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We need a rejection bell

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jason Byrne
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Marc Joan said:
Sorry, couldn't resist applying the P button! I'll remove it after giggling to myself for a few days. You knew this would happen anyway. :D
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HAHAHAHA...

You're like,
"it's a... panda..."
 
Personalized rejection today. Was told that the sample I provided was interesting and the writing was good, but the pacing was off. So the Pacing is already off in the first five pages of my book? Man...
 
Chase Gamwell said:
Personalized rejection today. Was told that the sample I provided was interesting and the writing was good, but the pacing was off. So the Pacing is already off in the first five pages of my book? Man...
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That was me groaning in sympathy, btw. I have been through a ~5 month dry spell, full of rejection, and very much suspect there's more to come. You got a personalised rejection -- that's a kind of success, you know.
 
Chase Gamwell said:
Personalized rejection today. Was told that the sample I provided was interesting and the writing was good, but the pacing was off. So the Pacing is already off in the first five pages of my book? Man...
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Hmmm... I see what you mean...
 
Marc Joan said:
That was me groaning in sympathy, btw. I have been through a ~5 month dry spell, full of rejection, and very much suspect there's more to come. You got a personalised rejection -- that's a kind of success, you know.
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Oh — sympathy groans — that's why it's neutral.
 
Marc Joan said:
That was me groaning in sympathy, btw. I have been through a ~5 month dry spell, full of rejection, and very much suspect there's more to come. You got a personalised rejection -- that's a kind of success, you know.
Click to expand...

I can see what you mean, but it's hard to hear that the pacing is off that close to the beginning. I mean...I've already cut out over 3,000 words worth of filler scenes to tighten up the story and within the first five pages there's more? It's just rough because of all the things that could have been said, I didn't expect to hear that.

With that said, however, I think I can see a way to speed pacing (that's another issue...the feedback was that the pacing didn't feel quite right, so I don't know if it's too fast or slow...I'm guessing slow) at the beginning of the book. It might require a reshuffle of the second chapter, but I'm not sure how I feel about doing that...
 
Chase Gamwell said:
I can see what you mean, but it's hard to hear that the pacing is off that close to the beginning. I mean...I've already cut out over 3,000 words worth of filler scenes to tighten up the story and within the first five pages there's more? It's just rough because of all the things that could have been said, I didn't expect to hear that.

With that said, however, I think I can see a way to speed pacing (that's another issue...the feedback was that the pacing didn't feel quite right, so I don't know if it's too fast or slow...I'm guessing slow) at the beginning of the book. It might require a reshuffle of the second chapter, but I'm not sure how I feel about doing that...
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The joy of rewriting...I've been doing a lot of that over the last few months, and with several stories I've got to the stage where I just feel that, good, bad or totally awful, they are FINISHED and I can't / won't do anything more to them...
 
Marc Joan said:
The joy of rewriting...I've been doing a lot of that over the last few months, and with several stories I've got to the stage where I just feel that, good, bad or totally awful, they are FINISHED and I can't / won't do anything more to them...
Click to expand...

I know that feels. I've done plenty of revisions after the saints who call themselves beta readers finished going through my work. After the last revision I did over the weekend, I was sure that I was done, but this rejection is making me question how I can tighten up the story even more. And I already rewrote the second chapter once to accommodate for one issue. Now it's the pacing? I guess that's the writing process, but it still makes me Le Sigh sometimes...
 
Chase Gamwell said:
I know that feels. I've done plenty of revisions after the saints who call themselves beta readers finished going through my work. After the last revision I did over the weekend, I was sure that I was done, but this rejection is making me question how I can tighten up the story even more. And I already rewrote the second chapter once to accommodate for one issue. Now it's the pacing? I guess that's the writing process, but it still makes me Le Sigh sometimes...
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Same here. Back in October-ish, I got a rejection on my full MS request with the comment that she couldn't connect to the characters. I took her comments to heart, but I wanted other opinions before revising my whole MS. Long story short, I'm now in the process of revising the MS I had put away in June (thinking I was done... ha!), and it's much better for it. I also had to add a second chapter.

All that to say, 1) don't let one comment make you change your whole thing. Get other feedback too, because what doesn't work for one person may be wonderful to another.
And 2) Even when you're "done" making changes, you won't be done lol. It's disheartening, but you'll see some crazy things when you go back and review it months later.
 
Nicole Wilson said:
Same here. Back in October-ish, I got a rejection on my full MS request with the comment that she couldn't connect to the characters. I took her comments to heart, but I wanted other opinions before revising my whole MS. Long story short, I'm now in the process of revising the MS I had put away in June (thinking I was done... ha!), and it's much better for it. I also had to add a second chapter.

All that to say, 1) don't let one comment make you change your whole thing. Get other feedback too, because what doesn't work for one person may be wonderful to another.
And 2) Even when you're "done" making changes, you won't be done lol. It's disheartening, but you'll see some crazy things when you go back and review it months later.
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Thanks for this. Definitely helpful.

I'm thinking I'm going to sit down tonight and really look to see if I could figure out what they are talking about. I think I know (since I only sent the first ten pages as part of the query, so that's not even two whole chapters), but I really want to look and see if there is something I can do to mitigate anything if there is a problem. If there is something (pacing wise) that I can do to make the first few chapters flow better, that can only be a good thing. After all, it might make future queries more interesting, but I won't know unless I go take a long, hard look.

I just hope that the MS eventually gets to a place where I can get so far as to have a partial or full. :)
 
Another rejection in a mere 5 days from the Bent Agency, but with this comment...?

"Unfortunately, I'm not quite connecting with this particular project. I do hope you will try me again with future work if you don't find representation for this one. "

What does that really mean? I suspect a different project/series might be part of the answer. As this was the Ceridwen fantasy series, maybe the murder mystery may be more to her liking ;)
 
Alistair Roberts said:
Another rejection in a mere 5 days from the Bent Agency, but with this comment...?

"Unfortunately, I'm not quite connecting with this particular project. I do hope you will try me again with future work if you don't find representation for this one. "

What does that really mean? I suspect a different project/series might be part of the answer. As this was the Ceridwen fantasy series, maybe the murder mystery may be more to her liking ;)
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I got the same comment from that agency. I think it's their nice way of saying, "this isn't for me, but maybe another project." I don't know that a change in genre is necessarily what they're meaning. Just not the project you pitched.
 
Got rejected because they don't take sci-fi even for MG. I got the impression that they only read the subject line and judged on that only. So gutted since they would have been perfect. But unfortunately didn't even get past the gatekeeper so the agent didn't even respond. :(

I invested half a day to make sure I ticked their box and now they don't take sci-fi with no mention on their site. Hmm maybe I missed it in my thoroughness :p :D
 
Emurelda said:
Got rejected because they don't take sci-fi even for MG. I got the impression that they only read the subject line and judged on that only. So gutted since they would have been perfect. But unfortunately didn't even get past the gatekeeper so the agent didn't even respond. :(

I invested half a day to make sure I ticked their box and now they don't take sci-fi with no mention on their site. Hmm maybe I missed it in my thoroughness :p :D
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I'm fairly bullet-proof when it comes to rejection, but it is disappointing when an agent or publisher whose ethos you admire says 'no'. In my latest round of querying, I've sent off 60 submission packages, including one to Salt Books.

They're a small independent publisher, based in Cromer, Norfolk, and they publish the type of books I like to read and write. They've had recent success with Wyl Menmuir's The Many, which is set In Cornwall where I live; Wyl lives a few miles from me. Salt's owner Christopher Hamilton-Emery and I share a friend—which was just about the only 'in' to the world of publishing I had. I mentioned both of these things, hoping they might make a difference, but they still rejected me.

Their loss!
 
Unfortunately it seems to get more difficult. I've just discovered the list of agents in Australia that would take a murder mystery has dropped from a mere 3 to 2! I mean with a population of over 22 million now and growing at nearly triple the rate of the UK and USA, its crazy!
 
Ding, Dong my first one's dead. Yesterday I received my first rejection from my first round of queries. It's from a power-player at a big agency and I had no real hopes, but I had to try...

On an encouraging note, it is personalized, and my read from it is my writing is good, but "the concept of your story doesn't draw me in enough to believe I'm the right agent for it." She assures me she takes thorough reading of all queries and synopsis very seriously, and concludes by wishing me luck in my search for representation.

This is in stark contrast to rejections I received for an admittedly bad project I queried in 2009, in which most personalized rejections said something like "intriguing story, but the writing isn't strong enough - I encourage you to keep writing."

So, I remain hopeful and shall carry on. :cool:
 
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