 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
|
||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
Encouraging RejectionOctober 30, 2007 The rejection letter I got last week is what's known in the biz as an "encouraging rejection." This means (1) that it wasn't a form letter, and (2) that the letter contained some internal evidence that the recipients actually considered your proposal. Y'all who aren't connected in any way to the publishing biz are going to think this sounds pretty strange, and you're right: it is. For those of us trying to interest editors and publishers in our work, it actually seems normal, or at least unavoidable. I'm not so far gone, however, that I don't find this "encouraging rejection" somewhat exasperating. The letter leads with its most encouraging word: it calls the situation set up in the first chapter of The Mud of the Place "intriguing." This is followed almost immediately by a much less encouraging word: "problem." The editor writes: "The problem we all found with it is that you do an enormous amount of narration and very few scenes. We don't think that works with your material." Up to a point, this is true. From the beginning the big challenge with Mud has been to set the stage so that the events of the novel can build momentum as they unfold. If Mud had only one or two significant characters, I could have shoveled a bit in here, scattered a bit through there, and hardly anyone would have noticed. But Mud is an ensemble piece. Most of it takes place in public, rather than in the characters' heads. And once the ball starts rolling, it rolls. True, none of this was inevitable. I laid a few ground rules, cast a few characters, then those characters started moving around and a few more characters showed up and most of the time they ran the scenes. What I had to do was prod and prompt and trim and listen very carefully. The whole thing unfolds pretty wonderfully, if I do say so myself, but the price is that chapter 1 is an expository lump -- a pretty lively lump, but a lump nonetheless. This is why I like to send chapter 2 along with chapter 1. Chapter 2 is most definitely a Scene. In this case I also sent the excerpt that I read at the Boston Fiction Festival this summer, in which Meg the real estate agent suffers through a disastrous (but pretty funny) showing of a high-end property. Evidently "we all" didn't get that far. This is par for the publishing course: you have to hook your anonymous reader in the first few paragraphs, and you certainly can't expect them to stick around for 19 whole pages. Well, I've gotten pretty spoiled because something like three dozen readers at this point have stuck around for 450 pages, but in the publishing biz the writer's the telemarketer (or maybe the Jehovah's Witness) and the publisher's objective is to get her off the phone or the front step as fast as possible, ideally without being too rude because that would jeopardize the publisher's conviction that s/he is open to new ideas. But here it's not the snap judgment that's exasperating; it's the acquisitions editor's assumption that she knows what works for my material when she's chosen not to read far enough to know what "my material" is. Years ago I heard a children's book author discuss the challenge of getting past the gatekeepers. (I'm pretty sure she used that word: "gatekeepers.") The gatekeepers were teachers, librarians, and parents. The challenge was that kids might absolutely love a book, but until they reach a certain age they have minimal control over what books come within their grasp. To get within reach of the kids, in other words, you have to appeal to the teachers, the librarians, and/or the parents. Publishers, editors, newspapers, record producers, radio stations, et al. are all gatekeepers: you have to get past them in order to reach your readers and listeners. Except you don't. There's always been another way, a face-to-face eliminate-the-middleperson way. It's not easy, but it's there for the making. P.S. This rejection letter has another paragraph, and I'm itching to discuss it, but it has less to do with publishing than with Martha's Vineyard and why I'm doing what I'm doing. So I'm going to treat it separately.
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
Home - Writing - Editing - About Susanna - Bloggery - Articles - Poems - Contact Copyright ©
Susanna J. Sturgis. All rights reserved. |
||||