Information I Could Have Done Without

Following Sheila's instructions, I went over to this writer's blog to leave a note of encouragement. (And I was sufficiently impressed after a dip in her archives that I added her to the blogroll, so say Hello to Sarah Jane Elliott, a writer-to-be from Canada.) It seems that Ms. Elliott had a story rejected by Realms of Fantasy, and needs some good words. Fair enough.

Except that she indicates that at least she got the yellow rejection letter, not the "Blue Form of Death".

At that point my head thudded upon the table, because my most recent rejection -- for my "Snow White" retelling, the one that just poured out of me a few months back -- was from Realms, and it came on the Blue Form of Death. I'm taking this to mean that the story didn't even make it past the first reader at Realms.

Of course, another clue was that the Blue Form of Death lists a handful of probable reasons for rejection, among which the phrase "it simply didn't stand out" was highlighted. This kind of irritated me, in that it tells me absolutely nothing. "It didn't stand out" is semantically the same as "We found ten or twelve better stories that were indisputably better than yours", which is pretty damned obvious since I'm looking at a rejection slip.

I am probably in a minority, but I simply don't want an editor's half-baked thoughts on why they're rejecting the story; those thoughts, given as they always are in a total vaccuum, are of no use to the story at hand and they provide no real lesson for the stories that are in the offing. So I'd much prefer to leave it at "Thanks for the submission, but we can't use it" and send me on my way. I want a "Yes", or I want a "No". That's it.

Now, if you want to give me a more detailed reason, fine. (Weird Tales does this nicely.) But the Realms approach -- "We can't take time to tell you why we don't want your work, but it could be this, this, this or this", with the appropriate "this" highlighted -- is rather bogus. But I suppose it's better than the Asimov's rejections, which I am told are more like this: "The vast majority of submissions here suck, and yours is probably in that number. Here are some reasons why most stories suck. Have a nice day."

But even that is small condolence, because -- guess what -- my baseball story is currently at Asimov's. I can't wait.