Failed Attempt

(This post by weblogger George Hunka of Superfluities called to mind an eerily similar experience of my own which I recounted in a post on my prior weblog. Below is a reprint of that post .)

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Screwing my courage to the sticking point a few years ago, I decided to try my hand at literary fiction. I've never deluded myself I've any natural gift for fiction writing, literary or otherwise, but having already tried writing a genre piece [a "cozy" mystery novel, the writing of which is chronicled here], I thought I ought to give literary fiction a try as well, at least once. A novel was out of the question on several grounds, not the least of which is that I find the form unappealing, and so a short story it would have to be even though it's the most demanding and difficult of all prose forms.

Following the advice of several experienced writers of my acquaintance, all of whom are experienced writers of fiction, I worked a composite of several persons in my past, and some perfectly banal past experiences of my own, into an armature for the tale to provide it a "backbone," so to speak, and around that armature built the story.

In my entire writing life I've never sweated over anything more copiously. My word processor showed a total of 5584 minutes (some 93 hours) writing and rewriting time; this for a mere 3600 word piece. I was pleased with the result, but knew I'd have a major problem getting it published. Since I wrote for ego rather than bucks, I wanted publication in a lit mag, not a commercial periodical, and of that I saw little chance. The story's form is totally retro. I loathe — truly loathe — the studied conceits of PoMo fiction, and just as heartily adore the antediluvian form of the omniscient, intrusive, third-person narrator, and a story with beginning, middle, and end, preferably with a wrenching, or at least unexpected, but otherwise inevitable closing twist. Not a lit mag in the world would consider such a dinosaur from a first-time fiction writer except the quality of the writing be on the order of some latter-day Joyce or Fitzgerald, which I most assuredly am not.

And the lit mags I submitted the manuscript to agreed with that assessment — all 30 of them. Rejection notices from all, and, curiously, the most depressing was a lovely (lovely as rejection letters go, that is), non-form letter of rejection from one of the most respected of the lit mags, the only one of the 30 to actually comment on the submission.

Your submission, "The Reunion," was very closely considered for publication in _______ [it began]. Rarely do submissions progress as far as yours without being published. It received special attention from all our editors, and was discussed at length at staff meetings. We regret to inform you, however, that we cannot find room for your submission in our next issue.

The following are a few comments about "The Reunion" made at those meetings.

You've created some very vivid and intriguing characters. In a gentle, subtle manner, Robert, Elizabeth, and the counter man all have detailed and very realistic personalities that arrest attention and maintain it throughout the story. The transitions between memory and present are wonderfully fluid, and can be followed with ease.

At the same time, however, our staff felt the ending of your story was abrupt and unsatisfying. The buildup to the reunion with Elizabeth seems worth following through to its fulfillment. We feel you ought to revisit the ending, and consider a longer and more detailed conclusion.

We are sending this letter rather than the form rejection normally sent because we wish to encourage you to continue to submit to _______. We enjoyed many aspects of your story, and would appreciate your considering our publication for future submissions.

We trust the few comments offered here will prove useful to you, and thank you for your interest in _______.

And what was it that was so especially depressing about that rejection letter? That deadly fourth graf of course; the one that begins, "At the same time, however, our staff felt the ending of your story was abrupt and unsatisfying." It was especially depressing because it told me the editors misunderstood the title, and, further, didn't understand the story at all. Had they understood both they would have recognized that ending as inevitable, and the only one possible, and that were the ending otherwise the story would be another story entirely.

But that sort of not understanding is almost always the fault of the author not the reader if the reader possesses the literary sensibilities one would expect of the editorial staff of a lit mag. And the even more depressing thing is: I can't see how or where I screwed up, although I know for an almost certainty by the above response the story received that screw up I did whether I can see how or where, or not.

There's a moral in this somewhere for would-be fiction writers, and I suspect, with but a minor shift in perspective, it goes something along the lines of: Sutor, ne supra crepidam.