New Rejection Phrase

It translates as "I don't want to buy this." That's all.

caw.

Popmuse--you certainly did pull up one I've never heard. Could it mean that the narrator was too sentimental or dated? Pervassive is a strong term. I take this to be intrusive or determined? I realize this is a "no" but I love trying to figure out this damn code talk from editors. Most of it, I do understand and I can take the advice and apply it, cause most of it is very accurate where I've made goofs in my text. So I'm always on the lookout for clues or hints.

Is this book in first person singular? Just currious. The word "narrator" is mentioned. This might also be the protag, I'm assuming. Do you have a character living in the contemporary world that sees everything in the "rear view mirror?" Too many flashbacks--dreaming of the past?

Tri

I'd take that phrase to mean, "obsessed with the past", but that's just MHO.

In the very first fiction class I taught, I received a 3000 word short story that had a dozen flashbacks within it. Looking back, I could have wrote. . .pervasive tendency to nostalgia. Instead, I just said. "too many flashbacks; you're stalling the pace of the story."

JAlpha, you're the teacher for me!

Tri

"pervasive tendency to nostalgia," isn't even good grammar. Both "tendency" and "nostalgia" are nouns. This sentence does not make sense. A person could have a pervasive tendency to become nostalgic or a pervasive tendency to write nostalgic verse or talk about nostalgic matter but he cannot have a pervasive tendency to nostalgia. This clause needs a verb. I wouldn't contact the editor for clarification, though.

janetbellinger said:

"pervasive tendency to nostalgia," isn't even good grammar. Both "tendency" and "nostalgia" are nouns. This sentence does not make sense. A person could have a pervasive tendency to become nostalgic or a pervasive tendency to write nostalgic verse or talk about nostalgic matter but he cannot have a pervasive tendency to nostalgia. This clause needs a verb. I wouldn't contact the editor for clarification, though.

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From an editor's point of view, it makes perfect sense. As grammar, it's poor, but as an explanation, it's dead on. I've seen it used, and I've used it myself, though I do believe I phrased it better.

It's just about impossible to read an editor's mind, but for me, this phrase means "You spend way too much time in the past, or thinking about the past."

Jamesaritchie said:

From an editor's point of view, it makes perfect sense. As grammar, it's poor, but as an explanation, it's dead on. I've seen it used, and I've used it myself, though I do believe I phrased it better.

It's just about impossible to read an editor's mind, but for me, this phrase means "You spend way too much time in the past, or thinking about the past."

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When Jamesaritchie mentioned that he has seen this phrasing before, it prompted me to look up the word 'nostalgia' in a dictionary of literary terms.

Nostalgia: a sense of estrangement from a time gone by, a good place to which one ambiguously wishes to return.

This may indicate that the editor was referring to something regarding your protagonist's characterization, rather than the structural element of flashbacks per say.

triceretops said:

JAlpha, you're the teacher for me!

Tri

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Thank you, Triceritops;you may go to the head of the class

I agree that this is difficult to puzzle out. It could be stylistist, or the perogative of the MC to mull over insufferable instances in his/her life, which might make the reader go bonkers. It has to be tied in to the manuscript, and more specifically genre, voice, tense and so on. I would suggest that the author have some betas read it for this identifying factor, or post some of this work on the SYW forum for perusal. And even then it might be difficult to spot unless we know exactly where in the text this appears most prevelant.

I once had a an agent tell me that in my first three chapters I got As for everything, but my world-building sucked and he wasn't inclined to read further.
Problem was, I don't know where in the pages I derailed him. What's worse, I didn't know what aspect about my world-building blew him off. There were and are always several aspects.

Sociology
Technology
language
Physical structures--buildings, glidewalks, materials, transportion
Monetary exchange
city, state, federal government politics
Cuisine
Dress

Apparently he came to a point in the pages where he said, "All right...that did it!"

I didn't have the heart to write him back and ask him. Perhaps I should have.

Tri

Ah, much clearer on that, Pop. I HAD a gut feeling that it was a first person narrative story and that there might have been a lot of inner thought/reflection going on. Can you bust it up and put some action in there? Try to avoid a diary type atmosphere if you can. but then again, like you said, do send that puppy out some more and more and more and more.

Cheers,

Tri

You know what? It's not too late for you. And I've heard of a few people here at AW who emailed back and got nice responses. So I would give a whirl. I wish that I would have done it. Perhaps my SF world wouldn't be crumbing so much if I had done that.

Tri

popmuze said:

Much of my rewrites over the past year have been attempting to do just that. Which is why, like you, I feel it would be important for me to know if the editor read the entire book, fifty pages, or ten pages. But would it be obnoxious for me to ask that question in a follow up email?

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It would be self-defeating. Don't ask an editor who rejected your work to serve as a critique partner. Not her job, plus they don't have the time.

popmuze said:

Sorry to be so late back to my own thread. Actually, I was writing some nostalgic liner notes for an upcoming boxed set.While writing the essay I had an epiphany about what the editor probably meant.

However, first let me take the blame for the ungrammatical phrase that started the ball rolling. It was my own editing job that created it. The actual sentence was "While I can understand and even emphathize with (the narrator's) tendency to nostalgia, I ultimately found it too pervasive." Another sentence includes the phrase "I thought the reminiscent tone of the novel robbed it of immediacy..."

Thinking about this now, I guess I don't really need to go back to the editor for clarification, since the whole story is pretty much written as a flashback from the present, covering fifty years in the narrator's life.

I guess I just need to find an editor who appreciates nostalgia as much the first person narrator obviously does.

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To use more poor grammar, it's the same difference. Nostalgia can be a good thing, but like flashbacks and cayenne pepper, it's best used in very small doses, and only when needed.

Telling a story as a flashback is a perfectly good way of telling a story, and needn't involve nostalgia in any way.

omniscient

popmuze said:

The other question I have is if I might have better luck avoiding the "diary" effect if I changed to an ominiscient narrator.

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You might, but then you would have a brand new problem. A lot of new writers want to write in teh omniscient POV, but this is never a good selling tool. Just over 90% of all published novels are written in third person limited, and most of the rest are in first person.

Your problem sounds to me as no more and no less than using nostalgia. It isn't a diary atmosphere or first person that's the problem. Neither has anything to do with nostalgia. "Nostalgia" is a noun. It's a thing in and of itself. It's something the POV character is actively doing. He's actively being nostalgic, and unless you change his actions, the problem will still be there with any POV.