The most painful rejection found on the rejection spectrum is the shortlist rejection. This is where a story is ‘recommended for a second read’ or ‘makes it into the final round’ and then, after the author has been on tenterhooks for six months, is informed it “it failed to hold my attention as well as other stories [shortlisted] did” or “while we liked your submission, so far we have not found a place for it” (as quoted from two real-life examples in my pile of shortlist rejections). The irony is that as you become a better writer, you start receiving more of these devastating ‘close but no cigar’ rebuffs.
Nearly as painful, and far more infuriating, is the ‘faux critique’ rejection. Before I begin to dissect this most detestable specimen in the genus rejectus, let me first say that a good slush reader critique can be invaluable. Early on in my writing career, I sent a story of mine, ‘Trouble With the Locals’, to the erstwhile Australian speculative fiction magazine Andromeda Spaceways, and it came back a couple of months later with a slush reader’s comment that “this story should start around page 3 or 4”. It was nothing short of a revelation. I cut a thousand words of ‘scene setting’ and then sent the story off to another magazine, where it was accepted right away.
Such slushie feedback is especially useful to a writer like me, who exists in something of a literary ivory tower. No one else in my immediate social sphere writes fiction or is inclined to read my work and offer criticism, so practical advice from an objective (and often anonymous) source is pure gold.
It’s unfortunate, then, that so many rejections include critiques that are worthless. Like imitation pearls, they can appear to be the real thing until you examine them more closely.
Most readers and editors who offer these critiques have their hearts in the right place. They don’t want to provide the standard form response with which any author quickly becomes familiar – “Thank you for da-da-da, unfortunately, da-da-da” – so they take the time to add a comment or two. But such comments can make the rejection worse, especially if the reader has missed the point.
Want an example? Here’s a string of fake pearls I received earlier this year:
“While we enjoyed your story a lot, we felt that there was a reveal, or weight at the end of the story that wasn’t conveyed to the reader.”
I must have read that line four or five times in an attempt to make sense of it. Ultimately, I realised the editor or slushie had simply failed to understand the ending, which was subtle and required the reader to connect a number of events that had occurred throughout the story. I’m often shocked at how many readers and editors need to be spoon fed each and every detail.
Faux critiques also tend to be unspecific. Take this one, which I got late last year:
“The dialogue from the point where the vampire shows up really defuses everything that was built to that point.”
Clearly, the editor was encouraging me to review the dialogue in the final pages of the story, but without more focused information it’s impossible to know what to look for. What exactly is defused, and how does the dialogue defuse it? Is there too much exposition? Is it too slow and talky? Are the characters saying things that might be better imparted through description?
Right now, someone is reading this and thinking, What an ingrate. You can’t expect the editor to write an essay in reply to every submission. Well, sir or madam, may I refer you back to that Andromeda Spaceways critique? Nine words. Not exactly War and Peace. Besides, if you can’t impart practical suggestions in your magnanimous little note and you don’t have time to write a longer one, why bother writing a note at all?
The most common faux critiques are the sophomoric kind that Stephen King mocks (to hilarious effect) in his book On Writing. He calls them “maddeningly vague” and later refers to them as “writing-seminar gemmies”. Here are a couple of classic ‘gemmies’ I’ve received over the years.
“The concept of the collective and life for the various creatures is interesting, but unfortunately it didn’t engage me quite like I’d like it to.”
“There’s definitely some good writing here, but it doesn't completely connect.”
Then there are those faux critiques – usually from long established, pro-paying markets – that come with an added a dash of condescension. Note the passive-aggressive use of rhetorical questions in this one:
“At the moment, is this really a science fiction story? Does the story have strong characters and a distinct setting?”
You learn early on that it’s bad etiquette to reply to a rejection and I have never, in the decade or so I’ve seriously been submitting fiction, given in to the urge. The closest I ever came was the day I opened the email containing those two snide, patronising sentences.
The irony is that the story in question has been shortlisted no fewer than four times – it missed the final cut twice, one publication folded, and it is still under consideration at a fourth – so it must have something going for it (not luck, I guess). But setting all that aside, what does this ‘critique’ offer? Disrobed of its haughtiness, it’s just an empty opinion – and we all know what opinions are like and who has them.
Now, lest this blog post be dismissed as nothing more than an embittered rant, allow me to compare and contrast two critiques of the same story, ‘An Odd Man in Opal Creek’, which I decided to retire after ‘campaigning’ it for nearly four years.
The first critique came from a small press magazine I won’t name:
“…while I found the message poignant and the story was well-told, it seemed to drag a bit for me. I can’t seem to put my finger on it, and I apologize for being so nebulous, but the characterization of the alien just didn’t click for me.”
The second critique I received from Aurealis, Australia’s longest-running sci-fi journal, and was the reason I decided to consign ‘An Odd Man in Opal Creek’ to the permanent rejection folder on my computer:
“I also found the alien come to Earth to 'teach' and/or explore was too similar to other stories. It needs something new to give it a twist. At this stage it is too similar in some ways to Behold the Man and The Man Who Fell to Earth.”
These responses are of a similar length, yet one says nothing and the other says everything. The then-editor at Aurealis, Stuart Mayne, didn’t just say “your story was lacking originality”, he actually provided examples of the novels ‘An Odd Man in Opal Creek’ resembled. While I was crushed to discover the story I loved so much had been thought up 40 years earlier, I could at least let it die, grieve for it, and move on. That’s the power of proper criticism. The first critique is sort of amusing – I don’t think any other editor has ever apologised for offering useless feedback – but it’s really just another of King’s gemmies writ large.
Let me leave you now with the most vacuous ‘critique’ I have ever received. I’d almost call it a Zen critique. It was, I suspect, one of several ‘template’ responses from which the slush pile manager could choose depending on the perceived quality of the submission, but that only heightens the inanity. Ready?
“The tale did grab our attention and was a wonderfully written piece but it was found to be lacking that extra something that our published stories in [title] have.”
There you have it, folks. All I need to do is add that extra something and my story will be irresistible.
*DISCLAIMER: This blog post was originally an essay submitted to Cairn Press for its anthology about rejection. It was, uh, rejected.
