This rejection came with some good comments, I think. I’ve got a better understanding of what the market wants. Here are the comments:
Unfortunately, it’s not quite right for us. The narrative was quite vivid, but it seemed to me more focused on description and less focused on Caerelyn’s character. I wanted to get just as vivid a feel for her core goal as a character, her deepest hopes and fears, as I was getting of the furnishings of the main hall of the King’s Castle. I wanted the narrative to go inside her head and give me a feel for what inner yearning was driving her through the story, and this opening didn’t provide that as much as I prefer.
That’s it. It’s off somewhere else!
4 Responses
You're …. going to send it straight off again, despite knowing it has an enormous flaw? You're dumb. How many times do I have to tell you you need to work on characters and feelings? Please start listening to people, or I'll have to take back what I said about you being published this year.
I follow Heinlein's rules. And you haven't even read the piece, let alone most anything else I'm submitting these days, so you really have no room for comment :P.
Yes, please dismiss my rightness as usual.
I take it back. You won't get published this year, and probably not next year either.
You can't possibly make any judgment on the piece without having read it. At all. And you yourself reminded me that Ray Bradbury was rejected over 800 times before publication. Do you think he seriously changed his stories every time a rejection said "I didn't like this"? No.
If you had read the piece, then I would hope that you would give constructive criticism, but you haven't read it…