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purplecthulhu at 06:34pm on 02/06/2007
purplecthulhu at 06:34pm on 02/06/2007Rather disappointed with this one.
Interzone bounced my story back rather rapidly with just a form response. This is for a much improved version of a story they were interested in (held) a little while back, and which my writers group thought was defionitely salable. I'd decided to send this version by snail mail rather than email, as I did last time, so as not to burden the email submissions reader, and to get it to someone else. I guess that was a bad decision since the email submissions reader had at least liked it last time.
Not sure what to do about this story now, apart from being rather angry at Interzone. Not that that will achieve anything...
I think the most galling thing is the form rejection letter rather than the interesting and useful comments I got last time. This rather suggests I've been going backwards.
Interzone bounced my story back rather rapidly with just a form response. This is for a much improved version of a story they were interested in (held) a little while back, and which my writers group thought was defionitely salable. I'd decided to send this version by snail mail rather than email, as I did last time, so as not to burden the email submissions reader, and to get it to someone else. I guess that was a bad decision since the email submissions reader had at least liked it last time.
Not sure what to do about this story now, apart from being rather angry at Interzone. Not that that will achieve anything...
I think the most galling thing is the form rejection letter rather than the interesting and useful comments I got last time. This rather suggests I've been going backwards.
pissed off
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The following: don't resubmit a story to Andy (who reads the postal submissions) that I rejected, or resubmit a story to me (I read the email subs) that Andy rejected.
Andy and I don't confer with each other on each and every submission we receive: life's just too short for that. To give you an indication: Andy receives upwards of 200 submissions each month, and last month (May) I received 499 email submissions. I read these in my spare time (I have a full time day job, which brings me around the world, just like yours: I returned from Australia last week).
If you -- and others -- send stories I rejected to Andy, or vice versa, then you are basically wasting our time. If I reject a story -- even if I do this very encouragingly, and add personal comments -- then this does mean I do not want to see the same story again.
If I want a rewritten version then I will ask for it. Explicitly. The header of the email will say *REWRITE REQUEST*. In capitals. If I didn't ask that, I don't wish to see the same story again, never mind how much it has changed. If I add personal comments, then I wish to see your *next* story.
Because then I think you might have it in you to write a story that works for me. But not the one I just rejected. The *next* one. Or the one after that. Or after that.
So please, please, please: don't resend stories rejected by Andy to me, or stories rejected by me to Andy. We're swamped enough as it is, and highly prefer to see fresh material. Not something one of us already considered wanting.
Now, do yourself a favour and use your anger to write a story that will win me over next time.
Jetse
Co-editor, Interzone
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I wasn't aware of your policy of not wishing to see rewrites no matter what changes have been made. I'll take note of that in future. In the case of the current work its now about half the size, has a rather different arc, and somewhat different characters. The core idea may be the same, but it is quite different. Where does rewriting end and a new story start?
No matter - I'll try and find a home for this elsewhere and, once I have something else ready, you might see that. I do appreciate that you have a vast amount of material to get through and am grateful that you do it. I know its not something I could do.
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That's standard across nearly all SF markets. If an editor wants to see a rewrite, they will explicitly say so.
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Something new I've learnt then.
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I'm suffering from a cultural misunderstanding here.
I'm used to scientific journals where you submit something, get comments back (usually some positive, some negative), then you make some changes and corrections, resubmit and (hopefully) get published.
It never even occurred to me that fiction publishing was any different.
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Not only is fiction publishing different from scientific journal, but the different genre markets often differ from each other. What holds true for romance, might or might not hold true for SF/F/Horror.
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The thing to do with the story next is send it on to the next market, o' course...