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    • Aug 20, 2023
    • 5 min read

They're Killing the Literary World

I received this rejection letter this morning.


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>>>Hello, Francis:


Thanks for submitting "Little Italy." We think ******* readers could enjoy its out of the ordinary milieu and the compelling quality of its quirkier moments. We're saying no because: 1), we think ******* readers would appreciate it more if its twists and turns were more surprising; 2) it distinguished itself from many of the mss we read, but its milieu and overall story weren't what our readers now expect a ******* story to be: extraordinary enough that they consider it one of the best short stories they've read in years.

To get a sense of (& enjoy!) what our readers now expect when it comes to length and plot development in a ******* story, feel free to read ******* 2023: -------------*******-------------

Note that, if funds are tight, it's available in Kindle, too.


If it helps any, some of the stories our readers are saying are their favorites in this volume are "**** and *****," "The *****," and "The ***."


We hope you'll send us another with the structure and page-turning qualities these three stories and the other stories in ******* 2023 and ******* 2022 offer.<<<

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I was a little stunned by this one.

Enough so that I am compelled to talk about it in some detail.


First of all, who in this day and age, in a self-described “modern and extraordinary” literary publication, uses the word, ‘milieu’?

Why use a twenty-dollar word when a one-dollar word will suffice?


Second, the first sentence says that the editor believes his readership “could enjoy its out of the ordinary milieu and the compelling quality of its quirkier moments”

This opening tells me that my short story IS what they want to publish and print.


But, alas, he goes on to say that it is not worthy of this publication as his readership:

“would appreciate it more if its twists and turns were more surprising” and “its milieu and overall story weren't what our readers now expect a ******* story to be: extraordinary enough that they consider it one of the best short stories they've read in years.”


So I must ask, “Why would his readership enjoy my story in the first place, but then by the end of the paragraph, not be able to enjoy my story because it’s ‘milieu’ – as well as the overall story – is just not what they want to read?”


It all sounds like a whole lot of double-talk to me.


Ahhhh, but the final three paragraphs of the letter explain it all.


Note this paragraph and its last sentence in particular:

To get a sense of (& enjoy!) what our readers now expect when it comes to length and plot development in a ******* story, feel free to read ******* 2023: https://amzn.to/3VunhLD

Note that, if funds are tight, it's available in Kindle, too.


They want me to buy their magazine and then resubmit more of my work, and maybe – just maybe – they’ll consider it, but the only way I can see what they want it to buy from them!


Ok.

Point taken.

They’re only in it for the dollars.

Ok.

I get it.

That’s business, but don’t veil it as a rejection of my ‘inept literary abilities’ and in the same breath tell me it’ll all be ok if I buy their magazine. Well, to be fair, they only implied it would all be ok. I expect that if I were to follow their suggestion, I would face one rejection after another with any number of possible ways to get published. If I paid along the way, of course.


You either like my story or you don’t.


If you don’t, then fine.

I’ll send it out to myriad publishers after you. That’s all part of the process. I get that.

And there is only one reason that I get that…

I do not write for editors or publishers or fans of my work.

I write because I have a want and a need to write.

Sometimes I get very lucky and people love what I write. Recently, I got quite lucky to be accepted as a magazine staff writer, but even with that, I was never once asked to write for or fit the editor’s personal views and opinions.


I wrote what I saw and lived and felt, and they liked it and they ran with it.

Had my writings not fit, they would’ve cut ties in the beginning, but they saw what I know:

I do not write for editors or publishers or fans of my work.

I write because I have a want and a need to write.


You don’t need one hundred words to describe the color blue.


You don’t need five hundred pages to tell a single story.

A story is lived and then it is told and then it is written. It’s as simple as that.


It’s pretty arrogant – and downright pompous – to insist that writers follow antiquated, long-since dead, overly and unnecessarily structured formats and rules in order to be published.


If you like it, then think about your readership.

Will they like it?

If they will like it, then accept it and print it.


There’s no need to pontificate on any outdated Elizabethan literary standards that must be followed for a work to be considered ‘good literature’.


The people that read the stories are the only views that should be considered.

If they read it, will they understand it?

If they understand it, will they like it?

If they’ll like it, will they buy it?

If so, why not publish it?


For anyone that’s read even one of my stories, academic, structured ideals and formatting guidelines don’t make one bite of a difference in them.


I write so that anyone who picks up the book or magazine can instantly read it, understand it and relate to it.

I write as if I’m telling a story while sitting at a bar or around a campfire.


And let’s not forget that storytelling far predates the printed word.

The story of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein comes to mind.


Why cut it off and assume that, if I don’t follow a specific, academically imposed rule or guideline, my stories will have no value to readers?


The whole thing reminds me of “The wonderful introduction to poetry written by Dr J Evans Pritchard”

You should see how much certain elements of so-called modern academia worked to vilify that story and movie!

Shocking, laughable, childish and ridiculous!


And some editors and publishers wonder why they can’t find “quality writers” to fill their pages.


And they wonder why they can’t bring “new emerging writers” to their stables.


They not only can find these writers, they have found these writers and they’ve pushed them all out the door because they didn’t fit a specific, arrogant, narrow-minded view and parameter of academic writing critique.


“Can you read it?”


“Can you understand it?”


“Do you like it?”


That is all you ever need know about a story.


A good story lives forever and it’s not because it fit into a scale defined by a turn-of-the-century university bureaucrat battling to maintain his own self-importance.


It is because it strikes a cord with the reader. No, not everyone will enjoy everything they read, but if it’s never given a chance because of a rule or guideline, the loss is incalculable.


If you don’t like it, just say ‘no’ and go on about your business as your publication loses steam and eventually implodes from your own imagined magnanimous ideals.


Just don’t try the ‘con’ on me in an attempt to shame me into buying your magazine.

If you looked for good, readable stories in the first place, your magazine would sell itself.


To paraphrase Bukowski, ‘Once you begin to write for the editors or the fans, they might as well flush you downstream with the rest of the turds’


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