Shelley Munro Blog

My guest today is the wonderful Nina Pierce who writes for Liquid Silver Books. She’s talking about a subject that strikes fear into all our hearts - rejection.

You’ve done it. Finished your first novel and sent it off to the editor or agent of your dreams. And now you wait. Since this one will be such a best seller you don’t want to waste precious time and you get started on your next novel. The words are just flying onto the page when the letter or email arrives. “Sorry, but this isn’t for us …”
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I found this list about why authors receive a rejection on their manuscripts when I was tidying up my office, so I thought I’d share. For some reason I’ve run across a lot of writers blogging about rejection and how to turn unpublished into published this week. Here are links to some of the great posts I’ve found.

At Passions Muses, Rowan West is talking about rejection. At Escape into Fantasy (Marilu Mann’s blog) Karen McCullough has suggestions on how we as writers can handle rejection. At Title Magic Dianna Love AND Mary Buckham have suggestions on how to break out of the pack of hopefuls to become a published writer.

Reasons Manuscripts are Rejected

1. No Beginning Hook
The author hasn’t started the story in the right place. They’re thrown in the main characters’ backstory plus the kitchen sink instead of starting at the place where the main conflict starts or changes.

2. No Strong Conflict
Each story should have internal and external conflict as well as sexual tension. Without conflict there’s no point to the story.

3. Underdeveloped Characters
Perfect characters are boring. Each character should have flaws, habits, and negative traits along with a good side. Even a villain should have a few good points.

4. Too Many Points of View
In a novella or category length book, two points of view are probably enough—that of the hero and heroine. In long novels it’s possible to have more POV but the point of view characters should play an important part in the story.

5. Too Much Telling
Show your characters in action rather than telling us about what they’re doing during the course of the story.

6. Mechanical Errors
Things like grammar, punctuation, spelling errors, typos, misused words etc could lead to a rejection.

7. Historical Inaccuracy
It’s important to double check facts, especially in historical novels. This also relates to contemporary novels. Check and recheck where necessary.

8. Dialogue
Avoid awkward or inappropriate dialogue. Make sure your characters don’t all sound the same.

9. Not Tightly Written
Every scene should work to drive the story forward. Delete all unnecessary words and scenes.

10. Not a Compelling Read
The main story idea needs to be strong enough to sustain an entire book.

11. Voice
The writer’s voice isn’t engaging.

QUESTION: We all face rejection in one way or another, be it as writers or as individuals going about the process of living. How do you handle rejection? How do you face rejection in your personal or business life? In your writing life?

Ever since my aspiring author days, I’ve stuck to the idea of having several submissions out at once to help cushion disappointment. If I have several projects with editors or agents and one comes back with a no, I have hope in the mail because some of my other subs are still live.

After selling my first book I’ve continued with my “hope in the mail” program, and mostly it works. But there’s one strange phenomenon I’ve noticed. The replies tend to come back in clusters, no matter when I first sent them out. A case in point. I sent one sub in mid-Dec, one in Jan and one in Feb. The answers have all arrived back in the space of a week with two coming on the same day. I still have two live submissions and quite frankly, I’m a bit worried about opening my email in the morning.

I received a couple of rejections and I’ve already moved on to Plan B for those. I’ve also have some good news to balance out the rejections. (I’m not telling yet) I don’t think I’ll change my “hope in the mail” routine, but I’d definitely like the replies to arrive farther apart. I need time to savor the hope!!

I’m a huge paranormal fan. I like both dark paranormals and the more light-hearted ones. My own writing tends toward the light-hearted with humor end, although I can write darker if I set my mind to it. I wish there were more of the light-hearted ones around. I’ve just read Howling at the Moon (tales of an urban werewolf) by Karen Macinerney. I really loved it and chuckled out loud quite a bit during the reading of the book. Unfortunately I need to wait until Nov 2008 for book two.

I know there are quite a few paranormal fans out there. Do you prefer reading the darker paranormals or are you, like me, a fan of the light-hearted ones? Actually, I like humorous contemporaries as well. I wish there were more of those around, too.