FIRST REJECT--WORD WARS

I would love to get a rejection letter like that instead of the standard form letter! It looks as though the editor actually read the chapters you submitted pretty thoroughly and even offered a veiled suggestion or two on how to improve it.

Yes, you are fortunate to get a personal and on the whole complimentary response from an agency. You should be encouraged by this.

Actually, I'm not at all sure this letter should provoke you to do anything with your story. It's an opinion, with some degree of nicety to it. Look at your manuscript again and make your own independent decision about further alteration.

Also, be aware of this: Despite the famous clichéd platitude, this rejection has NOT got you one step further toward acceptance. It's a rejection. That's all. You're still at square zero. I know. I've had exactly the same thing happen, nice personalized rejection, encouraging initially, led to absolutely nothing in the way of further progress in the publishing game. Feel good about it, but don't go off the deep end.

bird

triceretops said:

Mr. Stevenson,I apologize for the very lengthy time that it has taken me to get back toyou. I've finally read the sample that you sent me and reluctantly I'm goingto pass on the opportunity to represent it. Clearly you write very well andI like the story concept, but I just kept have trouble picturing the worldyou were describing and I didn't feel compelled to keep reading. I'm sureanother agent will see this differently, and I wish you the best of luckwith it.Thank you for the opportunity to consider your work, and for your patience. Got this first rejection from Mike Psaltis Agency today. It's kind of encouraging, and looks like my atmosphere might be in need of some more explaination.This was on three chapters, so it's not really defined yet whatsome of the other problems might be.Tri

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I'm with the others on this, Tri. At least you received a personalized response. (I'd be thrilled to just be asked for chapters at this point.) He apparently did get into "your world" enough to like the concept so if you decide to tweak it, it probably wouldn't take much. However, as someone sagely said, it has to be your call. Have you used a beta reader? That might give you an idea whether Psaltis has a valid point or not.

Sounds like you are definitely on your way. Good luck from one ex-law to another!