The Secret to Rejection
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“It is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.”
Animal Farm by George Orwell
“Older children wouldn’t like it because its language is too difficult.”
Watership Down by Richard Adams
“The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the ‘curiosity’ level.”
The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
“It does not seem to us that you have been wholly successful in working out an admittedly promising idea.”
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
“For your own good do not publish this book.”
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
“A long, dull novel about an artist.”
Lust for Life by Irving Stone
“You have buried your novel underneath a heap of details which are well done but utterly superfluous.”
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
“Neither long enough for a serial, nor short enough for a single story.”
A Study in Scarlet (short story) by Arthur Conan Doyle
“It contains unpleasant elements.”
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
“A very bad book.”
The Bridge Over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle
“If you insist on rewriting this, get rid of the Indian stuff.”
The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman
‘I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”
Unspecified manuscript by Rudyard Kipling
“…overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian…the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy. It often becomes a wild, neurotic daydream. I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.”
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
“I do not see anything in this to convince me you can write either narrative or fiction.”
one of Zane Grey’s early novels
“We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.”
Carrie by Stephen King
So what’s the secret to rejection?
Don’t let rejections stop you from writing. And submitting.
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2 comments
Tales to Tide You Over » Blog Archive » Interesting Links for 3-5-2010 on March 5, 2010 at 12:57 pm
[...] we all need reminders a time or two: http://www.learntowritefiction.com/the-secret-to-rejection/ Posted in Interesting Links, Life, Promoting, Publishing, Reading, Research, Submitting, Writing [...]
James Hoggett on March 13, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Hi
I have read your book with great interest "A Novel In A Year" what you have suggested as a writer I found to be very true, and lead me to take a look at my own drafted novels, what made me start writing was what a famous author once said quote "anybody can write a book but it's imagination that you want" unquote. 2 completed book and five drafted novels later, and I,m still writing and love it.
James R Hoggett