I finished and mailed out a story called “Red & Blue” – a short-short story (500 words) covering the birth, life, and passing of two civilizations.  So far I’ve gotten 3 rejection letters and 1 e-mail saying “not reading at this time.”

Replying to an earlier post, a friend of mine pointed out Stephen King’s method of dealing with rejection letters:

As a young writer, King nailed a long, railroad spike into his bedroom wall, which he proudly hung all of his rejection letters from.  Years passed, and he had stacked rejection letters all the way to the edge of
the spike, until, one day, one of his stories was published.

From then on, for each story that was published, he would remove a rejection letter from the spike.

I think you can pretty much guess what happened next for young Stephie King.

I was thinking of doing something similar, but I think that the technique above may only work if you become a full-time writer.  My original story was actually accepted by a fiction magazine after being rejected by 6 others – using King’s method I would need to publish 6 more short stories to clean off the spike.

My technique is much more simple – recycle the rejection letters into scrap paper.  If I need to print a Google Map, no problem – just grab a letter and print on the back of it.  I think seeing the stack of letters would only dishearten me, rather than encourage me to keep going.

Right now I’m looking at the back of a letter from an assistant editor saying that “Red, Blue” didn’t grab him.  On the back I’ve written a to-do list with several tasks, with the last one reading: “Blog about recycling rejection letters.”

Mission accomplished.  Time to throw out the to-do list and start writing a new story.

Warren Ellis is writing a screenplay for a new videogame, and has a production blog about his experience.  This post On Writing a Screenplay outlines a process that I’ve been meaning to try for my next story:

There are probably two different kinds of screenwriters. The kind who start with a blank sheet of paper and just bull through to the end of the thing, and the expanders, like me.

People like me work as if they’re applying coats of paint to the same surface. The only blank sheet of paper is the original premise document. When it comes to writing the outline, I paste the original premise document into a new file and start writing over the top of it: expanding it, rewording it, moving scenes around. And when it comes to the screenplay, I paste the outline into a new document, and start writing over the top of it.

http://castlevaniadraculascurse.com/

Got two more rejection letters on my story, though neither really felt like a rejection.

Paradox (The Magazine of Historyical and Speculative Fiction) didn’t provide a rejection letter, but did say they weren’t accepting submission. Apparently the magazine “is temporarily closed to submissions from October 1, 2006 through June 1, 2006,” but “you are welcome to re-submit your story once the magazine opens to submissions again.”

No big deal – in truth, I don’t think they’d accept the story even if I resubmitted it. However, I appreciate the fact that someone opened my story, added their form letter, stuck it in the self-addressed stamped envelope, and mailed it back to me. A small gesture but appreciated.

Hadrosaur (aka Tales of the Talisman) sent a very encouraging rejection letter. It began with the statement “With regret, I must inform you that we’ve decided not to purchase this work at this time.” It didn’t say “your story has no plot” or “we’ll never buy it” (though that’s kind of implied) but now’s not the right time.

The letter continued with a checklist of”the more common reasons we are forced to turn stories away:”

• The plot didn’t fully engage us – either this is a variation of a plot we’ve seen too often or the conflicet simply didn’t grab and hold our interest.
• The characters didn’t work for us. Better dialogue and description is often the cure.
• The use of language – grammar, spelling, word choice and/or sentence structure – was weak.
• Not enough science fiction or fantasy content.
• Technology, magic, devices not well utilized – i.e. the “tools” used by the characters were either not suitable because they seemed too derivative of other SF/Fantasy universes or didn’t strike us as believable.
• Story too violent for us – i.e. too bloody/gory, involved violence to children, or we simply felt was too strong in tone for this publication.
• Sexual content inappropriate for us – we do allow sexual content, but it’s our call whether it was sufficiently tasteful and appropriate for Tales of the Talisman.
• Story was over 6000 words. We will occasionally consider slightly longer, but please query at the address above before sending.
• We are currently overstocked and closed to all submissions. We will reopen on ______. If possible,please check our website for updates.

Only the first item on the list was checked off. By inference, the story has the following things going for it:

• My characters work
• I kin spell good!!
• Just enough sci-fi
• Technology “tools” utilized well
• Not too bloody/gory
• Not outright pornography
• Under 6000 words
• They’re submission doors are wide open

The checklist is an interesting commentary on the other submissions they may get (I envision lots of gory, misspelled, vampire porn). The comment “The plot didn’t fully engage us” sounds reasonable – The Magazine of Science and Fiction also commented that the tale didn’t grab their interest.

Hadrosaur’s letter continuted with a nice handwritten note, assumedly from editor David Lee Summers:

I liked your exploration of AI’s, but I’m agraid the overall plot didn’t grab me quite strongly enough to buy. Best of luck with “The Perfect Toast” and please feel free to try again with another.

The note may have taken less than a minute to write, but I appreciate the fact that someone actually read my story, considered it, offered helpful criticism, and took the time to write a note.

The letter continued with a nice conclusion to let the author down easy:

Note: We receive far more stories than we can use during our reading periods. As a results, we have to turn away quality works simply because of limited space. That said, please continue to write and submit. Just because this submission did not work for us doesn’t mean that it won’t work with another market or that another submission of yours won’t work for us.

Kind of the “It’s not you, it’s me” of writing rejection letters.

The criticism on the “overall plot” is something I’ll have to work on. I think for my next story I’ll try outlining the bare bones of the plot (1. David wakes up, 2. David meets with coworkers, etc.) before writing – just getting the “who does what” straight in my own head. I worked on this story so much I think the plot went awry – could’ve been reorganized to be more interesting.

Only a few more “rejections” to go, and this particular story will have run its course. Got to get going on the next one!

Got my second rejection letter, this time from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction:

Thank you for submitting “The Perfect Toast” [the name of my story] but I’m going to pass on it.  This tale didn’t grab my interest, I’m afraid.  Good luck to you with this one, and thanks again for sending it our way.

Sincerely,

John Joseph Adams
Assistant Editor

In retrospect, I’m not sure this story’s worthy of publication – the core idea is interesting but the execution could be a bit better.  However, I’m taking it as a call to do better next time rather than a sign that I’m not cut out to write fiction.

The one good thing from all these “bounce-backs” is that I can see which fiction magazines are still in operation and which have shut down.  Unfortunately this story is 20 pages heavy and $1.35 worth of postage, so I wish I’d chosen a “lighter” story for my first submission.

Oddly, my second story (written during a long and dull all-day session on pricing) is two pages long and (in my opinion) much tighter and more interesting.  After this first round of submissions is finished, I’m looking forward to submitting the next one to a wider variety of publishers.

One of the story submissions I sent out came back return to sender, no forwarding information. I found the mailing address under the submission guidelines at this site, but I guess the site is a bit out of date.

Farewell to thee, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination.   Sort of sad to think that there’s one less channel for science fiction short stories, but I guess I’ll just have to look for another place to send it.

Or start writing in other genres, to match the place I’m going to submit to.