The Cataline Downfall
Linger Fiction:Thank you for your submission!
Unfortunately, our word count limit for short fiction is 5,000.
Please feel free to submit another story that falls within this word count.
Journal of Unlikely Entomology:Hi Shane,
Thanks for submitting to the Journal of Unlikely Entomology. Unfortunately, we're unable to use your story at this time. Since you expressed interest in receiving feedback, I'll take a minute to make some suggestions.
First, I would recommend reconsidering how you approach the cover letter. The best cover letters are short, impersonal and professional. (These are rules for short story submissions, not novel queries.) Do not summarize or describe your story. Don't thank your proofreaders. Don't offer to give your work away for free. Just one sentence to give the title and wordcount, and 1-2 sentences of bio and most prominent publications, if any. There is nothing in your cover letter that you can say that positively influence how the editor will judge your work, but the more you say, the more likely you'll negatively influence the editor.
Regarding the story itself - cut the entire first section. It is almost never a good idea to start a story with summary or explanation, and the longer the summary goes on, the more likely you'll lose your reader. Start with action, and as much as possible, use character dialog and action to get across what you want to explain. If you have an entire paragraph of explanation, try to think of a way to reduce that and get the information across in another way. This is not always possible, of course. If you have more than one contiguous paragraph of explanation, you'll probably lose your reader, and you'll almost definitely lose your editor.
Also, 12 pt font, please. That is standard for any market I've ever seen. Standard manuscript format is 12 pt courier or times, double spaced, no extra spaces between paragraphs, 1 inch margins and indent the first line of each paragraph. The more deviations from the guidelines you have, the more strikes against you when it comes to judging your story. If I have to squint to read the story, or reformat it to the correct font size before reading, I'll be annoyed when I start reading. Which is never a good way to get your story accepted.
Best of luck with your rewrites,
The Editors
The Piker PressDear Shane,
Thank you very much for letting us see "The Cataline Downfall." We appreciate your taking the time to send it in for our consideration. Although it does not suit the needs of the magazine at this time, we wish you luck with placing it elsewhere.
It's plain to see that you love your characters, and have a vision of what Elli-Soma's planet and culture are like. With a story like this, a reader will want to immerse himself in that world. It's very difficult to do that adequately with a short story... you might have better success with a novella or novel-length treatment, using this short story as a kind of outline. Again, best wishes in your future, and keep writing!
Sincerely,
Sand Pilarski
AoifeDear Mr Ward,
I'm going to decline "The Cataline Downfall." The overall storyline is decent enough.
The first-person narrative does not help the story at all. It reads in too many places like a recital of events. Yes, we do get glimpses of emotional involvement, but it's not enough. There's a lot of telling, and a couple of information dumps, but not enough showing. This story would probably be improved by a third-person narrative.
Phrases like "to make things worse" do not help the text. Instead of telling us that an event made things worse, just show us that they are worse...to use one show/tell example.
M-Brane SFThank you for your submission to M-Brane SF. I regret that I won’t be able to use this story.
Also, I apologize for this generic reply. The volume of submissions to M-Brane SF has reached a level where I can no longer give personal responses on most manuscripts. I work by myself to produce this zine, and I have found that time constraints have required me to omit something from my schedule. Unfortunately that “something” is personal commentary on rejected stories. I can say that in most cases, stories that I do not accept for publication are not bad stories. Quite to the contrary, I turn away a lot of good material for various reasons, most of which are quite subjective. Generally, it is simply because the story didn’t “click” with me somehow.
Chris
KaleidotropeDear Shane,
Thank you for submitting your story, "The Cataline Downfall," to Kaleidotrope. I am afraid I have decided to pass on it at this time. I found the story too heavy on exposition, introducing characters but not really developing them or giving the reader a reason to care about them -- essentially piling on details without fleshing out a compelling world from them. In the end, the story just didn't work for me because of that.
I do hope you will keep us in mind again in the future, however, and thank you again for your submission.
the opinionguyShane,
Unfortunately, we cannot accept your story for publication. Really work
on getting into the head of your character. Let the reader feel like
they are that character, what they are thinking and feeling and seeing.
Keep us in mind for any future submissions.
Seth Crossman, editor of the Opinion Guy
BULL SPECShane,
I'm ashamed of how long this response is in coming, but have ultimately decided not to accept "The Cataline Downfall" for publication in Bull Spec -- if indeed you have had the infinite and undeserved (to me) patience to still be waiting on me. I can't really express my disappointment in myself for how I've treated good submissions, simply that I'm disgusted with myself about it and deeply sorry.
Sincerely,
-Sam
PS: for long stories (over 5000 words) things have to just be perfect, as I can only take 2-4 of these per year. Here, the opening exposition fell a little flat for me, coloring my read into the next scenes.
