Editors Should Reject Rejection Letters

I started submitting manuscripts when I was 16 years old. At first it was an exhilarating process. I would type up a story or a play, do my best to proofread it, and finally package it carefully into a manilla envelope. Then, I would mail it off to New York or Chicago or Los Angeles.

Weeks later, my self-addressed envelope would come back to me. I didn't really expect to get accepted. It was only a tiny part of my subconscious that believed, "This is it, Wade, you've been discovered!" However, I did expect to find constructive criticism. I was hoping that the letter inside my SASE (Self Addressed Stamped Envelope) would reveal insight into how to make my writing better.

Instead, much to my dismay, I discovered a form letter that simply stated something along these lines:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for your interest in our publishing house. We have read your manuscript with great interest. Unfortunately, we do not feel that your work would fit in with out current list. Good luck with all of your endeavors.

And those are the types of rejection letters I have been receiving in the mail for years. It should be noted that they do wish me good luck, right? Still, one can't help but feel that my manuscript sat on a slush pile for a month, and was eventually opened up by an over-worked, unpaid intern who glanced at the title and the author's name and then paper clipped a rejection letter, mailing it back to a hopeful, unabashedly naive young lad sitting in a little house in Washington state.

Of course, the editors are all very busy people. They don't have the time to create an individualized response to each and every hopeful writer. And perhaps, sad it it may seem, many manuscripts are hopeless messes; if an editor or an intern were to write back on honest critique, sucide rates of aspiring, talentless writers might soar.

Yet, I believe that there's room for a happy medium, and I hereby suggest the following. INstead of the bland, standard form letter, publishing houses should create templates, several different types of form letters that specificy reasons as to why the manuscript didn't meet the needs of publishing company. There are about a dozen different reasons to reject something. Sometimes its a matter of marketability. Why not create a letter that suggests such a problem. In other cases, the publishing house might not deisre a particular genre, and in still others, the editor may feel that the writing isn't sharp enough, descriptive enough, or that the content isn't original enough. Again, why create a variety of form letters and send them to the appropriate writers along with their rejected material. Many authors will be annoyed, but some, will take the feedback to heart, and they'll become better, more professional writers.

Of course, better than any form letter is a word or two from a real person. My first non-rejection letter wasn't an acceptance letter. It was a "maybe" letter. I submitted a children's play to Eldridge Press. They sent back a letter explaining that they liked the work, but that they weren't sure that it could be a cost-effective production (due to some extravagant set ideas). They listed a few suggestions and invited me to submit the work once more. Naturally, I very encouraged by their positive comments and took their constructive criticism to heart. A month later, I resubmitted the work, and it was published by the end of the year. Since then, ten of my plays have been published through that company. It's been a productive and profitable partnership, and it was all because someone finally said "Maybe."