A Massive Headache And An Inbox Full Of Rejection

One day last week, I got a massive headache and decided to go to bed early. But, before I went, I thought it would be a good idea to check an email account that I don’t look at every day. You know what I found in my inbox? Rejection letters. Lots of them.

I’ve been writing for years, and getting rejected still hurts. I’ve sent enough rejection letters to know that the rejection is just one editor’s subjective opinion, but that doesn’t change how rejection feels. It feels like someone is confirming that I really do suck as much as I believe I suck. It makes me feel like I’m wasting my life on something futile. It shakes the microscopic amount of confidence that I have in myself as a writer.

However, as I deleted my latest batch of rejection, I realized that I wasn’t as devastated by these letters as I have been by past rejections. When I got rejections as a teenager, I would get so angry at myself that I wouldn’t write for weeks. I’ve matured a lot since then, but I think the biggest difference is in the number of projects that I’m doing. I have a lot going on, and I’m super excited about some of it. The rejections didn’t hurt as much this time because I could easily shift my focus to the other projects. I didn’t have time to dwell on the sucky-ness of rejection.

So, I think the moral of the story is to write more after rejections, not less. It’s hard to be upset about one rejected project when you have a dozen other projects going on.      

Why Your Writing Is Being Rejected

You’re probably sick of hearing me talk about it, but I’ve spent the past year reading submissions for an anthology. So, I’m going to write about rejection today.

There were several editors who worked on this anthology. Every week we all read the same batch of submissions. We met to discuss the batch at the end of the week. In order to remember what I read, I kept spreadsheets with the title and author of the submission as well as my reaction to the submission. I was looking for something on my computer yesterday, and I found the spreadsheets. For some reason (boredom), I decided to look over the spreadsheets. I started noticing trends in my reasons for rejecting submissions. I noticed that there are some very common mistakes that writers make that lead to rejection. (Or, at least, rejection from me.)

I decided to take a sample of about 250 rejected submissions and make a pie chart of my most common reasons for rejection. The submissions were a mixture of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Most of the submissions were rejected for multiple reasons, but I always put my biggest reason for rejection first in my notes. I only put my biggest reason on the chart.

Here is my (admittedly crappy and hard to read) pie chart of rejection.

Not Quite Ready – 1.07% - These are the submissions that were very good, but they weren’t quite as good as the accepted submissions. We couldn’t accept everything. Some good stories had to be rejected because they just weren’t quite right for us.

Lacking Emotion – .56% - The submission felt flat. I didn’t feel anything for the characters or their situation. Or, I didn’t feel anything while reading a poetry submission.

Boring – 6.54% - I read past the first 3-5 pages of a story, but then I got bored. The story felt long, meandering, or slow. It didn’t hold my attention.

Not Unique – 7.01% - I’ve read too many pieces (published or unpublished) that are similar to this one. There is nothing in this submission that is unusual or unexpected.

Poorly Written – 4.91% - I can tell that the author is a beginning writer or a non-English speaker. The piece is extremely unpolished and difficult to read.

Doesn’t Fit Submission Guidelines – 35.75% - You know how a lot of rejection letters say, “Your piece is not what we are looking for right now”? That’s this category. These submissions didn’t fit the theme of the anthology well enough for me. They just weren’t what we were looking for right now.

Too Simplistic – 1.87% - The author took complex human emotions; a complex situation; or a complex political, social, or environmental problem and oversimplified it.

Why Did I Read This? – 1.4% - When I read a submission, I want to feel like I got something out of reading it. I want to be entertained or enlightened. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to get out of reading these submissions.

Other – 4.91% - These rejections didn’t fit in any of the other categories. Many of the submissions in this category just didn’t match my personal taste. For example, I didn’t like an author’s choppy writing style, or a nonfiction piece was too informational and didn’t have enough of a narrative.

Predictable – .47% - Within the first few paragraphs, I knew exactly how the story was going to end. I always skipped ahead to see if I was correct. With these submissions, I was correct.

Nothing Happens – 18.22% - Nothing important happens within the first 3-5 pages of a story, or nothing happens at all in a poem.

Confusing – 14.72% - Something in the submission was confusing, unclear, or needed more explanation for me to fully understand or appreciate it.

Lacking Character Development – 2.57% - The characters were underdeveloped.

A Lesson In Being Realistic From “The Simpsons’”

First, we’ve just had our 1000^th hit on this blog. I know that some of those are referrer spam, but I’m excited anyway. Thank you for reading.

~*~

One of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons’ is “Diatribe of a Mad Housewife.” In that episode, Homer buys an ambulance, and Marge meets an author named Esmé Delacroix during an author reading at a bookstore. While listening to the reading, Marge decides that she could write a romance novel, even though she’s never attempted to write one before. During the Q&A after the reading, Marge asks Esmé, “If I write a book, will they tell me when it comes out?” Esmé’s response is, “Well, they should.”

Marge missed one of the most difficult steps in the writing process: actually finding someone to publish your work.

For the last few years, I’ve been working as an editor for a literary journal and an anthology. One of the best things that learning to be an editor has taught me is how to be realistic about publishing. It can be insanely difficult to get your work published. I know that new writers hear this all the time, but I don’t think they fully grasp the meaning of “insanely difficult.”

Here’s an example. We finished editing our anthology a few months ago. The anthology received nearly 400 submissions from authors all over the world. Do you know how many of those submissions we’re publishing? Twenty-seven. That’s it. Twenty-seven out of nearly 400. It’s not because we only got twenty-seven good submissions. We received hundreds of good submissions, and we spent a lot of time discussing them before we decided which ones to accept and which ones to reject. We’re publishing those twenty-seven submissions because they’re well-written and represent the theme of the anthology. We had to reject a lot of great submissions because they just didn’t fit with the theme of the anthology.

Over the last few years, I’ve learned that getting your writing published is about talent and luck. Yes, you have to be a good writer, but you also have to find an editor/publisher/company/journal/anthology that’s publishing the kind of stuff that you write. The twenty-seven writers who will be published in our anthology are all extremely talented, but they were also lucky enough to stumble across the submission guidelines for an anthology that was looking for the kind of stuff that they write.

Many rejection letters contain some version of the phrase, “Thank you for submitting, but this piece isn’t what we’re looking for right now.” That’s not a lie or a platitude. Your piece really isn’t what they’re looking for right now. That’s where the “insanely difficult” comes in. It can be hard to know what they’re looking for, even if you’re familiar with the type of work that they publish. All you can really do is submit and hope that you get lucky.

In “Diatribe of a Mad Housewife,” Marge did get lucky. Her novel was published and sold a lot of copies, despite getting horrible reviews. Publishing in real life isn’t quite that simple.     

Why Do Bad Books Get Published?

I’ve been reading a lot of Goodreads reviews lately, and I’ll often come across one that says, “This book is horrible. How did it ever get published?”

So, why do bad books get published?

In my opinion, it’s rare that a bad book gets published by a traditional publisher. (Self-publishing is a whole different animal that I’m not going to deal with here.) Usually, the staff at traditional publishing houses knows what they’re doing, and they reject the bad books. Books that are poorly written, confusing, boring, etc. are rejected.

I can hear you saying, “But I’ve read traditionally-published books that are poorly written, confusing, boring, etc.” I encourage you to go on Goodreads or Amazon and check out the rating frequency for the book that you think is bad. Does the book have more 4-5 star ratings than 1-2 star ratings? If the book has more than a few ratings, I’m betting that the majority of them are 4-5 stars. That means that most readers enjoyed this book and didn’t think that it was bad.

Why did you think the book was bad when so many other people loved it? Probably because you’re not that particular book’s target audience. For some reason, the book just didn’t work for you. That doesn’t mean that the book is bad, it just means that the book isn’t your type of thing, and that’s okay. I hate a lot of books that everyone else loves.

The Twilight series is a good example of books that people either love or hate. Some people believe that the series is about a strong, determined woman who wants a family and will do anything to protect that family once she has it. Other people believe that the series is about a weak woman who doesn’t think that she can live without her abusive boyfriend. There is plenty of evidence in the text of the series to support both of these views, so neither one is incorrect. The Twilight series has way more 4-5 star ratings on Goodreads than 1-2 star ratings. A lot of people must be reading the series the first way. Can you really argue that a book is bad and shouldn’t have been published if it’s working for so many people? Publishers want to publish books that work for the majority of people because that’s how they make money.

You can make a strong argument that the Twilight books are bad because they’re poorly written, but how much should the quality of the writing factor into a publisher’s decision to publish? Are other elements of the book more important than the writing? You can also argue that the books are bad because the main characters are poor role models for young people, but is it really a book’s job to be a role model for young people? I don’t know the answers to these questions. If you have an opinion, I’d love to hear it in the comments.

Do books that are almost universally hated ever get published? Yes, occasionally. The people who work at publishing companies are human. They make mistakes. They sometimes misjudge a book’s appeal or have a hard time getting a book to its target audience. However, I think it’s fairly rare that a book published by a large company is universally hated. The staff is usually very talented at finding good books and getting them to the public. If they weren’t, the company wouldn’t be in business for very long because nobody would be buying their books.

For more information on this topic, check out this video by fantasy author Brandon Sanderson.

Editorial Philosophy

This was originally a school assignment, but I found it interesting because I’ve never thought about my personal editorial philosophy before.  It helped me understand my reactions to certain pieces of literature.  I thought that it might also be interesting to authors, so I’m posting it here.  I know that I’m not the only person who has these opinions.

 

~*~

 

There are many elements that I look for when determining whether or not a story should be published.  The first is imagery, which seems simple because most stories should have it, but I’m the type of person who thinks in pictures and whose senses are closely tied to memory.  When I look at the hundreds of books on my shelves, in my drawers, and spilling out of my closet, I often don’t remember the names and backstories of the characters.  Sometimes, I don’t even remember the book’s plot.  What I do remember is the imagery, and when I think about the story months or years after reading it, the imagery is always the first thing that comes back to me.  I can take a book off my shelf and say, “This novel has a scene of a mother and daughter walking in a river,” or “This literary magazine has a story where a man puts wood carvings of people on his fireplace mantel.”  I want stories that have strong imagery because those are the ones that I remember and want to read over and over.

 
Since I enjoy reading a piece many times, I look for writing that will hold up to multiple readings without becoming uninteresting.  I like stories with layers.  I love to read a story a second or third time and see things that I missed the first time. 

 
I want to read about characters with intricate pasts, complex motives, believable desires, and psychological depth.  I prefer main characters who are active, not just reactive, and definitely not just victims.  I like characters who take control of their lives and make the events in the plot happen.  I don’t want to see them only reacting to events that were created by circumstance or by less-important characters.  Some reaction is fine, of course, but I also want to see the character doing/creating/causing something.  I get annoyed by characters who are victims and nothing else.  If a character is being bullied or targeted by bad guys, there has to be a good reason.  I want to see the character do something to change the situation and not just mope around feeling sorry for himself/herself.

 
I enjoy reading many different types of stories, but I most often find myself being drawn to stories that are quirky and unpredictable.  I have heard people say, “There’s no such thing as an original idea,” and maybe that’s true, but I definitely think that there are original combinations of ideas.  I love it when I read a story and see some combination that I’ve never seen before or think about something familiar in an entirely new way.  I want stories that entertain me as well as make me think and keep me guessing.  I have very little tolerance for predictability.  It’s disappointing to guess the end of a story, flip to the last page, and discover that I’m correct.

 
I look for stories that make me feel something.  I’m always happy when some element in the first few pages of a story makes me sit up and pay attention.  I want plots that make me so curious that I can’t put the story down until I find out what happens next.  I want to feel the tension that comes from reading faster and faster until I find out what happens.  I also want characters that I can care about.  The characters don’t have to be likeable or be good people, but they have to be intriguing enough that I care about what happens to them.  The best stories are the ones where I care about the characters so much that I’m anxious when they’re in trouble, and I’m happy when they achieve their goals.  I have read so many stories that involve breakups and makeups, death and destruction, plans thwarted and battles won that I sometimes feel as if I’ve become emotionally numb to those types of stories.  I always appreciate it when an author gets me invested enough in the plot and characters that the story’s events have an emotional impact on me.  

 
I don’t have as much experience with poetry as I do with novels and short stories, but I’m most drawn to poems that play with language and sound beautiful when read out loud.  I also like poems that are able to say a lot with very few words and have strong imagery.

 
I prefer nonfiction that has a narrative and is both entertaining and educational.  I want to learn something without feeling as if I’m learning something.  I’ve never enjoyed reading a textbook.

 
I have a love/hate relationship with memoirs because there are so many poorly-written ones out there.  It seems as if anyone who is slightly famous or had something slightly interesting happen to them publishes a memoir, even if they’ve never written anything before in their life.  I dislike memoirs that are self-indulgent.  I’m reading the book because I want to hear a good story, not because I want to hear about the awesomeness of the author.  I enjoy memoirs that skip some of the “I,” “I,” “I,” “Me,” “Me,” “Me,” and focus on being entertaining and educational.

 
That’s my editorial philosophy as of right now.  It will probably change in the future.  Thanks for reading it.  

 

Crappy Editing Solves/Ruins/Creates Mysteries

If your bookshelves are anything like mine, almost all of your books come from one of five large publishing companies.  However, there are thousands of publishing companies out there.  I wanted to know what kinds of books the smaller companies are publishing.  I bought a book published by a small company.  It was horrible.  It was possibly the most disappointing book I’ve ever read.  I know that small publishers are capable of producing quality books, but this book was just bad.  It made me feel sad for the author because it’s the publishing company’s job to not publish something until it’s ready.  This book was not ready.

 

Here’s what happens in the book:

A wealthy business owner’s son goes missing and is assumed to have been kidnapped.  Two detectives are hired by two different people to find the son.  The detectives don’t know that they’ve been hired to work on the same case until they meet in a bar and start talking about their cases.  One of the detectives says something like, “I know what happened right before the business owner’s son died.”  The other detective doesn’t react to the news that they guy who they’re both looking for is dead.  They just end their conversation, go their separate ways, and continue looking for the missing son.  Nothing else is said about the son being dead.

I spent about two-thirds of the book being massively confused and rereading to figure out why I was massively confused.  Why were the detectives still treating this case like a missing person case if they knew that the son was dead?

Then, at the end of the book, the detectives find the son’s body and don’t seem surprised that he’s dead, but the way that the dead-body-discovery scene is written feels as if the death is meant to surprise the reader.  It wasn’t a surprise to me because the detective said that the son was dead two-hundred pages ago.

I’m still confused.  I have a feeling that the author changed some scenes, and the dialogue about the son’s death wasn’t supposed to be in the published version of the book.  I can’t come up with another reason why the detectives would continue looking for someone who they knew was dead.  It would also explain why one detective didn’t react when the other detective said that the son was dead.  The mistake led to me being confused for the majority of the book.  If I didn’t have a compulsive need to finish every book that I start reading, I would have put this one down and not picked it up again.

This is why good editing is so important.  One misplaced line ruined an entire book.  (Well, one misplaced line and about eighty distracting typos ruined an entire book).  So, edit carefully. 



Semi-Coherent Writing The Rockies Notes

Writing the Rockies = awesomeness.  If you haven’t heard of it, Writing the Rockies is a conference that’s held on the campus of Western State Colorado University in Gunnison, Colorado.  This year, it was July 25 – July 28.  The conference offers sessions on popular genre fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, and publishing.  Attendees can go to different sessions or focus on one area.

The college campus is beautiful.  I wanted to take more pictures, but every time I wasn’t busy, it was either dark or raining.  It’s raining hard in this picture:

The college has an organic garden, parking spaces reserved for fuel-efficient vehicles, and wants you to sort your recycling in to a hundred different categories, but it waters its lawns during a downpour.  I found that amusing.

~*~

The conference came at the end of my two-week residency at the school (I was there working on this.  Please submit).  I didn’t get much sleep during the two weeks because my on-campus apartment was loud, hot, and buggy.  By the time I got to the conference, I was in exhausted zombie-mode.  However, the conference was amazing.  I loved it.  I took about 6 pages of notes, and some of them are actually coherent.

I went to all of the publishing sessions and all of the keynotes.  Here are a few of the things I learned:

1.        Many authors don’t understand what a publishing company does.

A publishing company usually doesn’t print books.  They hire book-printing companies to do that.  Publishing companies find books that will stand out in the marketplace, provide authors with many different types of editorial advice, design the cover and the interior of the book, work with retailers and book distributers, help build the author’s brand, market the book, and handle the legal stuff, such as copyright protection.  Random House explains it all better than me.  (I'm not sure why the videos aren't working on the mobile version of this blog). 

This means that if you want to self-publish, and you don’t want your book to look self-published, you have to either learn how to do all of these things yourself, or you have to hire somebody to do them.  On a slightly-related note, I also learned that the average self-published e-book sells 75 copies.

2.        Social media is important.

One of the authors at the conference said that her publishing company required her to have a website, a blog, a LinkedIn account, a Twitter account, and a Facebook account with at least 5,000 friends or 5,000 “likes.”  All of these social media sites need to be updated regularly by the author.

3.        Press kits are a thing.

I’d never heard of a press kit before.  They can be created by an author or by a publishing company.  The press kit that I saw was a folder which contained a flier that advertised the book, an author bio, and author interview questions with answers.  The press kit is given to anyone who is reviewing the book or interviewing the author.

4.        Find your people before you write.

Authors can start promoting their books before the book is written.  If you write mysteries, go out in real life or on the Internet and find other people who write mysteries.  If you write about cycling, go find cyclists.  Make friends.  Get involved in conversations.  Make some real connections.  Don’t just try to promote your unwritten book.  That could get annoying.  When you do write and publish the book, you’ll already have an audience.   

~*~

My favorite part of the conference was getting to hear pitches for possible anthology stories and poems.  We had an office (okay, it was a classroom) with our names on the door (okay, the names were on a piece of printer paper that was taped to the door), but it was still really cool.  Authors came and talked to us about their stories or poems, and we gave them feedback.  I enjoyed hearing everybody’s ideas.  There are a lot of creative people in the world.

I’m already looking forward to next year’s conference.  If you’re in the Gunnison, Colorado area, I highly recommend coming to Writing the Rockies.