The Daily Rejection

You guys, I need propping up.

Form R on that full that was requested last week. It hurts so much more because this full was req off a partial so I though I might have been getting somewhere.

I only have two other fulls out now. And they are hitting the 2 1/2 month mark.

:-( I think this is it guys. I think it's just not good enough.

Lots of fulls go over three months. It really sucks to get a form on a full like that though, I certainly had that happen.

Have you put the first chapter up on SYW? Just a thought.

Careful,

Reading is subjective. So she didn't like the end. That's her problem. You still have two more fulls out. And she requested the full off the partial-which proves you can write. She wouldn't have bothered if she didn't like the first 50 pages, right?

And on the form part of the rejection, there are plenty of agencies whose policy is to only ever give a form rejection. I don't think that's a reflection of her feeling on your work at all.

Chin up, hon. You still have two more out. And you only need one to bite to go to the next circle of hell.

Breathe, have a glass of wine or munch some chocolate. You're still in the game.

Just got one of my first rejections. And the first one for this particular manuscript. Pfttt.

The premise was great, but the writing needed some work. It was a nice rejection though and they invited me to submit other works in the future.

Careful, I'm sorry for the R. I know it hurts. Your manuscript is definitely strong if you're getting a full request from a partial. Keep the faith. My fingers are crossed that you get some positive news soon.

eternalised, as far as rejections go, that sounds very promising. Good luck with your querying.

I got a nice rejection today from Uncial Press that didn't seem like a copy/paste. My genre didn't exactly fit into what they were expressly looking for, but they said they were open to hear about anything, so I gave it a shot.

I'm afraid your story really doesn't fit us. While we're not averse to the occasional hard-boiled detective novel or the odd thriller, we really look for books with (a) happy ending, (b)humor, (c)romance, or (d) all of the above. Yours doesn't sound like it fits in that list. We hope you'll find a good home for it, however. Thanks for thinking of us.

Oh well.

Careful, be strong. Accept there may be some flaws in your work, and try to address them. But also accept the good parts, and the insane subjective nature of the agent-hunt. You may not have found the right set of eyeballs, yet.

Filigree said:

Careful, be strong. Accept there may be some flaws in your work, and try to address them. But also accept the good parts, and the insane subjective nature of the agent-hunt. You may not have found the right set of eyeballs, yet.

Click to expand...

I'm so willing to address problems but no agent has ever given me a clue what the problem is. I've only ever gotten forms. Four forms to be exact. The feedback from Betas has either been pretty sparse critiques (but all addressed) along with glowing praise or else I've had one beta try to rewrite the entire story (and for example giving feedback about not knowing MC's hair color and being shocked by it in chapter 4, when it is information clearly given in both ch. 1 and 2)...which just makes you feel like the beta wasn't even reading your book.

Anyway, you come to a point where you realize maybe it's not something you can fix. Maybe its just not a story people want to read.

Careful, your story and the manuscript itself must have something strong going for it to be getting requests at all. Why did the beta try to rewrite the story -- what was the driver behind that? Maybe there's a nugget of constructive feedback you can mine from their thinking, even if they went about trying to fix it their way instead of yours.

Personally I don't care what the MC's hair colour is.

I know some people do, but if it's told from their perspective, well you don't really SEE your own hair very often do you? It's certainly not something I think about a lot, or makes a real difference to me. Perhaps that's a female thing.

I do, however, have a habit of tearing beta reads apart, not in a bad way though. I can go over a few chapters if you'd like careful. I am never cruel in my crits, but I do say what I feel.

However, it's entirely possible that there's nothing wrong with your writing. You need great high concept as well these days, if that isn't there, or you're not expressing it well enough that can kill a submission.

Oh, I see you have a chapter on SYW, I'll just mosey on over there and have a look. Please don't take anything too personally, I'm just writing what I feel needs improvement, that doesn't mean it's wrong, just IMO it could be better.

Quickbread said:

Careful, your story and the manuscript itself must have something strong going for it to be getting requests at all. Why did the beta try to rewrite the story -- what was the driver behind that? Maybe there's a nugget of constructive feedback you can mine from their thinking, even if they went about trying to fix it their way instead of yours.

Click to expand...

That beta actually quit on me at ch 4. She was sending me very lengthy critiques on each chapter, which I appreciated except at times it was frustrating because it seemed like she was getting a little ahead of herself---like hold on, let me tell you the story, all this shall be explained. Finally, at ch. 4 I had to respond because she said that there was a scene she thought I needed to cut. In the scene MC is rescuing some puppies that have been abandoned by their mother. It's about 500 words and it's a setup for a subplot. She thought it was pointless, so I just wanted to let her know that it was an important subplot and also that it was meant to foreshadow a theme of mothers who abandon their children. I told her that hoping that once she knew the reason for the scene, maybe she could help me see how to improve it rather than cut it or else let me know how it might work for her. Instead she was like "Ohhhhhh...it's a subplot for a theme. Actually I really don't think I'm the right beta for you."

I apologized to her, telling her that I wasn't trying to be defensive and I appreciated her time and critique and that I would henceforth stfu if she by any chance cared to continue. She never replied.

Oh, I'll check it out there, too.

Quickbread said:

eternalised, as far as rejections go, that sounds very promising. Good luck with your querying.

Click to expand...

Thank you! I'm a bit sad there weren't any other helpful hints in the rejection, like why they thought the writing wasn't strong enough.

Drachen Jager said:

Personally I don't care what the MC's hair colour is.

Click to expand...

It actually does matter in my story because it's one of the early clues that MC (a Muslim boy growing up in Morocco with a Muslim name) is half-American, half-Arab. He has blond hair.

Drachen Jager said:

I do, however, have a habit of tearing beta reads apart, not in a bad way though. I can go over a few chapters if you'd like careful. I am never cruel in my crits, but I do say what I feel.

However, it's entirely possible that there's nothing wrong with your writing. You need great high concept as well these days, if that isn't there, or you're not expressing it well enough that can kill a submission.

Oh, I see you have a chapter on SYW, I'll just mosey on over there and have a look. Please don't take anything too personally, I'm just writing what I feel needs improvement, that doesn't mean it's wrong, just IMO it could be better.

Click to expand...

That chapter is from my WIP, not the book I'm shopping. The book I'm shopping is about the struggle to reconcile moral absolutes with the hand life deals us. Homosexuality and Islam. Religious extremism and why we believe what we do.

If you'd like to beta, I'm a very willing victim!

Well, read what I had to say about your WIP then. You may hate me enough to just put me on your ignore list after reading.

Hehe, or you might ignore me, too. I'm a marker-upper, for better or worse. It's why I don't comment often. People can often take it the wrong way, but really, my thoughts are just intended to be thoughts intended to kickstart other thoughts: the writer's own.

As far as homosexuality and Islam, that sounds super hot and timely to me. Look what's happening in Iraq right now with gay persecution. If that's not high concept, I don't know what is. It sounds fascinating!

Drachen Jager said:

Well, read what I had to say about your WIP then. You may hate me enough to just put me on your ignore list after reading.

Click to expand...

meh. I hated you for three seconds, I can't help it, I'm human. But then I got over myself. Let's stay friends.

Quickbread said:

As far as homosexuality and Islam, that sounds super hot and timely to me. Look what's happening in Iraq right now with gay persecution. If that's not high concept, I don't know what is. It sounds fascinating!

Click to expand...

Yes, but I think that's the problem. I think agents are expecting something sexy and scandalous. But my novel is just about a sweet boy who happens to be gay and a confused woman who's dad happens to be gay and the faith they share. I was trying to capture the universality of the human condition and also the common hope so many share of a life beyond this one. At the same time the inescapable reality of the world we live in.

But now, I'm thinking it's just not controversial enough. It's not going to start some debate or a firestorm. Muslims won't hate it or make any fatwas against it (well some would, but the don't even read anyway). And it doesn't reveal any deep dark Muslim secrets that westerners can sink their teeth into. I could be totally off, but I think this might be the problem (which I don't really see as a problem, since I wouldn't want to write the aforementioned firestorm book anyway).

Well, I don't think this topic needs to be steamy. In my mind anyway, just the theme of gay Muslims carries built-in tension. Place gay in any religious home, and it's a flame-starter. Your story's tension could come mostly from somewhere else, somewhere much more personal to the characters and the plot. And honestly, if you were to write specifically to jazz up the theme, that would likely seem artificial. Much better to write a story about individuals, because so much can happen in small lives that has big reverberations throughout a specific culture and also universally.

Have you used any other novels as guideposts or emulation models for this one? Just curious about your desired approach.

Quickbread said:

Well, I don't think this topic needs to be steamy. In my mind anyway, just the theme of gay Muslims carries built-in tension. Place gay in any religious home, and it's a flame-starter. Your story's tension could come mostly from somewhere else, somewhere much more personal to the characters and the plot. And honestly, if you were to write specifically to jazz up the theme, that would likely seem artificial. Much better to write a story about individuals, because so much can happen in small lives that has big reverberations throughout a specific culture and also universally.

Have you used any other novels as guideposts or emulation models for this one? Just curious about your desired approach.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I answered your question before without answering it so I'm trying again deleting and editing. Yes, I was writing a story about two individual struggles to reconcile faith and sexuality. I think maybe the problem for agents is that my characters don't abandon their faith when it becomes inconvenient, rather their faith morphs into something more universal and open. And since that faith is Islam, it's hard for most westerners to stomach that it's even possible for that faith to be universal or open. Because I am writing strong Muslim heros/heroines in this story and actually one of my MC's is a convert, I haven't ever come across a novel that is similar in content. In approach, it's pretty quick. 2 POVs, scenes average 500-1000 words. There are about 50 chaps and its only 74,000words. It reminds me a little of James Patterson's Thank Heaven.

In my novel there is plenty of drama. But no sex. :-/ A mistake, perhaps.

Have you looked at other culture-clashing novels, especially ones that take place in the US? I'm not terribly well read in this category, but a few literary novels come to mind: One Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan, and Julia Otsuka's two books, When the Emperor Was Divine and also The Buddha in the Attic. I'm sure there are some other more relevant examples, but these novels contain a lot of drama, without sensationalism, and they also capture in everyday ways how the clash of the character's culture impacts the self -- and how that affects people's lives.

If sex doesn't fit in your novel, then it shouldn't be there. As long as your novel holds true to its story and you've shaped it into the absolute best vehicle for telling that story, that's all you can hope for ... sez me, anyway.

Careful, without meaning to sound too bitter, I'd caution you to screen your betas well. Some are better than others, or at least more-experienced readers. Sounds like this one may have been out of her depth.

Filigree said:

Careful, without meaning to sound too bitter, I'd caution you to screen your betas well. Some are better than others, or at least more-experienced readers. Sounds like this one may have been out of her depth.

Click to expand...

Yes, in the end, that's what I had to tell myself. It was a confusing experience because she was the only beta to offer lengthy negative critiques so I didn't want to brush her opinion aside entirely. But in the end, that's what I had to do.
I actually only ever got 3 betas that I didn't know offer to read and she was one of the 3. The rest of my betas (11) were friends/acquaintances some of whom are professional writers (journalists) some who are aspiring writers like me.

I hired an editor from The Writer's Workshop in November and she gave me a 3,000 word report on the ms. This was immensely helpful and I spent all of December on a rewrite based on her comments. Since the rewrite, I've only had two people beta with no terribly helpful crits. One loved loved loved it. The other one, it wasn't at all the type of thing she ordinarily reads (she's a YA rom fan) so she seemed to slog through it, she had a couple of scenes she felt were preachy (which was very helpful and I got right on that) but that was basically it.

I feel humbled by some of the outrageous numbers of rejections some of you have received. I'm up to a modest 10 actual responses myself (9 of which were "form" rejections -- the one personal was nice but "no thanks.") and 6 no responses of over 8 weeks...

Heya guys! Guess what? Even when you have an agent it doesn't mean you're done looking for an agent....

Sometimes things don't work out.

That means I get to re-join this misfit crew of merrymakers as we sail the uncharted waters of the Query Sea in search of plunder, booty and eager representatives for our literary endeavours.