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This blog by Jessica Faust (BookEnds,LLC) is a very interesting read. Especially if you have submitted the very best and are left wondering why you were rejected. I know I certainly learned a lot - namely that all you that have said over 120,000 words is a killer, you were right. http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/Posts: 70 | Registered: Aug 2007
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Word count seems to be essential. I see advise to writers pretty frequently saying something along the lines of "if your writing is great, no one will care." Like you, everything I see from agents and publishers tells me this plain isn't true.
It's not like it's a seller's market out there. She can stamp reject, and still have 100 other subs sitting on her desk that are the length she's looking for.
Good link. Thanks for posting it.
[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited November 17, 2007).]
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I wish the editors that read my short stories would tell me what was wrong with them; I always just get "We've decided not to accept your story" when I submit to Strange Horizons.
Posts: 59 | Registered: Nov 2007
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Hah! Strange Horizons would reject (and probably send me a letter bomb) if I ever subbed there. But anything but urban fantasy can go take a flying leap as far as they're concerned.
[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited November 17, 2007).]
quote:What is urban fantasy? Fantasy that takes place in the big city? No, really what is it?
Pretty much, yeah. Charles deLint is credited with inventing it. The gist is fantasy elements (vampires, faeries, werewolves, whatever) existing in the modern world, usually in a city setting (not necessarily a big city). Urban. Fantasy. Finally a title that describes itself (unlike slipstream, which I still don't have a clear understanding of).
Posts: 657 | Registered: Jan 2007
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Well, generally any modern fantasy is given the label "urban" even if it doesn't take place in a city, but most does so it's not far off. It is sometimes called contemporary, but I see the term urban more often.
It's not that I don't like some urban fantasy. I just don't seem to write it--or haven't so far. That's not what I think of. And I just got ANOTHER rejection.
Would you fricking believe, telling me to turn the short story into the middle chapter of a novel!!
*says a WHOLE bunch of really bad swear words*
I am so depressed.
[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited November 18, 2007).]
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Slipstream is a story that really isn't sf or fantasy at all, that the editor of an sf or fantasy magazine wants to publish anyway.
I'm just beginning to get an idea of how fierce the competition is. In an interview in the current Locus, Kelly Link mentions that her small press gets to publish writers like John Crowley. My own small press has published books by Hal Clement, R. A. Lafferty, and I got the manuscript for an unpublished Alfred Bester novel -- but another small press beat us out on it. Gene Wolfe, who many think is the best living writer of sf, has never won a Hugo. Is it any wonder that unknown writers usually get rejection slips?
I sometimes think there are more writers of short stories than there are readers of short stories.
posted
I heard it said once that any decent sci-fi writer can wallpaper three rooms of their home in rejection letters. So, as I see it, the more rejection letters you get the greater your potential is.
posted
I honestly think it's easier to sell novels than short stories, which is insane but off-topic. Sorry for the hijack. I've had a bad week with even more than the usual run of rejection slips.
Rick I like your definition of slipstream.
[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited November 18, 2007).]
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So, then what is the genre for a future world with future technology mixed with fantasy elements, like magic?
Posts: 2195 | Registered: Aug 2006
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Something I noticed when looking at Jessica's "Reasons for Rejection" - she emphasizes (there and elsewhere) that the story has to immediately seem unique or engaging.
Yet in the preceding post, in her list of pitches for novels she is marketing to publishers, every one of the storylines sounded exactly like fifty other books and movies already out there. Even the nonfiction pitch sounded unoriginal.
I wonder why she doesn't come out and say that, barring egregious length problems and/or clearly inferior writing, it's just subjective.
It seems to boil down to, "I have to like it and think it fits what's hot right now", more than, "It has to be original and engaging" - how depressing!
posted
By saying it must be unique, regardless of whether or not that's literally essential, doubtless reduces the number of unoriginal stories pitched to her. If there's already an oversupply that's an easy way to cut the numbers down a bit.
Posts: 2195 | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:By saying it must be unique, regardless of whether or not that's literally essential, doubtless reduces the number of unoriginal stories pitched to her. If there's already an oversupply that's an easy way to cut the numbers down a bit.
I seriously doubt it would. It's like submission guidelines. Everyone's got them, but many don't follow them. It's a good way to get rejected fast.
The thing with asking for unique stuff is stupid. There is no new thing. Sometimes its a new spin or an interesting spin. Sometimes what's old is new, as in, we've seen it, but not for a while.
Any rule on story itself can be broke if your story hits the editor the right way.
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Well I'm going to have to disagree with you, mathematically.
If even one person reads that disclaimer and it discourages them from submitting their story, because they know it is contrived, then that has already reduced the number sent to her. If the amount of people submitting to her, the sample size, is already large--large enough to put in such a disclaimer--then it is extremely likely that some percentage of them are paying attention to her submission guidelines. And, they certainly aren't going to encourage more contrived submissions.
quote:The thing with asking for unique stuff is stupid. There is no new thing. Sometimes its a new spin or an interesting spin. Sometimes what's old is new, as in, we've seen it, but not for a while.
A new spin is unique. A new, fresh way to look at something, a new angle, a new light, all of that is technically unique. Ideas are as old as time, but the pattern with which you blend them is unique. And some are more fresh than others, some have more time and thought put in to making them original. Others are just Harry Potter or Tolkein with new names.
Changing the lighting and changing the names are distinctly different. One is unique, the other is not. And I don't doubt many young, aspiring, would-be authors tend to do a lot of the latter. Hence the guideline, at least attempt to make it unique.
Or I would say "put your own, personal, original thought into something," because the part you add to a story is inherently unique.
[This message has been edited by Zero (edited November 19, 2007).]
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I'm going to have to disagree with you, thaumaturgically. (hehehe)
Seriously, the more that the publisher puts in their guidelines, the less people will read them. For example, your post was a little longer, so the second third I skimmed over, and the last third I ignored entirely.
Statistically speaking, if you get 600 submissions a month (I think that's the number that submits to The Magazine of F&SF), and only one or two people decided to listen to the guidelines, then, statistically speaking, the difference is negligible.
posted
I have read time and time again that only about 10% of the submissions in most venues get consideration either from egregiously ignoring the guidelines or being so ungrammatical that they are dismissed within a sentence.
Posts: 1588 | Registered: Jul 2007
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quote:For example, your post was a little longer, so the second third I skimmed over, and the last third I ignored entirely.
And you call yourself a writer, I certainly hope you were being facetious.
Your statistical argument holds up, except that I am positive that one extra guideline "be unique;" two words, does not encourage submissions through laziness as far as it discourages through simply being there.
[This message has been edited by Zero (edited November 19, 2007).]
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Zero, the comment you quoted was a truth you should enshrine in your heart. Brevity is the soul of wit. Nobody reads long posts.
Posts: 557 | Registered: Jun 2007
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You also assume that people are going to the actual publication's website and looking at their guidelines. I bet a lot of people go through duotrope.com, or something like it. They're more concerned with $$ than anything else.
And how many people actually read the pubs they're subbing to? Hmm?
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You forget that Duotrope has a link to the publication and its guidelines. I go to Duotrope and then check the guidelines since on a few occasions I have known Duotrope to be wrong (not often though). I honestly feel that there is no reason on earth to get a rejection because you didn't bother with the guidelines.
And anyone who used Duotrope is only interested in the money? Well, ok, yes, I am interested in being paid for my work so I suppose there might be some truth to that. However, it's not one I'm ashamed of and that should mean I'm more interested in following the publisher guidelines, not less.
[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited November 20, 2007).]
[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited November 20, 2007).]
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