most common reasons for rejection (from a mysterious publisher)
Towse
<http://bit.ly/16Qjlo>
"This has been a pretty busy season for manuscript submissions, despite
(or perhaps because of) the economy. Since Mysterious Matters seems to
get the most hits when I write about "things not to do," I thought I'd
offer the most common reasons for rejection in the last couple of
months. We may not say these things directly in our rejection
letters, but we turned down your book because...
1. Your story didn't start in the first 25 pages of your manuscript.
You'd be amazed at how many manuscripts have absolutely no action, or no
initiating mysterious incident, in the first couple of chapters. Boring
your readers in the first two chapters is no way to get a book published.
2. You burdened your early chapters with backstory. You gave me your
protagonist's entire life story almost immediately, before I really
developed an interest in learning about the protag. Your manuscript was
so mired in the past that I couldn't get excited about the present.
3. Your protagonist was too old. Ouch--hard to say this (though it is
one of the benefits of blogging anonymously), but the market for
geriatric sleuths is limited. So many manuscripts with retired amateur
sleuths, living in Florida or some other retirement mecca, and not
enough people who want to read about the elderly.
4. You don't write very well. Either your prose is clunky or too
ornate; too simple or too complicated; too heavy to sustain your topic
or too light to have any gravitas. The ironic thing is that your story
may have had potential, but your writing skills just aren't polished
enough."
[...] [and so forth ...]
[Mysterious Matters is designed to educate and entertain both writers
and readers of mystery and suspense novels with tips, comments, and the
inside story of the mystery publishing business.:
<http://mysteriousmatters.typepad.com/mysterious_matters_myster/>]
--
Sal
Ye olde swarm of links: thousands of links for writers, researchers and
the terminally curious <http://writers.internet-resources.com>
--
Sal
Ye olde swarm of links: thousands of links for writers, researchers and
the terminally curious <http://writers.internet-resources.com>