Archive for the 'Musings' Category

Reflections in the Stacks

Posted February 11, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: .

I’m sitting in a cozy chair in a bookstore down the street from where I live, as I’m writing this. It’s my first attempt to blog from my phone and we’ll see how it goes.

Walking in, I was struck pretty quickly by just how long it’s been since I wandered into a real, physical bookstore with time to kill, just to browse.

I go to bookstores fairly often. Borderlands, here in San Francisco, hosts lots of readings, signings and other events, and it’s become my “local” the way some people have a local pub. But I’m always going there with a purpose. To listen to a reading, see the cats, to meet clients or colleagues, to buy something specific or to escort an out-of-town guest who wants to buy a book for the trip home. But just to browse? Not very often at all.

Walking in, I was struck also by just how many books there are. That seems like a silly sort of epiphany to have in a bookstore, I suppose, especially if you’re in the book making business. Or maybe it might not seem so strange at all.

I’m surrounded by books all the time, in a way. I spend my days (and often my evenings, and my weekends…) with files that are destined to be books, and files that hope to be books. I write to people about books. I advise them and promote them and remind them to send their acknowledgements and dedications and blurbs. I keep up with the whole ebook debacle, and maybe spend more time reading about Agency Models and DRM than I should. I sleep and breathe books. It’s not the same, though, as walking through row after row of the finished product.

There’s a certain energy to it, probably because there’s a certain habit of working so intently with the raw materials that we lose sight of the finished product.

How do you feel when you walk through rows of books? Envious of their authors? Curious about their advances, or what specific obstacles were defeated to get each book where it is? Do you feel a renewed sense of determination and ambition? Do you look for the places on the shelves where your books would be filed? Do bookstores frustrate you, or inspire you?

Immersing yourself in the process and the work it takes to get there is a good thing, but stepping back and looking at the goal is a good thing, too. Books are what we’re all about. Take some time to appreciate them, what goes into them, how many of them there are… and what a fantastic thing it is–or will someday be–to see yours among them.

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Slush Rush Wrap-up

Posted January 25, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , , , , .

Initial responses have now been sent on all the queries I received during the Dragon Moon Press open submissions period. If you have not received either a rejection or a request for a full manuscript, I did not receive your query. Make sure you check the address posted in the submission guidelines and try again.

For a relatively-unadvertised submission period during a month that’s usually hectic for everyone, the volume was encouraging without being overwhelming. It was a great experience and I’ll definitely be doing it again.

    The useful stat breakdowns:

Full manuscripts were requested on just under 10% of submissions. Out of that 10%, I am making an offer to one (1) so far. (Yes, that one knows who they are.) I have not yet received or read all requested fulls.

About 25% of submissions did not comply with the posted submission guidelines, with deviations including (in order of frequency): submitting to the wrong address, lack of synopsis, lack of title (oops!), lack of sample pages and use of attachments.

No submissions were rejected for non-compliance. That is to say, I didn’t receive any queries that would have been accepted had they followed the guidelines more closely; the submissions that did not follow the guidelines had other issues which made them unsuitable.

    Reasons for rejection, in descending order of frequency:

1. The writing simply wasn’t good enough – Mediocre writing or storytelling, wooden and uncompelling characters; consistently poor grammar and sentence structure, etc. Just not at a publishable level.

2. Major plot flaws too deep to change – The premise was deeply flawed, too predictable or overused without offering anything new or notable, wasn’t compelling, or went in a direction that I didn’t think worked.

3. Too slow to get started, or so heavy-handed at setting up a plot that it all just felt contrived and sloppy – These submissions had fifteen pages to get me hooked and make me care. If nothing happened in those first fifteen, I wasn’t interested enough to keep going, and a customer wouldn’t keep reading, either. There’s some overlap here with #1, but sometimes the story can still be flat and not go anywhere even if the quality of the writing is good.

4. Too similar to something already published. OR, used characters or worlds copyrighted or licensed to someone other than the author, or otherwise contained inherent rights issues – Don’t try to get your fanfic published, kids, unless you’re trying to get it published by whatever company officially licenses it.

5. Not a fit. Non-fiction, true crime, gratuitous torture, sexual torture, sexual slavery and gore, mainstream fiction, spy thrillers, mysteries, and bodice rippers.

6. Good, but not quite there yet. Show me the author’s next one.

    The not-so-useful stat breakdowns:

(Trends that had no bearing on acceptance decisions, but are interesting to note)

* Genre breakdown:

    54% fantasy / dark fantasy
    26% urban fantasy
    15% science fiction / speculative fiction
    5% outside DMP’s range (non-fic, etc.)

* Gender breakdown: 40% female authors, 60% male.

* Manuscripts utilizing real historical figures as main or important characters: 5

* Manuscripts previously released as podcast fiction: 4

* Manuscripts that compared themselves to Twilight: 3

* Demons and angels were more popular than vampires by a margin of 4:1

* Manuscripts featuring gender-swapping or other body-swapping: 2

* Abrasive or insulting queries: 2

* Manuscripts with prologues: 20%

* Manuscripts submitted in languages other than English: 1

* Countries represented: 10 — a very respectable showing!

Thanks for participating, everyone, and keep writing.

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Hugo Nominations Now Open

Posted January 4, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , , , .

Nominations are now open for the 2010 Hugo Awards, recognizing excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy.

Members of last year’s Worldcon in Montreal and members who register for this year’s Worldcon in Melbourne are eligible to nominate and vote. You can also make your recommendations to other voters (and get an idea of theirs) at the hugo_recommend livejournal community.

2010 is the first year that I am eligible for a nomination in the Best Editor, Long Form category. The simple fact of being eligible is a thrill.

Being eligible, though, isn’t the same as being worthy.

Lou Anders, Editorial Director at Pyr, said it best in the Editors’ Roundtable interview in which we both participated for Clarkesworld Magazine last summer. He said:

    …discussing the “Best Editor—Long Form” Hugo[, one reader] stated, “Well, I don’t know how much the editing improved or hurt the original manuscript so I don’t know how to vote.” I don’t think that’s the part of an editor’s job that need concern the reader. Rather, it’s the mere fact that they are reading the book in question at all, versus any one of the hundreds of other manuscripts and pitches that crossed the editor’s desk in a specific year. I get pitched maybe two to three times a day now, and out of that, I select/publish under 30 books a year. So it isn’t so much about whether I caught a typo on page 256, or said, “Do you think you need to explain that obscure reference a little clearer?” —it’s the fact that you are reading the book at all that counts.

Winning a Hugo someday is a dream of mine, of course, but doing consistent Hugo-worthy work is my real goal. My work is not Hugo-worthy yet, but I’m on the right path, learning my way one step at a time.

In 2009, Dragon Moon Press published six books in which I was deeply involved. DMP published perhaps a similar number to which I contributed a single proofreading pass, but that I don’t consider “my” books in the same way, and that I don’t count as my credits on my own website or on sites like the SF Editorwatch wiki.

Of those six books, only one was chosen for publication by me. I keep saying that publishing is a slow business? Well, all those contracts were already signed and sealed before I took on my role as Editor-in-Charge.

The “best editor” Hugo isn’t about catching the most typos or bringing about the best transformation from manuscript to final draft. It’s about having the eye to pick out exceptional manuscripts and bring books and authors of consistent and reliable quality to print.

Before I set out as an editor, I worked as a pricing analyst for a large publishing house. It was my job to work on sales forecasts, using past history and like items to determine how many copies a book would sell, so that we would know how many copies to print. I was in the business because I love the books, first and foremost, so I read all the books I could get my hands on.

I read the books that sold well; I read the books that didn’t sell well. I read the books that were fads that quickly faded and the books that were consistent classics. And when I read the books with the sales numbers at my side and my “trend-spotting” reflexes sharply honed, I started to develop an eye for the qualities that make a book a classic — the characteristics that make it great, and enduring.

It was with that behind me that I went into professional editing, and it’s from that experience that I still draw. In 2009, I stepped out from behind the red pencil and into the slush pile. As a result, you’ll be seeing a lot more of “my” picks in 2010, and I’m excited about the books you’ll be seeing from us. We’ve got some excellent fantasy and science fiction lined up.

Starting in 2011, I’ll be able to say “I chose these books for you.” That’ll be another big step closer to that goal, and you can be sure that I’ll be working all year with determination, ambition and integrity to get there and keep going.

This year, it’s a big enough thrill just to be eligible, and to have the opportunity to discover great books and great authors. It’s been an honor and a joy to work with great writers, and to meet and learn from some of the most talented and insightful minds in the industry in 2009, and the future only looks brighter. “Begin as you mean to go on,” they say at each new year — here’s looking ahead to a brilliant 2010.

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Stereotype as Filler

Posted December 21, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

The easiest way to make a support character feel like a gratuitous plot-enabler is to make them a stereotype, to fill the same sort of niche we always see them fill.

“A rude waitress has to spill the coffee on her so that she has to go home and change clothes and that’s how she avoids being downtown when the aliens attack.”

I’m tired of the rude waitress, the inept cop, the mean teacher, and the insensitive doctor. On the whole, people with these behaviors don’t tend to stay in these jobs very successfully, or very long. They’re used as exceptions, because there’s humor or drama or something eyecatching in the exception, but the novelty that drives these exceptions and makes them interesting is lost when the exceptions become the norm. Then they just become plot devices, and it shows.

When you use a cliche, ask yourself why you’re using it and if it needs to be there. Chances are that it doesn’t, but if you really want a character to be a stereotype, just find an interesting way to use the device. Give them a reason for it. They could start out okay and have their behavior degrade over time, for some interesting reason. They could realize their trouble and try to grow and change, and let the reader cheer them on. Or there could be some reason for it that we discover, that helps us understand why they behave the way they do, or why they’re in the job they’re in despite not being a great match for it. The police chief hiring his inept son as a cop has been done a million times, but at least it supplies a reason for the cop to be inept.

I’d rather see a bad guy elude a skilled cop — that takes more talent! I’d rather see a well-meaning waitress spill coffee on someone and feel awful about it. That adds more to the story. And I’d like to see the conflict in a sensitive doctor who still has to deliver bad news. That’s where a minor character shines and brings depth to a story, even if they’re only “on screen” for a couple of pages.

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Does Size Matter?

Posted December 3, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , , .

Submissions are going very well so far! I’ve received more than a handful of manuscripts, from authors representing four countries and five genres, and more are trickling in every day.

The question I’m asked the most about Dragon Moon Press’s open submissions is how firm the word-count guidelines are. “My book is shorter than 80,000. Can I still send it to you?” or “My book is longer than 100,000. Can I still send it to you?”

I thought I’d address that here, because I’m not going to make individual judgment calls on a manuscript by manuscript basis.

The first rule of sending out your work — whether it’s to an editor, a publisher, an agent, whatever — is all about picking your market, making sure you’re a good fit and you know what they’re looking for, but it really boils down to “Don’t send people what they say they don’t want.”

In Dragon Moon’s case, “what they don’t want” is non-fiction of any form, children’s fiction, incomplete fiction, short fiction… They publish science fiction and fantasy, and their imprint brings along an expectation that a book with the little dragon and moon on the spine will have elements of the magical or otherworldly. Things that don’t fit that mold, won’t make that cut. Even if they’re good, they’re just not a fit.

Sometimes the guidelines can be a little more fluid. That’s why they’re guidelines and not rules. Word count is one of those fluid ones — that’s why we use a range, in the first place. An article usually has to be a specific length to fit well into a certain allotment of pages in a periodical, and a short-fiction submission often will have the same kinds of restraints to take into account, but a book is different. A book often has more leeway. In general, a book should be as long as it needs to be, to tell the story it needs to tell.

If your word count falls outside the specified range for a particular call for submissions:

Is it close? Being 5% or even 10% off the guidelines isn’t huge. At worst it’ll get rejected, but probably not for word count.

Is it more than 10% off from what the publisher is seeking? More than 20%? That’s not a trivial difference, that’s a significant one. Again, the worst you’ll get is rejected, but if you know it’s not what someone’s looking for then you also know your odds of success are probably rather small.

However, unlike genre and plot and style, word count is something that’s easy to change. If your word count falls outside the posted guidelines, you have three options:

1. Don’t send it. It’s not what they’re looking for.

Certainly a viable option, though you may be interpreting the guidelines too rigidly and denying yourself a potential opportunity.

2. Send it anyway. It’s a fit in all other respects, and if they like it they’ll be willing to overlook the word count, or work with you on it.

There are always exceptions, but it’s never a good idea to go into a situation assuming that exceptions will be made for you. If it’s close to the requested word count, then the chances that word-count will be overlooked are better than if it’s significantly off.

3. If you have time, you may consider doing a revision that brings the manuscript within, or at least near, the requested length. Is there a scene you wanted to write but didn’t? Is there a chapter that the book doesn’t really need?

Consider that an acceptance at the current length might be dependent on doing a little more work to approach the word count guidelines anyway. This school of thought suggests that there’s no harm to seeing if you can get it there, yourself.

I said above that all books should be the length they need to be, I know, but there’s no harm in turning a critical eye to your manuscript and deciding whether it’s at that point yet or not. Don’t just cut or squeeze words in indiscriminately, though. It will show.

—

There is no single right answer. Ultimately, it’s your judgment call to make. In all cases, from the writer’s point of view, the worst that can happen is a rejection letter.

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When Life Happens to your Characters

Posted November 16, 2009 by Gabrielle

or, Doormats as Protagonists

A book review and not-so-veiled rant over at The Rejectionist has captured the spirit of one of my writing peeves so well that I could easily link the post, tell you to read it, and call it a day.

What we are heartily sick of, however, are feeble and inept teenage-girl main characters, whose lives come into focus only through the addition of some melodramatic attraction to a charismatic male figure who seems to carry all the personality in the relationship.

The post goes on to say:

Yes, adolescence is a volatile time, and yes, adolescents (of ALL genders, thank you) develop obsessive and incredibly intense romantic attachments to all kinds of people who do not have their best interests at heart, and no, we don’t have a problem with books willing to tackle those kinds of relationships head-on. But love that is self-abnegating, all-consuming, and totally erases any kind of independence looks a lot more like domestic violence than fabulous romance, and doormats aren’t actually very interesting as protagonists.

I’m going to widen the scope here, because this sort of “simpering victim” character isn’t limited to lovesick teenage girls, or even to girls.

We have a phrase around my house that we use for people who seem to be willing victims of their own lives, dragged from one misadventure to another by circumstance. We say, “Life happens to him,” and we don’t say it kindly.

To some extent, we all have a bit of control of our own destiny. Some of us have more control than others, but we all have at least a bit. Those people who abdicate control so that they can abdicate responsibility when things go wrong, don’t get to complain about what happens to them, especially when a bit of forethought or common sense could have sidestepped disaster entirely.

The horror-movie victim who makes bad decisions is an archetype, but it’s an archetype we love to make fun of. It’s not one we take seriously. Usually, the audience cheers her demise… and why? Because she brought it on herself.

I have no patience for people who play the victim in real life, and I have limited patience for it in fiction. Circumstances beyond the character’s control are one thing, but an entire life beyond the character’s control gets boring quickly. It becomes a chain of misadventures, usually poorly segued and with little logic or cohesiveness. The strategic blind eye that the characters have to turn for the sake of the plot doesn’t often ring true.

If your main character has no interests, no depth, knows only one emotion (usually angst) and is just being tugged along for the ride… I will also feel tugged along for the ride, instead of connected with your story.

Turning and giving that character lots of screen time to make the point (repeatedly) about how strong and in-control she is, doesn’t make her so. Often, she only protests too much, and that’s bland reading, too. A reader (or, at least, this reader) will only have so much patience for a character who talks the talk but doesn’t want to blister her sensitive feet walking the walk. A character’s self-perception can be at odds with the face she’s showing us, but only for so long. Too much, and the contrast starts to feel like flawed writing. It reads as author’s blind spot for a favorite character, instead of deliberate craft.

A strong character is one who makes decisions, who influences and changes the world around her, who exhibits interests and feelings and all those other things that make a character three-dimensional. A character like that can still be a victim, but she’s a very different flavor of victim.

Plenty of very successful novels feature the passive protagonist. I’m not saying that it won’t sell; I lament that it does. I’d rather see a character have a hand in her own destiny than be prey to it. I’d rather see a character be a victim of a villain than a victim of circumstance. Or, worse yet, a victim of herself. A little of that can have a place within a story, but a little goes a long way, and I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one whose saturation point has been reached. I’ll be over with The Rejectionist, cheering for the wolves.

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Seasonal Reprint: Grammar Vampires

Posted November 2, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

A great time was had at World Fantasy Con. I met and caught up with a lot of fantastic people, and now I’m back in the office again. As a belated nod to Halloween, I’m reprinting a relevant column while I catch up on work.

For your reading pleasure: Grammar Vampires. (originally posted July 31, 2008.)

You’ve probably heard of grammar nazis, or maybe grammar police: these are people who patrol vigilantly, armed with their dictionaries, their thesauri and their love for words. They answer a deeply-rooted calling which urges them ever onward to stamp out typos, improper subject-verb agreement and rogue apostrophes wherever they may dwell. It’s a noble battle, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes the defenders of grammar get a little… well, overzealous.

I am not a grammar nazi. I’ll state that right now. For one thing, as much as I can appreciate the term in the proper spirit when others use it, personal beliefs and cultural heritage keep me from ever being comfortable applying it to myself. For another, it’s not really my style.

I eagerly seek out errors on menus and signs; spotting them is something of a hobby (albeit a shamefully geeky one), and often a source of great amusement. These are in the public domain, so I consider them fair game. I don’t, however, pounce on my friends, my family, my acquaintances, my casual email conversations, my forum discussions… you get the idea.

I fully appreciate that proper writing is important, and that pointing out an error is a necessary step to prevent its repetition. At the same time, I feel just as strongly that there’s a time and a place for such things, and I think it’s equally important to keep a sense of perspective about it. I may choose not to get into deep online conversations with someone whose spelling and grammar are atrocious, but at the same time, there are some situations where all that really matters is that people can make their points understood. Everyone makes typos. Everyone lets their fingers get ahead of them now and then. I see no benefit to antagonizing my peers by pouncing on their every mistake. All that does is, well, antagonize people. It doesn’t show off my knowledge or earn me any respect.

I like to think I’m a bit more subtle than that. I don’t rage about grammar; I’m not militant or aggressive about it. If I’m asked to beta-read or offer advice I’ll gladly do so, but I don’t force my red pen upon my friends or anyone else.

That’s the key to grammar vampires: they’re perfectly capable of correcting your mistakes, but they’ll only do so if you invite them in.

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Shortcuts to Success

Posted October 1, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , , , , .

Here’s the only thing you need to know about shortcuts to a successful writing career: There aren’t any.

There are alternatives to the traditional process. Lots of them. But none of them are shortcuts.

Let’s look at a few.

1. It’s who you know.

Connections, as I mentioned in my post on Dealing with Rejection, will open a door for you, but that’s all they’ll do. They won’t walk you through it and they won’t guarantee what will happen on the other side. Networking can absolutely make you in this business. It can open opportunities you wouldn’t have dreamed of… but only if your product is good enough to stand on its own. Someone might take a chance on you as a favor, but not if it’s a losing proposition that might hurt their own reputation. Nothing’s going to happen for you unless you’ve already put the work in, developed your craft, and built the kind of credibility that will make your contacts proud.

Also to consider: Networking opportunities cost money. Even if you can write off your workshop or convention airfare and hotel as a business expense, you’ve still got to have that money on hand to lay out. There are a lot of networking opportunities happening around the world every year and it’s not realistic to go to all of them. You’ve got to pick and choose them carefully. And conventions, when you attend them as a professional, are work. You’ve got to have your networking persona on 24/7, have your pitch always at the ready, and still maintain the charisma and control not to come off as unfriendly or desperate. Then there’s the researching and preparation for your panels and the bookkeeping that follows up on the sales you make. The time you spend at conventions and conferences also needs to be balanced with your day job, your family time, and your writing time.

2. Self-publishing

Self-publishing isn’t a shortcut. Don’t listen to the people who tell you it is. Yes, it’s a shortcut to getting a bound copy of your work, but it’s not a shortcut to success. All you’re doing when you self-publish is trading the long hours and hard work of submitting to agents and publishers with the long hours and hard work of tirelessly marketing and self-promoting. You won’t have any support system to sell and distribute for you, it’ll be all you, all the time. You will have to eat, sleep and breathe book just to break even on your print costs, and even then you’ll be fighting against an enormous handicap. You’ll have a very hard struggle ahead of you to get taken seriously by publishers and booksellers, and your opportunities for distribution will be extremely limited. You’ll be selling from your website and from the trunk of your car, and your most important challenge will be finding creative marketing strategies that make people look beyond the “self-published” label and actually read your writing.

Don’t confuse small press with self-pub. Small presses are still legitimate publishers and their place in the market is growing. To print with a small press, you still have to submit your manuscript, get it accepted, get a contract, and then the publisher prints the book.

Self-publishing is where you go out and pay a printer yourself. There’s no acceptance procedure, just a simple business transaction. You hand over your money and your file, and you get books.  The bias against self-publishing exists because of that lack of acceptance procedure. Self-pub does away with the gatekeepers — the agents, the publishers — who weed out the stuff that’s not up to professional standards. Thus, a lot of the material that’s self-published is of amateur quality and really isn’t ready or suitable to be published at all. That’s not to say that it’s all amateur. It isn’t. But there’s a popular perception that it is. If you’re throwing yourself into that pool, it doesn’t matter how good your book is, the struggle to distinguish yourself is going to be very hard work.

3. Podcasting

Recording a podiobook isn’t a shortcut to success any more than self-publishing is a shortcut to success. These writers aren’t circumventing the hard work that goes into landing a deal with a major publishing house; if anything, they’re working harder. While traditional paths to publishing deals involve sending and keeping track of a lot of mail, creating a professionally polished podcast with top-notch editing and mixing is a much harder and more time-consuming endeavor — even moreso if you’re determined to do a release with a full voice cast and ambient music and sound effects. Doing it for free in hopes of gaining some devoted fans and the ear of a publishing executive is really nothing more than a labor of love for the craft. It requires a lot of skill-learning and a serious investment of time.

A growing number of writers are finding success through podcasting their fiction. The podcasters who produce the high-end podiobooks that earn attention, really earn the attention they receive. They put out excellent, polished books with excellent, polished production values. On the down side, many of them will tell you that the editing and mixing takes up a large portion of their time, and that means that it takes time away from their writing, too. On the up side, fan feedback and praise can be a great boost to balance out the sting of rejection letters while you work on getting your novel noticed by people in high places. Is it a viable avenue to a print publishing deal? Definitely. You can even do it concurrently with the traditional query and submissions route. But it’s not, by any stretch, a shortcut.

—–

The point I’m making here is that, no matter what, your product has to stand up for itself. It has to meet a standard of quality and it has to be something people want to read. There are less-traditional paths toward publication that are open to you, but they’re no less work, they’re only a trade-off in terms of how and when you do the hard work.

You can do the legwork up front and send out hundreds of submissions to get yourself an agent or a publisher, go to a ton of conventions and workshops to make good contacts, or you can put the product out first and do the legwork afterwards in the form of tireless promotion and marketing. One form of work may be easier or more natural for you than another depending on your personal skillset and situation, but the amount of work is still the same.

The success stories that you hear about aren’t fairy tales that prove that shortcuts exist; they are examples of what can happen when top-notch talent and determination meet in the right place at the right time.

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Dealing with Rejection

Posted September 24, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , , , , .

We all have a deep-seated need for closure in our lives. We like to know why people have made the choices that they’ve made, whether we’ve done something wrong to bring about that choice or whether acting differently could have somehow changed the outcome.

In the absence of answers, we tend to analyze situations and come up with answers of our own. We rationalize events around us all the time, to the point that we don’t even notice ourselves doing it. If traffic is slow, we tell ourselves that there’s road construction up ahead, or maybe there’s been an accident. If someone’s late for an appointment, or doesn’t answer the phone, we come to an internally satisfying conclusion about what might be occupying them.

In the absence of an explanation, we also tend to try to read too closely between the lines of a form rejection letter. No reason is given, but there must have been a reason, so we rationalize and analyze and come up with our own.

I acknowledge that, I empathize with it, and I send out form rejections anyway. I stand by it.

1. It’s kinder to dump someone outright than to lead them on.
Do form letters deprive writers of the constructive criticism that might make their work better? Maybe. But if I’ve already decided I don’t want it and that nothing you can change will make me want it, I’m not the one you’ve got to make it better for. If it’s close enough that I’d accept it if a couple things were different, I will tell you. But I won’t suggest changes that might make it less suitable for publication somewhere else, when I don’t plan to take it on no matter what you do with it.

2. Form letters discourage further conversation.
It’s a simple one-shot business transaction. You send me one query, I send you one response. If that response is no, that’s all you get, and I don’t want to give out any signals that suggest my decision might be open to negotiation. It isn’t. I don’t want to invite discussion, I won’t be coerced into giving a free critique, and I don’t have time to listen to a rebuttal against my decision. It won’t change my mind, it’ll just make you look unprofessional. You need to move on, and you need to let me move on, too. You’ll earn more respect by respecting my decision. And it’s not just me: Colleen Lindsay’s post What Not to Do When You Get a Rejection speaks in more depth about the kinds of follow-up correspondence agents and editors don’t like to see.

3. Don’t assume it’s you.
Some people respond to rejection in a very internal way. They think they must have done something wrong, and they analyze every minute nuance of their actions trying to figure out how they could have done better or changed the outcome. If you’re a writer, you need to develop a thicker skin than that. If your work is polished and well-written and interesting and engaging, it could just be that it’s not a fit for a particular publisher, that it’s not directed toward their market, or that it’s directed too well toward their market and they already have too many similar submissions in their list. Don’t beat yourself up over your query letter, either. If it’s well-written and professional and portrays you as sane and serious about getting published, it was probably fine. Get a critique group to look at your manuscript and your query, get opinions from other writers and from editors. If general consensus is that your manuscript is at a publishable stage and appropriate for submission, just accept that it wasn’t that publisher’s “type,” and move on.

4. Don’t assume it’s NOT you.
On the opposite end of the continuum, we find people who refuse to take responsibility for anything. The world is out to get them, and it’s everyone’s fault but theirs. Don’t go too far in this direction and assume your manuscript is perfect. Yes, it may have just been that your golden triangle didn’t fit in a publisher’s square hole, but it may also be that you’ve submitted a lump of unpolished tin. I see a lot of manuscripts that just aren’t fit to be published, with horrible grammar and spelling, or with premises and protagonists that make me weep. A certain amount of confidence is a good thing, but don’t ever become so overconfident that you refuse to consider that your manuscript might not be ready for the big leagues. Not all manuscripts are perfect; in fact, few of them are. If they were, I wouldn’t have a job.

5. Whether it’s about you or not, it’s not personal either way.
You’ve probably worked on your manuscript for a very long time. It’s your baby. It’s part of who you are. It’s your inner daydreams and emotions and hopes and fears written down for the whole world to see. You’ve never felt so free, or so exposed, as when you hand that little piece of your soul over for someone else’s approval or enjoyment. But to them, it’s just a book. It’s one of many books. Millions of books. No one who declines your manuscript is passing judgment on you or your worth as a person. They’re simply saying that this particular offering isn’t appropriate for them at this time. You’ve probably heard a thousand times about all the rejection letters any writer gets. I understand that “Don’t take it personally” is easier said than done. But really, I mean it. I make no value judgment on you as a person if I reject your manuscript. I don’t even make a value judgment on your writing. I just don’t want to publish it. It really is as impersonal as that. And that’s part of the value of a form rejection, believe it or not. As Rachelle Gardner points out, “the more detailed I get about the rejection, the more personal that rejection becomes.”

6. It’s who you know… but only to a point.
Nothing fills me with more anxiety than sending my own submissions out to face rejection. But, second to that, nothing fills me with more anxiety than reading a submission from a friend or colleague if I’m unfamiliar with their writing. Knowing someone in the industry might get you in the door, but what happens when you’re inside is all up to you. Your manuscript still has to stand on its own merits. It’s under more pressure, even, because it’s going to reflect on the person who referred you, too. I don’t give pity dates; if I accepted something that didn’t meet my standards, it would reflect on my reputation, as well. If it turns out that I can’t take it, I’ll have to reject it all the same no matter who you are. If I do take it, you can be assured that it’s because the manuscript has earned it. I may be more likely to offer feedback and critique to a friend’s manuscript, but I’m not going to be any more likely to accept it.

7. It’s not random.
I think this is the hardest one to accept. There are reasons, even if you don’t know them, and you may never know what they are. This is where the whole mythos of the crapshoot comes from: the folklore that acceptance and rejection are based solely on the editor or agent’s mood, a toss of a coin, what they had for breakfast and the state of their morning commute. It’s easy and convenient to think that way when you’re not presented with evidence to the contrary. I understand that it gives you the closure that you need. But please give us a little credit, too. Most of us treat our submissions seriously and make careful, considered decisions. Ultimately, we want to like the submissions we get. We wish every manuscript we get could be The One. And we want to see you succeed, too, even if your manuscript isn’t right for us.

Further reading:

I’ll leave you with this, from author JA Konrath: “Remember, there’s a word for a writer who never gives up: Published.”

If you’ve got a link to another good post on the subject, please leave it in a comment!

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The Elephant in the Room

Posted September 10, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , , .

If you’re in publishing, even if you’re not in New York City yourself, you probably know a lot of people who are–or have been–based there.

Nobody talks about it much, especially not any more, but if you know people who’ve lived and worked in New York City for a while, you probably know at least a good handful of 9/11 survivors. The victims and their families get a lot of the press, as they should, but you don’t hear much about the survivors and the witnesses. It’s largely because they don’t want it, or because there’s a perception that they don’t, or because there’s a certain discomfort about what to say or do. It’s the elephant in the room.

Many of the New York publishing houses are up toward Midtown. The publisher I worked for (Scholastic) is in SoHo, right on Broadway, a little more than a handful of blocks away.

My name is Gabrielle and I’m a 9/11 survivor. I don’t talk about it much, especially not any more, but I am.

And I’m not unique. Everyone in my company, in my building, was there too. We saw it happen. Not live on television or on endless tape loops after the fact, but right out our open windows or from our own office’s rooftop balcony. All of us were evacuated and sent out into the panic on the streets with no news, no direction, and — for many of us who commuted — no way home.

All of us breathed and blinked our eyes in that toxic air for months, and several of us suffered health effects from it. No two people handle trauma in exactly the same way or have exactly the same experience, but suffice it to say, all of us were changed.

I don’t bring it up much unless it’s relevant, but I’ve also always made a point not to shy away from the topic, either. It was a very different experience, actually being there, and I’ve always had a drive to explain it to people who want to understand.

At the same time, it’s left me very sensitive in some ways, and to some themes in fiction — and not the ones you might expect. They’re themes that haven’t come up yet in my work, so I can’t speak to whether I’ll be okay working with them in a professional sense if they do, or if there will end up being some books that my own PTSD just won’t let me work on. Time will tell.

Though reactions are specific and individual, it’s a day that never comes and goes without notice for those of us who witnessed it firsthand. We might pretend it’s just another day, but even if we don’t let it get to us, there’s still an awareness of it. When I was still in New York, I’d always take the day off, just so that I didn’t have to deal with the panic inherent in that morning’s commute.

Now, I just try to keep busy. I don’t want to think about it, I don’t want to be asked if I’m okay. I don’t want sympathy. I just want to get through it quietly and keep my mind on other things until the calendar flips.

I’d suggest handling any contact with NYCers the same way. If someone wants their day to be business as usual, the most sensitive thing you can do for them is to give them just that. If they want to talk about it, they will. No one’s going to think you’re insensitive if you let the elephant in the room blend in with the decor.

Personally, I’ll go back to being willing to talk about it on Saturday. Today and tomorrow, I’d rather avoid the topic, avoid the media, and immerse myself in my work. I’ll remember and reflect quietly, in my own time and in my own way.

Meanwhile, Tor.com has a good two-part article on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Fiction (part 2 continues here).

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