interesting rejection

[ljgeoff]

On June 30, 2011 I sent out a story -- here's my cover letter.

Dear Editors,

Attached is my short story The Windows of His Soul for your consideration. It is a steampunk-ish fantasy story that comes at ~3400 words.

A few of my stories have been published in small magizines, both print and ezines such as Expanded Horizons, 42Magazine, Sirr, and in the anthology Phase Time with Sonar4 publications.

The story I'm submitting was written at the Viable Paradise writer's workshop. Sitting in a lecture, I had a sudden image of a soul captured inside a crystal. The steampunk flowed from that and what could be a better fuel for a steampunk soul-sucking device than petrified pixies?

I hope that you enjoy it,

L. J. Geoffrion

This afternoon, I got a reply!

Hi, Lisa!

My apologies for not responding sooner to your submission. I'm afraid events in my personal life took me away from Untreed Reads for the second half of 2011, and I spent most of the first half of 2012 getting things back in order.

I've had the opportunity to read The Windows of His Soul and I must say I was conflicted. In the end, I did have to choose to pass on the story.

I think you've done an exceptional job with the actual use of language and literary expression, but I think it's almost TOO literary. As a result, I felt it loses something of the ability for the reader to relate to it, and my concern is that a reader would need to re-read the story several times to figure out exactly who is doing what and what's going on.

I'm sorry that this one is a no for me, but I must say that I'm hoping you'll consider sending more work to us in the future. We're currently closed to submissions, but hope to reopen later this fall. Be sure to keep an eye on our Submissions Page at our website for updates. Again, I'd REALLY like to read more from you. You have tremendous talent, and I'm sure the right project will appear for us to work on together.

Best,

Jay Hartman

Editor-in-Chief

Untreed Reads Publishing

Too literary! Even re-reading it makes me chuckle.... I dunno, I thought that it flowed pretty well, and nobody else said that they couldn't follow it. Huh.

Comments

[pickledginger]

That is the best rejection letter I've ever seen.

Guess you'll just have to peddle your wares someplace a little more highbrow.

[redbird]

One of the panels at Farthing Party last weekend was about information density in fiction (and how much the different panelists choose to explain explicitly). It seems clear that there is no standard proper amount of this, nor even a consistent level per writer, and the same is, I think, true of how literary a story is.

If editor H keeps saying "your stories are too literary for me," rather than that one "not this time" letter, maybe H is just not the right reader/market for your work. "Too literary" might mean an editor had trouble following your story, or it might mean it reminded them of something else that they didn't quite like, and that someone labeled "literary."

That's separate from things like the fan letter someone described during that panel, which basically said "I liked your story, but the aliens didn't fit"—about a story that contained no aliens. No matter how careful you are, you cannot control what the reader will bring to the story, or how they'll read it. Influence, yes, but not control.

[ljgeoff]

Thank you! I also got a good crit from Dash - over at Expanded Horizons - that helped a lot. As Dash pointed out, there *are* some problems with the story, namely that the conflict needs to be brought out more. So at least I have something to work with. And, as you say, I just have to find the right market for this one.