meh

So I’m minding my own business yesterday, reading one of the three threads at eHarlequin that I can bring myself to look at, when I came across this post by HQN editor Abby Zidle:

One of the “side effects” of RWA’s very effective teaching tools is that I’m seeing more and more mss. that are technically correct, but just kind of “meh” when it comes to storytelling. If I had to describe my submission pile, I’d say about 1% (if that) is “really good,” 10% is “laughably bad,” and the other 89% is “workmanlike.” Sadly, “workmanlike” is a double-edged sword–the books aren’t good enough for me to buy, but they’re too good for me to dismiss quickly, so they languish on my floor while I try to think of what to say in a rejection letter.

Maybe I need a “meh” form letter? 🙂

That’s a very different rundown than provided by Ms. Nielsen Hayden in rather infamous post from last year. Perhaps sci fi (sorry, “speculative fiction”) editors have to deal with more functional illiteracy. Actually, judging from some of the fanfic I’ve read, that’s most certainly the case.

(By the way, I loved the post then, I love it now, I think she’s got every right in the world to lambast those embittered idiots at RejectionCollection.com. I don’t think I have a bigger pet peeve than those authors who feel the need to burn rejecting editor and agents in effigy, willfully misunderstand what is being said in a rejection letter, interpreting everything as a form letter, even those letters which are most obviously not, and finally, getting up in arms if any publishing professional dares deliver a form letter in response to their cherished baby!)

I was thinking about posting on this yesterday, but Cece’s post linking to Theresa’s sealed it for me.

I have received a rejection from Abby Zidle. She said the story didn’t interest her (so I must be in that 89%). When, a few months later, she judged the first chapter in the Jasmine Contest finals, she went into great detail on her scoresheet. I used her comments very heavily in my revisions. As I recall, she wrote that she thought the plot was too “category,” the heroine was unsympathetic, the hero was too “kitchen sink” in his background, and the sexual tension felt forced. She liked the setting, and thought I worked it to advantage. She liked the voice and dialogue. It was invaluable insight, sicne i was about to send it out to a bunch of agents, and I worked to streamline the hero’s background, ground the heroine’s motives, and smooth out any rough spots in the sexual tension. the plot? Well, I don’t really agree with her on that one, so I didn’t change it. I played up the setting, since she said ti was a strong point. I wrote her a thank you note, because it was all very helpful advice, and if I haven’t gotten under contract with another house by the time I write my next, I’ll give her another go, because I like HQN, and I like Ms. Zidle.

I like to think that within this 89% there is a great variety — as in, books that every editor in New York is going to find “meh” (the #11: “Someone could publish this book, but we don’t see why it should be us” fraction of Ms. Nielsen Hayden), vs. a “meh” response isolated to Ms Zidle which another house might see as “wow!” I remember being bowled over with shock last year when, in the middle of my conversation with a senior editor from a large romance publishing house, I mentioned a new writer who was selling her books to another house by the dozen, and the editor kind of shrugged and said, “I looked at that. Meh.”

Wait a second… you mean to tell me this is subjective?!?!?! Talk about a lightbulb moment. I think that’s when I started taking rejection less seriously. Yeah, that would be the instant. Naturally, I want no editor to deem my work “meh,” I want them all fighting over it so that it ends up being auctioned off like a prize pig. That’s the goal.

But meanwhile, I want just one editor to say “wow,” and snap me up. Soon.