I'll stop licking my wounds long enough to say, go check out my review of THE INFORMANT!I just got a rejection from a zine where I have published before. (It's not one of the usual crime fiction zines). He sent along the reasons he rejected the story. I have never done this before but I send a nasty email back.
The story was about a blue collar, black man. Most of the story took place in his head and he thought largely in cliches. I did this intentionally
because I believe a man like this would think about things this way. He's been trained by society to use such expressions. Now if I am writing this in the third person omniscient, I can't use these cliches, but in third person close, I have to. If I am in his head, this is what's going on.
Second problem, the editor disputed the violence at the end of the story (again true). Now this is the real problem as far as I am concerned and what I want to throw out to you.
If a story is true but a bit over the top, do you have to make it less true to make it believable? In this story, a new stepfather sees his daughter being manhandled by a security guard and overreacts. (It's been setup that he is very anxious to fit into his new family). They get into a scuffle and the guard gets him into a chokehold and he dies. This happened in a mall in Detroit a few years back. So what do you think? Is it so ludicrous that a guard would accidentally kill someone in trying to restrain him that I should have changed the ending? Would you?
28 comments:
Patti,
It's funny I just got a rejection comment from an agent and his criticism was that my characters and plots were "unbelievable". I get that some may think this. I think most people read fiction to meet people and experience situations that are more than real life. Heightened reality. That's why it is a story worthy or retelling. I can tell you a story about a guy at a mall who yells at a security guard doesn't really appeal to me. Strangling him? Now I'm in. And you have proven the old adage, "truth is stranger than fiction."
At the end of the day the only response to other people's opinions is to acknowledge that they are just that - opinions. Quite often opinions of people who can advance or stunt our careers as writers but it is still the truth of the matter.
I say keep writing stories a little bit larger than life. If I want nonfiction, I'll read nonfiction. But, even with those books, you ever notice that the only lives that get a nonfiction book treatment are lives that are "larger than life"? That's what we crave. I know my daily existence. Show me something extraordinary.
I'm a big believer that the truth should never get in the way of a good story, but to have the security guard kill the guy (I'm assuming it was inadvertent) doesn't seem to be over the top to me.
As for the cliches, I know they're a no-no, but your explanation makes sense. Was that reasoning brought out somehow in the story?
When a writer grouses at an editor or publisher, it is sometimes a worthwhile release of steam. I offer you the story of Flannery O'Connor who ran into obstacles with the acceptance of her novel, WISE BLOOD. The editor/publisher insisted that he did not understand what O'Connor intended, and he further suggested that perhaps the author was similarly lacking in understanding. O'Connor was not pleased and held her ground. With a different editor and publisher, WISE BLOOD appeared as O'Connor intended it. Thankfully, she did not acquiesce to the first editor's manipulations. So, the lesson is this: Do not surrender!
Patti --I think you did the right thing in responding as you did. I once got a rejection from an editor at a reputable SF publisher re: a juvenile chap book I'd written and submitted through an agent. The female ed. told my agent that, unlike the 6th grader in the story, no grade-school girl would "really be aware of" Einstein or his theories. I was stunned. We were writing with a young, but sophisticated SF-minded audience in mind. My agent suggested we dumb the character down. Obviously, she's no longer my agent and I regret I didn't go further and drop the editor a line as well.
If the editor is rejecting your story purely on feasibility grounds, then the editor is surely mistaken. Cases of accidental death similar to the Detroit mall one have happened all too often. In one situation I recall, police sat on a mental patient in the back of a car to restrain him. Anyone who follows crime reports closely, or has worked in news media, will probably to able to quote many more sad cases of the same kind.
Today, with an ever-shrinking market and economic recession, editors and publishers of fiction receive more acceptable submissions than they can ever accommodate. Yesterday, a London publisher's newsletter told me:
"Authors are being told their books are
not good enough to publish as houses seek to save costs by cancelling titles,
according to a specialist publishing lawyer. Nicola Solomon of London law firm
Finers Stephens Innocent said there had been a definite increase over recent
months in queries from authors whose books had been dropped. She said both big
and small publishers were involved and the authors affected included 'bigger
names than you would expect'."
Possibly the over-supply of material occurs for the zines, too. Seems like every avid reader with a PC wants to try his or or hand at being a writer.
One new answer the editors have is to reject anything that might be construed as not "politically correct", which can include violence, race issues and sex. It really comes down to a form of censorship or book-banning. A nasty email might make you feel better, but I don't think it's going to help overall.
Sometimes the truth is harder to believe but if you've written the story you wanted to tell than I would shop it around some more and see how it goes before I even considered "conforming."
It sounds to me as if you just need to reach an editor who "gets" the narrative style you've chosen for the story.
As for the relationship between true events and fiction, it's difficult to drop true events into a story without tailoring them to the characters' motivations and the established world of your story. Truth/reality can be nonsensical; fictional events have to make sense because the story itself is a frame into which they must fit.
Someone recently asked me if any of the events in my stories were based on real situations and I said :'Only the very silly stuff.' Which was true...
Your story doesn't seem far fetched at all!
You know, I get a lot of comments back on my writing about what my characters can and can't do. You cannot fight people's misconceptions and preconceptions.
If a reader (editor/agent/etc) believes that a PI can't investigate murder, then they will never accept the story I write with a PI hired to investigate a murder. I can't fight that. (Just like I can't convince my students that teachers are not complete idiots.)
I can however find a different editor, one who agrees with me on the story being submitted.
Write on!
(And that case in Detroit where the guard did kill the guy, was incredible. Same with the one where police shot the deaf guy with the rake. Yet, the same people who don't believe that this can happen, do believe so strongly in serial killers and pedophiles around every corner, even though both are statistically rare...)
I once changed the ending of a story because of comments in a rejection note from an editor I'd never submitted to before. Sent it back. Still didn't sell it. Didn't sell it anywhere else, either. Had other dealings with said editor and came to realize he was wrong about almost everything else, too, so I went back to the original ending and eventually sold the story.
If an editor says, "Do this and this and this and do a good job at it, and then I'll buy it", that's one thing. I don't mind that.
Gerald is right, you just need to find an editor who gets it - not everyone will.
Now, I do think that perhaps the combination of thinking in cliches and over the top actions make a tough combination. My instinct would be to make the inner thoughts of the character more matter-of-fact and personal.
Of course, I don't know what you mean by cliches, but I have a tough time with, "trained by society." We're all trained by society but we're all different. Is this a character or an archetype?
I really like the idea of wanting to make the blended family work so much that mistakes get made. Already I see character who have had families "fail" and who have experienced relationship breakdowns.
There's some great territory there, good luck with the story.
Clarification-the security guard did not mean to kill the guy--he just didn't know his own strength-or at least that's the story that eventually came out. He'd never had an altercation like this before. He wasn't a cop with experience in such things.
It's a flash story-so some of these things aren't spelled out in great detail. It's an impressionistic look at the situation.
I should probably not have sent the nasty email but the guy was so patronizing in telling me his take on cliches--like I didn't know I was using them. And so superior in telling me the ending was over the top. Now really, don't people die in scuffles like this every day.
Yes I made a lot of changes in my first crack at a story-based on an agent's recommendation. When I sent it back he gave it to his associate to read. So that doesn't work all the time.
Thanks for the advise and sympathy. I see now why smart editors just say no and leave it at that. Or say, I might take it if you did this. Then do. This one did neither.
Clair-I should have sent your testimony along with it.
Paul-And you don't even live in the U.S.
There was a case in New Orleans just a couple of years ago where a bouncer at a bar in the French Quarter put a guy in a choke hold and the guy died. I don't remember the details, but the bouncer (or there may have been two involved) was arrested and tried for, I think, second degree murder. Don't remember the outcome--but, yes, this happens.
Sorry--it was manslaughter.
Sounds about the same as our death. Security guards do not get trained very well nor paid. Thanks, Deb.
You know, Patti, I've been coming to this opinion more and lately, but my feeling is that you have to be true to your own vision.
And that's the key word:
YOUR vision.
Not the readers, not the editor, not the agent, etc.,
As far as I'm concerned, screw 'em.(I'd actually use the F word here, but I know this is a family blog.)
It's YOUR story.
Sounds like it's all been said--the editor didn't get it.
I had a story like this, an experimental flash, and sold it to Versal, a lit magazine out of Amsterdam that specializes in experimental stuff. I'm really glad I didn't change that story based on 'feedback' I got in rejections.
Thanks for letting me vent.
It's not ludicrous at all. You can knock someone out with a choke hold in 15-30 seconds. A minute or two, if someone's struggling, could kill them.
I've had a similar situation TWICE with the same story. They don't find the premise true(that famous people who die fade from the limelight quicker than famous people with scandal). My "research" such as it was, involved asking several older people what they thought about it. I figured 70+ years of watching the media, they'd know. They all said the dead die quicker (pun intended). So I'm sticking to my guns on that one.
As an editor, I don't comment on why I don't take stories. Why? Because I get notes back. But really, I don't think my subjective opinion (and I'm trained to be highly subjective when it comes to my magazine) really matters a hill of beans to the author.
Unfortunately, though, I tend to write those authors off. So I'd advise not writing back unless you're content with burning that bridge. As a writer, this is really unfortunate, because my slush is packed all the time and I'm sure mine is not the only one. Editors have a lot of very compliant, agreeable writers to work with.
Without reading the story in its entirety I can't say if I would do the dialog different. What I can say though is I would not deviate from the truth of the event.
Remember when that happened it was not an isolated incident but rather one of two or three that went on within a couple of years of each other.
Even the best receive rejections:
No Thanks, Mr. Nabokov
In the summer of 1950, Alfred A. Knopf Inc. turned down the English-language rights to a Dutch manuscript after receiving a particularly harsh reader’s report. The work was “very dull,” the reader insisted, “a dreary record of typical family bickering, petty annoyances and adolescent emotions.” Sales would be small because the main characters were neither familiar to Americans nor especially appealing. “Even if the work had come to light five years ago, when the subject was timely,” the reader wrote, “I don’t see that there would have been a chance for it.”
Knopf wasn’t alone. “The Diary of a Young Girl,” by Anne Frank, would be rejected by 15 others before Doubleday published it in 1952. More than 30 million copies are currently in print, making it one of the best-selling books in history.
...
Quite a letter, Kitty. Thanks for sharing it.
Yes, I burned that bridge all right. I've never sent an email like that before or any email for that matter, but I've never received such an idiotic email from an editor before.
When an editor doubts the realness of an ending to a story that is basically real, then I think you see how clearly opinion and experience shape all of us, both writers and editors. I usually don't let it bother me very deeply, but I do know the frustration. It's like when you're a kid and telling the truth and someone calls you a liar. You can get very indignant about it.
Charles-Exactly. Although I have to say as a writer it is my task to make it real--whether it is or isn't. I failed with that editor. And part of it may have been I only had 750 wrds to do it in. I may have thought I could tell that story with that word limitation and couldn't.
Oh, sorry, was there a post next to that photo of LB? Early lust sure can stick with one.
As others have mentioned, you are NOT an extension of your editors, and for a short story, don't bother to revise unless you're told that it will be bought with revisions. Says the man who has sold two short stories...after multiple rejections from folks who often Didn't Get them.
And sending a response to a rejection does seem to be pointless, unless of course they are snotty...but, then, they won't understand their own behavior was substandard.
wv: crion (they can be made apropos, these quasiwords)
Let us remember Gone With the Wind. Margaret Mitchell got 32 rejections, if I remember correctly.
Oh, yes, and there was a KENYON REVIEW issue s few years back which dipped heavily into the Knopf rejection letters. Cheap amusement.
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