Son of Just Tell the Story

A friend of mine, a very capable and prolific author, just sent me an e-mail that she had been turned down by XYZ Publishing (not their real name) because the book she sent them "was not a break out book." Now Donald Maass wrote an entire BOOK about break out novels, and I would guess that 90% of what's submitted out there is not "break out" material. I venture to say that in these markets, unless you can guarantee mega-sales because of your NYT bestseller/high profile name, don't bother to send them anything. In the meantime, the rest of us just keep slogging away trying to tell the story...

Just Tell the Story Rides Again

Ran into a cool web site. It's for writers who've collected their share (or more than their share) of rejections. There's a place to rant, a place to share your worst-rejection-letter story, and other pages on the site. It's called www.rejectioncollection.com. If you write, I recommend it, if only for some of the snarky comments on rejection letters.

In fairness, some editors' posts are worth reading, too. Possibly they defend themselves a trifle too strenuously, but it's good to remember every story has two sides.

Even rejection letters.

I think.

Deb

Welcome to "Just Tell the Story"

I started this blog on purest whim. Seems to me on many of the writers' loops out there, everybody is worrying about 1" margins, point of view, marketability, sales figures, trade size versus mass market.

I think this does a disservice to those of us who simply envision a story in our heads and we want to tell it. Don't worry so much about mechanics--worry instead about TELLING THE STORY and we'll sweat the mechanics later.

How's that?
Deb