Rejectomancy

OtterFactory

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Cheers.

It's someone thinking about their sister. She drowned on a family holiday.
She was adopted, but the narrator wasn't.
He's just thinking about stuff through the funeral and the aftermath.

Not a lot happens. It rains.

I have no idea where to send it.
It was written for the bridge thingy on Camera Obscura and it got to the last round, but didn't win.
FFO rejected it pretty quick.

Now I'm stumped.

Top tiers are Glimmer Train, One Story, Cream City Review, AGNI, and Black Warrior Review. They're all very challenging, but with literary fiction you never know because it's such a broad term. Your story seems like it would be a fit with Glimmer Train, because they have a very specific type of story they like. Cream City and BWR like experimental literary stories. One Story likes them all, and is my favorite lit mag among with BWR. :D


Caketrain is also worth a try. I'd also mention Electric Literarure, because they are awesome, but they're closed to subs for now.
 

alexshvartsman

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36-day form rejection from Nature.

They've enclosed submission GL's as well. Could anyone who subbed there before confirm that this is typical? I'm assuming it's their standard procedure, but want to make sure I didn't mess up in some spectacular way to warrant an exception ;)
 

O'Dandelo

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Anyone have any recent experience with Black Static? My sub is at 51 days. There's only one recent rejection on duotrope, and it was 58 days.

This is my second story with them. The first took 33 days to get the R. Again, choosing to believe that means I made it past slush and Mr. Cox himself is going to read it.
 

Sai

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Okay, so I know I've complained about Analog's form letters in the past, but I promise that after this I'll shut up ;). In their form R they make a lot of suggestions about what they're looking for (happy endings > sad endings, make sure the science element is central to the plot, etc) but on their submissions they write:

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][FONT=Arial,Helvetica]We have no hard-and-fast editorial guidelines, because science fiction is such a broad field that I don't want to inhibit a new writer's thinking by imposing Thou Shalt Nots. Besides, a really good story can make an editor swallow his preconceived taboos. [/FONT][/FONT]

Why not post the suggestions online instead of with a rejection? It would probably be more useful then rather than after-the-fact.

As you might have guess, I got a R from Analog today ^_^;
 

Pemako

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Yeah, I was kind of shocked by Analog's form letter, especially this:

—Science fiction readers are problem solvers! Stories with downbeat endings, in which the characters have no hope of solving their problems, are strongly disliked by Analog readers. In a good SF story, the characters strive to solve their problems—and even if they fail in the end, they go down fighting, not whimpering.

So they want formulaic stories? Whoa.

And I really don't understand either why this isn't posted online. I've only submitted to them once, and the story definitely had a 'downbeat' ending, so sort of a waste of everybody's time.
 
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Project Deadlight

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Hey Guys,

Advice - been subbing to a market that just opened again in Jan. The turn around time is so fast it's mind blowing. Had four rejections from them in 4 days! A bit worried now about subbing more as don't want to bombard them... what is the etiqutte regarding fast moving markets like this? I have more to send but don't want them thinking, "Jesus, I'm spending my whole life reading this guy's crap!"
 

Lillie

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Top tiers are Glimmer Train, One Story, Cream City Review, AGNI, and Black Warrior Review. They're all very challenging, but with literary fiction you never know because it's such a broad term. Your story seems like it would be a fit with Glimmer Train, because they have a very specific type of story they like. Cream City and BWR like experimental literary stories. One Story likes them all, and is my favorite lit mag among with BWR. :D


Caketrain is also worth a try. I'd also mention Electric Literarure, because they are awesome, but they're closed to subs for now.

Thank you. I'll look into them.
I'm way out of my comfort zone here, so I need all the help I can get.
 

Lillie

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I will if the opportunity arises. But I have something with them, and their next call is for 'Mark Nipple' stories.

Honestly, if that was my name, I'd change it.
 

defcon6000

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I will if the opportunity arises. But I have something with them, and their next call is for 'Mark Nipple' stories.

Honestly, if that was my name, I'd change it.
You could write a story about Mark Nipple getting his named changed (or how some writers come up with the most retarded names for their characters).
 

Aggy B.

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Hey Guys,

Advice - been subbing to a market that just opened again in Jan. The turn around time is so fast it's mind blowing. Had four rejections from them in 4 days! A bit worried now about subbing more as don't want to bombard them... what is the etiqutte regarding fast moving markets like this? I have more to send but don't want them thinking, "Jesus, I'm spending my whole life reading this guy's crap!"

Most "fast" markets (like Lightspeed and Clarkesworld) request you wait seven days between submissions. So, that's what I would do.
 

Marzioli

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Most "fast" markets (like Lightspeed and Clarkesworld) request you wait seven days between submissions. So, that's what I would do.
I agree with Aggy. You certainly don't want to appear like you're unloading your trunk on them. You want them to think you just finished polishing up your gem. While I wouldn't stick hard and fast to a seven day wait if they didn't specify, I would certainly come as close as possible.
 

Izz

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I agree with Aggy. You certainly don't want to appear like you're unloading your trunk on them. You want them to think you just finished polishing up your gem. While I wouldn't stick hard and fast to a seven day wait if they didn't specify, I would certainly come as close as possible.
Heheh--here's a personal slush anecdote:

Not long after C&C opened, a writer sent in a sub and said in their cover letter, 'i've got a few stories i want to try out on you.'

Small alarm bell.

On the first page of his sub, along with the rest of his personal details, there was a small copyright statement, complete with year. From memory that made the story a minimum of seven or eight years old.

Larger alarm bell.

The story didn't work for me, so i declined. Next story, similar deal. He subbed four stories total, iirc, all of them with dated copyright statements, all of which were at least five years old. The dude was emptying his trunk on my desk!

At least he was up front about it, i guess. I didn't buy any of the stories. There was a reason they'd been trunked.

This doesn't particularly apply to your situation, Project Deadlight, but i figured i'd share :D

Oh, and it's probably not a good idea to include the year the story was written in the document.
 

Aggy B.

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I'm back in the cricket zone again. Not anticipating responses from Apex or Stupefying Stories 'til the end of the month. The EDF subs still have another 40 days or so minimum. And Tor.com...

Yeah. It'll be warm out by the time I hear back. (Or cold again, depending on just how slow they decide to be.)
 

pangalactic

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And Tor.com...

Yeah. It'll be warm out by the time I hear back. (Or cold again, depending on just how slow they decide to be.)

You have so much more patience than me. I've told myself that when I'm a Big Name author with a hard-hitting agent I'll have a story on Tor.com. Until then, they'll just have to deal without my words on their site ;)
 

defcon6000

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Got my R from F&SF, I'm not sure what tier it is. It says: "There's some nice writing here, but this story didn't quite work for me, I'm afraid."

What I really wanted to know was if they found it remotely funny.
 

Marzioli

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Got my R from F&SF, I'm not sure what tier it is. It says: "There's some nice writing here, but this story didn't quite work for me, I'm afraid."
Sounds like it was a higher tier, or even a personal. My rejection from two weeks ago didn't include any compliments.
 
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Pemako

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Got my R from F&SF, I'm not sure what tier it is. It says: "There's some nice writing here, but this story didn't quite work for me, I'm afraid."

What I really wanted to know was if they found it remotely funny.

Yeah, I've gotten two rejections from them, and neither of them said anything about nice writing - so must be higher tier.
 

alexshvartsman

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Hey Guys,

Advice - been subbing to a market that just opened again in Jan. The turn around time is so fast it's mind blowing. Had four rejections from them in 4 days! A bit worried now about subbing more as don't want to bombard them... what is the etiqutte regarding fast moving markets like this? I have more to send but don't want them thinking, "Jesus, I'm spending my whole life reading this guy's crap!"

If they're form rejections, I'd slow down. To, say, one per week?

If they are personal rejections inviting you to submit more stuff, then by all means, do so. But even so, as an editor or slush reader, I wouldn't look favorably on someone offloading their entire slush trunk on me in one shot.
 

alexshvartsman

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Got my R from F&SF, I'm not sure what tier it is. It says: "There's some nice writing here, but this story didn't quite work for me, I'm afraid."

What I really wanted to know was if they found it remotely funny.

That is indeed a higher tier form. Well done!
 

mhaynes

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just got my first fastest rejection from The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts...got it in only 6 hours

Wow. That beats my "best" which would be < 24 hours from the aptly-named Lightspeed.

I've got something I plan to submit to CCA. Just need to take another pass through it.

I still haven't received the dam-burst of Rs I've been expecting for a while. A slow trickle this week from Bards and Sages, ASIM, C&C, and Analog. Things have been so hectic I haven't even gotten things re-subbed for the three most recent Rs. Something to take care of over the weekend.