Rejection Letters 2 by Warren Bull
More from Alex Carter at Mental Floss who provides authors
everywhere with hope by sharing some of the rejection letters sent to great
writers by publishers who missed the opportunity to publish what later became
very successful books. Let’s rise from
our hot keyboards, and shake our hands in the air as we shout, “Write on!”
VLADIMIR
NABOKOV
“…overwhelmingly
nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian … the whole thing is an unsure
cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy. It often becomes a wild
neurotic daydream … I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand
years.”
Released in 1955, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita saw
the light of day much sooner than this publisher hoped.
RUDYARD
KIPLING
“...you just don’t know
how to use the English language.”
Rudyard Kipling got this response to a short
story he pitched to a now-defunct newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner.
HUNTER
S. THOMPSON
“...you shit-eating freak.
I warned you not to write that vicious trash about me — Now you better get
fitted for a black eyepatch in case one of yours gets gouged out by a
bushy-haired stranger in a dimly-lit parking lot. How fast can you learn
Braille? You are scum.”
Another example of writer-to-writer smacktalk. Hunter S.
Thompson sent this doozy of a rejection
to his biographer, William McKeen.
D.H. LAWRENCE
“...for your own sake do
not publish this book.”
D.H. Lawrence did not take this advice, and Lady Chatterley’s Lover was soon published.
JOHN
LE CARRÉ
"You’re welcome to Le
Carré—he hasn’t got any future.”
This note was sent by one publisher
to another about John Le Carré and his third novel, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, which became an international bestseller.
LOUISA
MAY ALCOTT
“Stick To Teaching.”
Louisa May Alcott rejected this dismissive response to Little Women. It would be published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869,
and remains a classic nearly 150 years later.
F.
SCOTT FITZGERALD
"You’d have a decent
book if you’d get rid of that Gatsby character."
The rather drastic revision was suggested
to F. Scott Fitzgerald about—you guessed it—The
Great Gatsby.
STEPHEN
KING
“We are not interested in science
fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.”
Despite this feedback, Stephen King
eventually published The Running Man under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.
SYLVIA
PLATH
“Reject recommended: I’m
not sure what Heinemann’s sees in this first novel unless it is a kind of
youthful American female brashness. But there certainly isn’t enough genuine
talent for us to take notice.”
An editor at Alfred A. Knopf rejected Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar twice: first when the manuscript was submitted under
a pseudonym (above) and again (below) when her name was attached to it. Her
name proved to be surprisingly difficult for the editor to spell:
“I have now re-read—or rather read more thoroughly— “The
Bell Jar”, with the knowledge that it is by Sylva Plath which has added
considerably to its interest for it is obviously flagrantly autobiographical.
But it still is not much of a novel. The trouble is that she has not succeeded
in using her material in a novelistic way; there is no viewpoint, no sifting
out o the experiences of being a Mademoiselle contest winner with the month in
New York, the subsequent mental breakdown and suicide attempts, the brash loss
of virginity at the end. One feels simply that Miss Plat is writing of them
because [these] things did happen to her and the incidents are in themselves
good for a story, but throw them together and they don’t necessarily add up to
a novel. One never feels, for instance, the deep-rooted anguish that would
drive this girl to suicide. It is too bad because Miss Play has a way with
words and a sharp eye or unusual and vivid detail. But maybe now that this book
is out of her system she will use her talent more effectively next time.”
One of my favorite short stories collected a dozen
rejections before it found a home. What memorable rejections have you
received?
It was a standard rejection from an agent but the memorable part was when she congratulated me on one of my Agatha nominations and admitted she may have made a mistake. :-D
ReplyDeleteAt the time, all rejections seem memorable. Thankfully, they do fade into the distance.
ReplyDeleteAnnette, Ha!
ReplyDeleteKM, True
ReplyDeleteThat's great, Annette. So glad that agent had second thoughts. At least she knew who you were. I don't remember mine because most of the time I get no response. And I think that says a lot. The ones that Warren presented--they exist. They got it wrong, but someone actually responded.
ReplyDeleteMy then-agent once suggested that a certain publisher was looking for a y/a about a young cowgirl. i sent what I thought to be an appropriate manuscript, but the wrote that they found the writing "most pedantic." It became the first of a trilogy, still in print thirty years later.
ReplyDeleteGreat quotes, Warren. I loved reading them.
My first rejections, back in the 1960s, were of the "not for us" variety. Later they became more specific ("no pizzazz"), and now I'm back to the "we'll pass on this" type. The really painful ones fade, and editors move on. But I keep on writing (and publishing). That's what any writer should learn from all rejections. Read them, forget them, keep writing.
ReplyDelete