Blogger: Rachelle Gardner
(The agents at Books & Such are on holiday, so this is a post from our archives. Enjoy!)
Rejection is part of the process of pursuing publishing, and we have to give our share of it as part of our jobs. But lest you think rejection ends once you get through the query stage… just wait till you have a published book! When the readers get ahold of it and start leaving their comments on Amazon, you could be in for a few surprises. To show you what I mean, here are a few Amazon reader-reviews.*
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
“I don’t see why this book is so fabulous. I would give it a zero. I find no point in writing a book about segregation, there’s no way of making it into an enjoyable book. And yes I am totally against segregation.”
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
“While the story did have a great moral to go along with it, it was about dirt! Dirt and migrating. Dirt and migrating and more dirt.”
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“It grieves me deeply that we Americans should take as our classic a book that is no more than a lengthy description of the doings of fops.”
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
“I bought these books to have something nice to read to my grandkids. I had to stop, however, because the books are nothing more than advertisements for “Turkish Delight,” a candy popular in the U.K. The whole point of buying books for my grandkids was to give them a break from advertising, and here (throughout) are ads for this “Turkish Delight”! How much money is this Mr. Lewis getting from the Cadbury’s chocolate company anyway? This man must be laughing to the bank.”
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
“I am obsessed with Survivor, so I thought it would be fun. WRONG!!! It is incredibly boring and disgusting. I was very much disturbed when I found young children killing each other. I think that anyone with a conscience would agree with me.”
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
“The book is not readable because of the overuse of adverbs.”
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
“The only good thing to say about this ‘literary’ drivel is that the person responsible, Virginia Woolf, has been dead for quite some time now. Let us pray to God she stays that way.”
And finally, EXACTLY what you want to hear from someone who is going to review your book:
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
“This book is one of the worst books I have ever read. I got to about page 3-4.”
See? The “rejection” never ends… better get used to it.
How are you dealing with rejection? Do you have any good rejection or criticism stories for us?
* Compiled on http://www.themorningnews.org/
Carol Ashby
I’ve only queried once with my first novel and was rejected without any comment on its quality. Then I entered three in the Genesis contest, where I learned I was writing in the omniscient narrator style that no publisher seems to want from a debut author these days. My response: I’m trying to rewrite them all in the currently acceptable style of 3rd person limited POV. It does ratchet up the emotional excitement, but it also strips out beautiful descriptive passages and complex thoughts.
I started analyzing the writing of best sellers and award winners. What did I find? Many use (gasp!) adverbs and include delightful passages of too much “tell versus show.” The highly successful are not playing strictly by the rules being dictated by the market gatekeepers. Most of the top-selling classics that Rachelle listed would be flung onto the rejection pile today for the sins of tell-not-show, POV head-hopping, and adverb usage. I find it very ironic that successful authors continue to succeed brilliantly despite their old-fashioned style, but we newbies all have to play by the rules enforced by the gatekeepers of traditional publishing or take the plunge into iceberg-infested indie waters. The problem is that it’s hard to know if rejections are because the work really isn’t good enough or because it just doesn’t follow today’s rules closely enough. Any thoughts on how to resolve that problem?
rachel
i write omniscient:). in fact, it was my editor who said to change the first person POV to omniscient. the right publisher will be okay with it 🙂
Carol Ashby
That’s great to know, Rachel! The editorial reviews you have on Amazon for your debut novel are wonderful.
I’ve adopted a hybrid style that is mostly limited 3rd person POV. The plots are historicals involving parallel plot lines, so they move between the restricted POV of 4-7 characters as the story progresses. There are places where narrator description is unavoidable, but I’ve tried to keep it as succinct as possible. Perhaps I will be able to get an agent who can find a publisher who likes my works’ hybrid style and story lines.
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
Sometimes I wonder if the strong feelings that many have against omniscient stem from the same place as banning the mention of Christmas from public spaces…the”let’s not offend anyone” paradigm.
* Omniscient narration has to step above the human plane, and it seems to me that it’s more stylish now to make perspectives character-based because that provides something of a sense of individual control…and in a weird way, ‘fairness’, in that it’s presumed that a reader can more readily identify with a character who is muddling through without the Big Picture.
* And that a shame, because so many genres (from historical epics to technothrillers) become meaningless without an omniscient narrator.
* On spectacular exception, though, is Susan Howatch’s “Starbridge” cycle of six novels, each story told from the perspective of one character…and what makes it even more impressive is that the voice changes from narrator to narrator.
Carol
That is an intriguing thought, Andrew!
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
Carol, for what it’s worth (and I am certainly no professional here) m thought is that if the story is compelling enough, and told with a strong voice, both agent and editors will see a vested interest in making it hew to the modern stylistic norms within the limits dictated by those very factors – preservation of voice and story.
*To develop this…and maybe get myself into deeper water…is the hypothesis that people don’t buy books for beautiful writing, they buy them because they have that childhood need – “Tell me a story!”
* Make it a good story, and people will fight for the chance to help you make it a commercial success.
* Again, there’s no professional experience to back up those thoughts. I’d love to hear what others think.
Carol
As you know, Andrew, in research we’re always pushing the envelope, so not sticking slavishly to the current model comes naturally. I’ve minimized the number, but I haven’t banished all adverbs. Sometimes even the most precise verb available fails to convey the nuance without the help of an adverb. I am glad I learned from the contest judges that my old style was very different from current market. Their positive comments on the synopses gave me some confidence that at least the stories were attractive. That would have been much harder to fix. I’m enjoying flipping the novels mostly into the more intimate POV, and I hope I’m getting the balance between old and new right. The next few months will tell if I can find any trade professionals who agree.
Kristen Joy Wilks
Ha! This is exactly what I needed to hear. Love it! I am bracing myself for that terrible day. Yikes.
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
You’ll do great, Kristen…knowing you through this forum, the FIRST thing that came to mind when I read your comment was “the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”
* Don’t groan, but…wait for it…Rock On.
Carol Ashby
Andrew, is your middle name Barnabas? If it isn’t, it should be. You’re possibly the best “son of encouragement” I know.
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
Carol, thank you so much for this – you’ve just transformed what was looking to be rather a bleak Christmas.
* Interesting, about Barnabas…I’m working on a short ebook on the Bible’s ‘unsung heroes’, and he’s one of them.
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
One of the most important things is to not reject oneself. I’m not talking about the extremes of an uncritical love for first drafts, nor its twin if “no-one-likes-my-writing-I-will-burn-my-computer-and-eat-worms”.
* It’s rather the erosion of ‘meaning’, whether due to lack of success or other circumstance. I know, because it has lately happened to me.
* Most of my life has gone horribly wrong, at least when compared to the plans I’d had, but a specific situation made my fiction – and some of my blog commentary – seem at best hollow, and at worst cynically meaningless.
* So I have had to go through a process of de-rejecting (unrejecting?)…finding a deeper meaning that I could only hope existed under the shattered facade of that which was lost.
* There is hope here, though nothing is yet certain. I’ve been able to make some use of the situation in my blog, and while the rawness is difficult to write (and it’s NOT cathartic) it does point to that deep and solid foundation which I hope exits. I hope so.
*Meanwhile, one does one’s best, because in the end one’s work is only beholden to the Almighty. It’s not “God loves me!”; it’s the best effort to love God through my writing.
Lisa
I had my first big one yesterday. We must not give up hoping and writing to make a difference 🙂
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
Lisa, I am so sorry about the rejection…and you DO make a difference.