7 Comments on “Personal Feedback, or, Form Rejections Are Our Friends”

  1. I agree completely. Form rejections get the message across without giving our paranoid author brains something to trip over.

    It amazes me that there are writers out there who see any rejection note as an invitation to dialogue. Yikes.

  2. I can’t deny I do love a personal rejection (especially those that help me improve the story), but I’m happy with a form rejection too. Wait, that sounds wrong. You know what I mean.

    And you guys are very much appreciated and people who argue back are prats.

  3. I once had so many form rejections that I wallpapered a small bathroom. This was back in the old days of the 1980s when everything was done via typewriters, carbon paper and copy machines. I didn’t expect more than a form. The form was nice because it let me know to either rethink the story or submit it elsewhere.

    I think for authors to expect personal notes is unrealistic but that’s just me. I don’t have my callouses about rejection notes YET but I still understand that standard form rejection.

    Ardee-ann

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  5. Elizabeth, Yikes is right! I think we’re taught that we need to sell sell sell ourselves, but there’s a point where we all need to back off gracefully. I know full well the sting of disappointment, but a person who can deal graciously with the word “no” is a hero in my book.

    Cate, I love that you used the word “prats”. I shall prance around calling everybody that tomorrow. 😀

    Ardee-Ann, I had a professor that told me he used his rejections to light his cigars. I made mine into origami animals. It’s nice to know that they start to hurt much less!

    Simon, send me a story so I CAN REJECT YOU CRUELLY! 😉 Kidding, doll. Although you know you’d like it.

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