? Because the story obviously got someone's goat and they were rather snarky. They hated my main character (people either want to have coffee with my protagonists or hate them - and me for writing them - so that's cool) and they hated my writing style. The letter was catty enough so I thought "If I were giving this as a rejection, I'd change it like this to make this snark into a valid point and I'd change it like that to point out that this aspect is my opinion and someone else might think differently." Some of the points were valid. All of them were phrased to make the editor sound clever rather than to improve the story or encourage my writing. That story really hit someone's buttons.
It was interesting to dig beneath the editor's own writing and work out what they were saying and why they were saying it. The letter was as bad as the short story: intentions were good, but something was wanting in the fundamental direction. When the editor figures out what, then he/she will get better results (and possibly fewer analytical blog posts). When I figure out that politics/narrative/character/style relationship, then I will get better results (and will find a way to make that particular type of story work - there has to be a way!).
I write very few short stories. I'm fine about rejections because it's always been a case of the second publisher taking the story if the first doesn't. And besides, my heart is in reading short stories and editing short stories, rather than in writing short stories.
I have a story that doesn't quite work. I've done everything I can, but it remains askew. I've submitted it to a few markets, but my heart was only halfway in finding it a home, because there's something not-quite-right with it. Maybe I listened to too many comments on it early on. Maybe I tried to do too much in it. Anyhow, it's imbalanced at the core. I thought this might be the case, but I have allowed myself to be persuaded to send it off from time to time. My beta readers like it.
The latest rejection proves that my views are almost certainly correct, so I shall retire this story and claim it as a learning experience. Which it was. If I get the understanding to fix the imbalance then sometime, one day, then it might appear again, but otherwise, not.
My suspicion is that it breaks some conventions. It doesn't fit current taste or current markets and it's just a little too far off to be adjusted. It's very feminist, full of emotions (mostly negative), and would have to be superlatively brilliant to be publishable. The negative emotions alone raise the stakes to that level, perhaps.
It's an OK story, but it isn't superlatively brilliant. Which is a pity, because I had an important point to make about scientific research. The important point about scientific research leads, of course, to the heart of the problem - emotional and character-driven stories that are about political points to do with scientific research and policy decisions are not easy, and I probably chose the wrong vehicle for it and loaded the story with negatives. It's not a likeable tale, on any level.
So why did I need my editing hat to read that rejection letter? Because the story obviously got someone's goat and they were rather snarky. They hated my main character (people either want to have coffee with my protagonists or hate them - and me for writing them - so that's cool) and they hated my writing style. The letter was catty enough so I thought "If I were giving this as a rejection, I'd change it like this to make this snark into a valid point and I'd change it like that to point out that this aspect is my opinion and someone else might think differently." Some of the points were valid. All of them were phrased to make the editor sound clever rather than to improve the story or encourage my writing. That story really hit someone's buttons.
It was interesting to dig beneath the editor's own writing and work out what they were saying and why they were saying it. The letter was as bad as the short story: intentions were good, but something was wanting in the fundamental direction. When the editor figures out what, then he/she will get better results (and possibly fewer analytical blog posts). When I figure out that politics/narrative/character/style relationship, then I will get better results (and will find a way to make that particular type of story work - there has to be a way!).