The Rejection Note

I don’t like writing rejection letters.

In a perfect world, I wouldn’t need to reject anything.  Ebooks don’t have the space limitations of print books.  If I got so many stories that I couldn’t possibly fit them in one book, I’d put out two anthologies.

Since this is the real world, not all stories are well-written or erotic enough for a Circlet Press anthology.  Whenever time allows I send a detailed critique of the story.  It’s hard work, but it’s usually worth it.  I once received a note back from a rejected author thanking me profusely.  He’d been submitting stories and receiving form rejections for years.  This was the first time anyone put the effort into explaining that his prose wasn’t up to professional standards and suggested ways of improving (Two of the suggestions are worth repeating.  You can download older editions of The Elements of Style for free off the web; if you don’t have a friend to read your story before you submit it, read the story out loud to catch homophones and other usage errors).

This letter did make me feel warm and fuzzy and gave me the fortitude to keep up the effort.  After all, who likes being sandbagged with a one-line rejection?  Well, you’d be surprised.

Early in the reading period for my upcoming ebook “Kneel to Me,” I was concerned about the mix of stories I was seeing.  I got three good ones, but they were all Mdom/Fsub.  There was nothing wrong with these stories, but if I wanted the book to be all Mdom/Fsub, I’d have said so in the submissions call.  I wanted this anthology to be like many of Circlet’s offerings–cheerfully pansexual.  Thus I was excited to receive a submission labeled “lesbian,” and even more happy to see that it was written by a woman (there’s nothing wrong with lesbian erotica written by men.  It’s just different.  And diversity of author gender can be as important as diversity of character gender).

Alas, the story did not live up to that slender promise.  It was set in a fantasy “universe” of the author’s devising.  This almost always means that half the story will consist of lengthy “infodumps” of back story that are interesting to no one but the author.  However, this need not be a kiss of death.  With a little encouragement, authors can re-write fantasy universe stories to make them more solid stand-alones.  In previous anthologies I’ve worked with authors to produce quality re-writes.  Already for Kneel to Me I had spent a few days corresponding with an author until his story hatched from indifferent to exceptional.  The author posted a gratifying message about the experience on the site FetLife. But the more I read of this story, the less it looked like there was anything worth re-writing.  The hard-drinking, violent heroine was supposed to be a brilliant military strategist.  I’ve been an enthusiastic reader of military strategy fact and fiction from all eras, but I couldn’t find anything in the story that makes the character look brilliant.  After the interminable, disposable paragraphs of back story, I was expecting the story to get more interesting when it followed the heroine into bed.  She has a taste for rough sex with noble women she captures in her military campaigns.  That could be promising.  Alas, the heroine’s captive harem consisted of passive young ladies whose only apparent reason to exist is to fear the heroine and get really wet at the same time.  They were the flatest, most uninteresting bedmates since the board you put under a mattress for your back.

To be sure, I did not use such language in the rejection note.  I made sure to praise something I liked about the story, in this case the more complex relationship between the heroine and her male retainer.  I put some work in expressing my criticism in the most positive way possible.  Not that the story deserved it, mind you.  The story was crap.  But the author deserved appreciation for the work she put into writing the story and sending it to us.  And I expressed a hope that she would submit to us again in the future.  This wouldn’t be the first time that an author took a critique and sent us something really good the following year.

Instead, I received the following response:

Lauren, I’m a little stunned at the tone, hence this response. I have never responded to a rejection notice before, but I don’t believe I’ve ever had one that was so condescending.

I won’t defend my writing choices, but I will say that your characterization of them is quite odd. The fact that you mention and , but not the several women my main character has sex with, makes me wonder if you actually read the whole story, or perhaps it offended you. As for my writing, it seems to be my style you object to, less than any remedial approach to writing that you see in this story.

I hope you will reconsider your own writing style when responding to submissions. Not appreciating a writer’s effort is not a license to critique it as if it were a beginner’s work. I know how to write, hence my stories and novels with various publishers. If my work didn’t appeal to you, all I require from you is a notice of rejection, not writing instructions. I accept that as a matter of opinion and can agree to disagree. I have no doubt I’ll find a publisher who agrees with me.

Well, she showed me!  I’m a subconscious lesbianophobe!  She was right about one thing, though.  I never did finish reading the story.