Don't Take It Personally #4

And so, back to rejection. It's a horrible business. I once got rejected by a committee of twelve who were determining whether I would make a suitable employee for a summer school camp for the under elevens. It hurt terribly. However, I was completely unsuitable for the job and had applied out of sincere desperation. I think the committee sensed that.

So is it better to pretend that you don't care one way or another? Or should you put on your pleading face and offer to lick underwear? Which option will get you instant rejection? Here's what Peter Tennant, small press legend and fluffy bear lover, had to say on the subject:

The editing jobs I've been involved with mostly don't allow for instant rejection. At Interzone and Whispers I've been a second stage reader, so the really bad stuff was weeded out before it got to me, while at Peeping Tom we had a check style rejection form to complete, and 'Your first line sucked' wasn't one of the options.

There have been some stories where I've found myself so out of sorts with what's taking place on the page I've only been able to tolerate the opening scenes, and invariably this is down to what I'd class as 'carelessness'. One aspect of that, of course, is bad grammar and punctuation. Another is the author failing to keep track of what's going on - one minute the hero is in his girl friend's bedsit and the next line he's in a car, with no transition at all, or wearing different clothes or speaking to different people. Argh! Seems to me there are plenty of writers who are good at the set pieces, but just don't take enough care with the details of storytelling, the nuts and bolts of language and narrative flow that hold it all together. And if they can't be bothered, then generally I won't either.

So be bothered! Lick Peter's underwear, metaphorically speaking! Transmission over.