My latest rejection has just landed on my doormat and obviously I'm a bit down about it. The trouble is that this agent has actually considered my work and written a personal letter. Strangely this is harder to take than the standard rejection letter. This is what it says.

"I think your writing is very good indeed, but the publishing market is so very tough that I am not sure that I would feel confident of trying to find a publisher for this novel, on the basis of what I have read. Personally, I did not like the use of the present tense, and I am also unsure whether the plot is sufficiently large in scope. Further, I suspect that the ending might be too down-beat for what is essentially a novel for the women's market."

Now I am doubting whether my choice of tense was correct, have I written a good enough plot, and if that ending is not suitable the whole novel - for me - loses it's appeal. Do I take on board what she says or do I ignore it and go to the next agent on my list?

Gina.
(Most of what she has seen is uploaded)

Having experienced many rejection letters myself, mostly the standard it doesn't look like the looked past the covering letter reply, I would take heart in any personal reply.

However, I wouldn't take too much notice of their advise if you have confidence in your work. My stance is that if I feel the advice is worthwhile I will take it on board but if I still feel confident in my work then I won't let peoples opinions affect me. It's knowing yourself really.

Good luck

Don't feel too down Gina.

What to do next, depends upon how you feel about the novel. How long would it take you to make the changes suggested in this letter? Would it be worth giving it a go, but sending it as it is to another publisher in the meantime?

All the best with it.

Gina, you did well to get to the stage of an agent reading more than the three sample chapters they generally ask for, and as for the personal letter, that shows they thought your work was worthy of serious consideration. Re. a rewrite, I think if you were considering one in order to resubmit to this particular agent you should ask her if she would be willing to reconsider this work before going ahead. If you submit to another you may get a confirmation of the opinion of the first, but ultimately only you can decide what you're willing to do. Good luck, whatever you decide.

Hmmm. Must send something out to a publisher to experience these "rejection blues".

Rejection, feelings of resentment and not being appreciated. Under the weather unconscious belief that maybe you really are insufficient. The empty feeling as your dreams slowly rinse off your skin and leave a pale shell of a broken, failed writer behind.

May help fuel the fire of despair that keeps me writing...

Gina, Hi. I think a lot depends on how much work is involved to make the changes. This is an idea: Do the re-write, have the two different manuscripts, and send them off to different agents. I was wondering if the agent you spoke about was a successful one with lots of writers on her books, or a struggling one. Agents have to weigh up the work involved in handling a novel against the likelihood of publishers they're in contact with taking it, if they get it wrong they loose money.
Say she was a small agent, a larger agent might feel more inclined to handle it, might have more contacts, might be able to take more risks with manuscripts.
I think Nell said to ask her if she'd handle it with the changes, didn't she? That sounds like a good idea. I'd say the attention the work had from her is a definite sign to forge ahead with it. She wouldn't have bothered to write in that way if she'd thought it hopeless. So, go and distract yourself with something else for a day or two, and then get back to work, and that's an order.

IB, didn't you just win a competition with your writing? I don't think you qualify as a failed writer, sorry.

Hehe, I think there's a long way for me to go yet. Besides, I mean tthat I want to experience the rejection, because it will make me feel bad, and it's when I feel low that I write my best stuff imo.

IB, you worry me - most people want to feel good, and you want to feel bad just so you can do your best work? Is that a good idea? Now that's what I call dedication.

One thing I can say without difficulty is that I@m not "most people".

If you follow my work, there's a lot of negativity connected to it.

Casualty - a man bleeding to death in the sand
Snap - a young boy who gets his heart broken and kills himself
Sweet and Sour - my own musings during a period of overwhelming depression
Half Life - A man given only six months to live, with a dark presence invading his conscience and his wife sleeping with another man
Dreamer - A man resurrected after 34 years under ice into a world where everything he loved has been destroyed.

There's more, I just haven't shared it with the forum as yet. So as you can see, I feed of unhappiness, and I'm quite happy doing so. The more I get it out, the less I suffer from it myself.

Yeah? my stories are mostly dark, IB, but hell, my life isn't.

I'm sure everyone has their own method of getting into their material. Mine is probably just closer to the writing equivalent of "The Method".

I don't think I'm necesarilly any more clever for how I conduct myself, but at the end of the day, it's how I feel comfortable conducting myself.

well just joined the list of rejected writers but I dont see myself as a failed writer , dissapointed yes but more commercially succesful writers than I have suffered rejection letters so I look at it as the agents loss and as Chrchill said I shall KBO

Keep Buggering On ( not in the biblical sense of course)


fire up the printer search for another envelope and stamp and submit to somebody else

I do commiserate though, when a huge piece of work like a novel is going through the mill. It's so much easier for writer's of short stories to bear rejections, maybe? But we have other problems, I think.

Thanks for all your comments guys. I've had a chance to think about it, I'm going to keep the ending as it is, but I'm still undecided about the tense to use.

I'm going to try a larger agency and see what they say, Becca this was a small agency so you might be right about the risk they would be willing to take. We'll see what a larger agency think.

Onwards.

Gina.