🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <idoy.724771053@crux1.cit.cornell.edu> idoy@crux1.cit.cornell.edu  
(Mike Wilson) writes:
> >Given that the writer has sent a clean, properly formatted manuscript to an
> >appropriate journal or magazine, and that the writer has done the research
> >and *knows* the magazine publishes the style of writing he or she produces,
> >there is no excuse for a magazine that accepts unsolicited submissions
> >to insult a writer's efforts in this way.
>
> I very much agree, but I have to say something in defense of rejection
> slips in general.
[story about personal rejection letters deleted]
>...a more general rejection made the process
> much less painful for everyone involved.

Once I heard Frederick Pohl tell a story of a man who submitted a story a week  
to IF magazine when Pohl was editor.  Every story was awful, and Pohl sent this  
poor man form rejection letters every week.  Once he took pity on the man and  
wrote a personal note telling him that his work lacked basic components of a  
good story, and that he should stop submitting his work until he learns to fix  
these problems, or maybe consider another line of work.

Said writer took this as personal encouragement, and sent two stories a week.

And from the other side ... I once got a three-page rejection letter/critique  
from one magazine; it both depressed the hell out of me, and made me wonder if  
the editor was paying attention in some spots ...

So yes, a *polite* and *tactful* form letter is definitely the way to go.

--
Frank Mitchell,	Business Systems Analyst, First National Bank of Chicago
email:frank@fnbc.com (NeXTmail)

"A sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."
-- me, I think (twisting Clarke's Law, of course)