Rejection

Rejection letters from Ballantine, DAW, Ace, CBS (Fawcett), Pinnacle and Pocket Books

I’ve known rejection. In 1979-80 I submitted one fantasy novel, The Envoy to Ividish'fa alternate title: The Brigand Sea Prince  (72,000 words) one science fiction novella, The Hybrid-Worlder, (29,000 words, revised down to 21,900 words) and one science fiction short story, Death on Glou'ay (4,500 words). They were one and all declined by the paperback and SFF magazines of the day. Still, I though it might be interesting to share my modest collection of rejection slips with you. I should point out that my collection is modest because I did not have the persistence you need to get published. I gave up too easily. And when, some 35 years later I once again had complete stories to publish, I didn’t even bother to submit them to traditional publishers. I’d either publish them myself, or bury them myself.

Above and below are my collection of form letter rejection slips for the major mass market publishers of science fiction and fantasy of the time for the Envoy to Ividish'fa/The Brigand Sea Prince.

Rejection Letters from Berkley-- personal responses from Melissa Ann
 Singer

The lower right letter dated Sept 7, 1979 from Melissa Ann Singer, Editorial Assistant said that the story seemed " a little over-complicated," and that "some of the character's actions did not seem founded in sense." She did say that the tone of the book "seems good," and suggested another draft, tightening up the story. The upper letter left letter dated July 16 1980 is again from Melissa. In it she said that she did take a look at it, but that it isn't what they are look for. She kindly said that the revision (apparently I revised it, hence the two titles) "seems to much improve upon your original synopsis."

Below are three more rejection letters for the fantasy novel, The Envoy to Ividish'fa, including a xeroxed letter with Lester de Ray's signature, apologizing for having to resort to a form letter. He reports that a series of personal and business emergencies made it impossible to keep up with his normal schedule. And that he insists on reading and considering every fantasy submission personally. He had no "first reader" to expedite these reports, hence the need for the form letter. 

Rejection letters from Avalon, Zebra Books, and Ballantine again, with Lester de Ray's signature (not original -- a xerox copy

Below are rejection letters from Analog and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Below is a note from Amazing Stories/ Fantastic Stories concerning my sf novella, The Hybrid-Worlder.  The fist one is dated 9/10/79 from Omar Gohagen, telling me to send along the novella. "although it will need to be judged exceptional by all of our reading staff to qualify as a novella for publication. Advice: try to avoid too much wordiness. Keep it tight. If it's exciting action -- there will be enough wonder."

I apparently sent a revised version of the story, tightening it up from 29,900 to 21,900 words to them and here is their response (two sides), this time from Britton Bloom: You can read what Britton Bloom says, but note that under what needs work, only the "action" box is "x"-ed. Then, under the "We would like you to:" section, the "Send us other stories" box is "x"ed. Which actually is pretty encouraging...  Though I don't know how encouraging it was for me at the time, since, well, I didn't ever follow up on it...  

Anyway, what I found interesting on the back side was the  line "The phrasing has a 17th century sound that seems out of place in the future."   The sf author Nathan Lowell talked about The Bright Black Sea that he was reading in several of this "talking while walking" podcasts, and in one he talked about how old-fashioned my writing sounded. It seems that some things never change. I don't do it deliberately, I guess I just like the old fashioned way of writing -- though I don't think it's 17th century. Late 19th -- early 20th century.  Britton goes on to say that "the length of your sentences makes the work slow needlessly. Tighten up, make shorter punchier sentences.' Good advice, I've been making a point to do exactly that, these last couple of books.  The note ends with  "And let us see what they look like, (something-- hey -- maybe)?" Looking back 40 years, that was a pretty positive response. I should've tried harder and written more stories. 

 

And finally two rejection slips for Asimov's SF Magazines, one initialed by George Scithers,  the other signed by Darrel Schweitzer, assistant editor. These are rejecting my short story Death on Glou'Ay.

Rejection slips from Asimov's SF

I have a terrible memory about my life, so that looking over these rejection slips brings back no memories. Even so, I find them interesting in that in many ways, they could still be written about the stories I've written and am writing today. I'm probably still to wordy. While I'm trying to eliminate long, run on sentences, I find that I'm constantly having to go back and break them apart. Still, while I haven't the courage to actually go back and read these things, I'd like to think that I've gotten better with age and practice. They say that you should shove your first novel in the drawer and keep it there. I've given you pretty much all of my late life writing, so I guess these stories will have to count as my novels in the drawer.

Note: Melissa Ann Singer, the editorial assistant at Berkley Publishing is now the Senior Editor at Tor/Forge. Omar Gohagen was the alias of Elinor Mavor, the editor of Amazing 1979-1982. Britton Bloom wrote Matrix Cubed, a book in the TSR's Buck Rogers series and contributed and wrote some essays for Amazing. George Scithers was a SF fan, writer, the first, Hugo winning editor of Asimov's and helped re-established Weird Tales. Darrell Schweitzer helped re-establish and then revive and edit Weird Tales and is the author of dark fantasy and horror stories.