The Creative Writer's Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist

Rejection: Putting It in Perspective

121 Rejection: Putting It in Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On a blog titled The Outfit: A Collective of Chicago Crime Writers, Barbara D’Amato writes about persistence in the face of rejection, and she offers up several examples: English author John Creasy, who eventually published 564 books under various names, received 743 rejections before his first acceptance; Sara Paretsky garnered 37 rejections before her first novel sold; Hugh Holton wrote seven 700-page novels before he sold one, which happened to be the fifth of those seven. “Sure, these are people who went on to publish,” D’Amato writes. “But suppose they’d given up at the first, or seventh rejection ?” Crimewriter Sean Chercover, a contributor toThe Outfit, added his own illuminating anecdote in the comments section: An agent responded to my query letter and asked for the first 100 pages of my [manuscript]. A month later, she sent me a very polite e-​ mail, explaining, “the storyline and characters lacked suspense and intensity . . .” She concluded by suggesting that I read some books about how to write, and recommended a few titles. Flash forward to this year’s Thrillerfest: The same agent and I are chatting, she looks down at my nametag and a lightbulb goes on over her head. “We corresponded some time ago,” she says. “How’s the writing coming along?” “Pretty good,” I say, determined not to say “nah-​ nah-​ nah-​ nah-​ nah!” “It’s a very tough business,” she says, “so don’t give up.” “I signed a two-​ book deal with William Morrow and the first book just went into a second printing, so I won’t give up,” I say cheerfully, careful to keep any attitude out of my voice. Her face falls, then she puts a smile on it and hands me her card. “If you’re ever looking to change agents . . .” she says. Rejection is a writer’s constant companion. If you want to write professionally , you’d better get used to rejection because it’s part of the deal. And it’s usually not personal. Only a handful of times have I received unnecessarily nasty rejections, but you have to realize that 122 Getting Published such unpleasantness is more often than not a reflection of the editor who wrote it and not a reflection of you or your work. It’s not a good idea to respond to the editor. Your time is better spent working on a new story, novel, or poem. I still get rejection slips. In fact, I got a standard rejection slip this past week from a magazine edited by someone I know professionally. (I’d like to think that a student on his staff plastered a rejection slip on the story before reading the cover letter, but who knows?) I always explain to my students about the serendipity of the editing process, the whimsy of editors, and then I tell them about my experiences on the editor’s side of the table, how I might be inclined to accept a story one day that I’d reject the next, or how when you read 120 book-​ length manuscripts for a contest, as I did for the Associated Writing Program’s short fiction contest as one of their first readers, you may find five manuscripts that you think are publishable, but if you can pass on only two manuscripts to the final judge, you’ll have to let another three really great ones go. One of the years that I was a first reader, my top pick was chosen by the final judge, but one of the top five that I didn’t pass along ended up getting published by a commercial publisher and doing extraordinarily well. Why didn’t I pick that book to move ahead? I could spot the author’s talent a mile away. In the end, it wasn’t my kind of book. This is the dichotomy of the decision-​ making process: The first part—the winnowing out of manuscripts that clearly weren’t publishable or, if publishable, weren’t in the same league with the final five—seemed fairly objective ; the final decision—picking two of those five to send on to the final judge—was clearly subjective. My theory of the objective/subjective dichotomy in the decision-​ making process was reinforced recently when I pulled from my bookshelf a copy of the late John Gardner’s magazine MSS, the issue (Winter /Spring 1984) that included Gardner’s final editorial choices (he died an untimely...