Tuesday, January 13, 2009

not so much resolution as resolve

Time to make a new Rejection Pledge for a new year. Since I'm concentrating on novel(s) at present, I set my sights fairly low, making a pledge of 12 rejections last year, and achieving 19.

The most recent rejections:

Dear Barbara,

Thank you for submitting "Foretold" to ABYSS & APEX. As you know, we kept it for second round consideration but ultimately decided not to accept it for publication. The competition this month was strong and while we came up with an excellent table of contents for our next issue, we had to say no to many works (like this!) that we wish we could keep.

I hope you'll consider us again, and I wish you the best success in placing this story elsewhere.

******

Dear Barbara,

Thank you for submitting "Bride of the Vampire" to The Town Drunk. I'm afraid that after careful consideration, we have decided not to accept it for publication.

I remember reviewing this story on OWW some time ago. I was impressed with it then, and I still am. The premise is clever, and we appreciated the social commentary. There's some nice wry humor here as well.

That being said, some of our readers perceived a darker streak in the piece:

"Very clever, but a tad more disturbing than humorous with hints that Nikolai may truly be monster. It's a fine story -- just not light. I think the author should rework it and refocus it into a serious piece with shades of horror, which would make it unsuitable for us."

And: "I liked the idea that Nikolai's motives were not especially pure. I also think it could be reworked into a more horrifying piece, but I do think it could still be funny."

I'm not sure all readers would share these perceptions, but since our magazine is focused on lighthearted fare, these reactions are a concern.

Also, we all felt that the story needed to get off to a stronger start and have a tighter focus overall. The motives of the journalist and her cameraman need to be made clear a bit sooner, in our opinion. Our impression is that the plot takes just a little too much time to "coalesce," leaving the reader feeling ungrounded for a bit too long.

We wish you the best of luck in placing this story elsewhere, and we certainly hope to see more of your work in the future.

********

Fairly positive rejections, those.

Isn't this a strange profession? Being pleased about rejections, cheering oneself on to increase wordcount, and then cheering oneself on again to cut those words out in revision.

3 comments:

fairyhedgehog said...

Those are absolutely brilliant rejections! Surely it's not odd to realise that a story is a near miss, or in the first case, is good enough but to publish but there was too much competition? At least you know your work is good, even if you haven't had luck with placing those stories yet.

avo said...

>> Isn't this a strange profession? Being pleased about rejections, cheering oneself on to increase wordcount, and then cheering oneself on again to cut those words out in revision.

More than most, it goes on in the mind. The laws of physics -- gravity, time, Boyle's Third Law -- work differently there.

batgirl said...

Hi fairy! The benefit of subbing to the smaller zines - they're much more willing to provide crits and explain why they can't take something. I'm grateful. Thought it would be nice to get something accepted.

Bart, has anyone done the laws of writerly physics & thermodynamics? And you made me google Boyle's 3d law. Maybe I should try out his 1st law. It couldn't hurt, anyway.