Tag Archives: aspiring writer

Rejection Newbie

rejection

Found at “The Zweig Letter” – no image credit listed

Hi, James,

[Story Title] was well received here, but we have decided it’s not quite what we’re looking for in the [name of publication/anthology]. Thanks for submitting it to us, and best of luck with finding a good market for it.

[Name of Editor]

Dear James,

Thank you for sending us [Story Title]. We appreciate the chance to review it. Unfortunately, the piece is not for us. Best of luck finding it a home elsewhere.

Things you might consider: The character is nice. The concept is familiar, but here there’s no real explanation of what happens. The backstory comes as something of an infodump.

Sincerely
[Name of Editor]

I’ve submitted eight short stories to various anthologies and periodicals during the month of April. The two quotes from above were emails I received from two separate sources rejecting…the same story.

That’s right. The same exact story was rejected twice within 24 hours.

To be fair, after I submitted it the first time, I waited weeks, and the response was actually very timely. I was waiting for a rejection of something. If you’re an author and you are sending in stories in response to an open submission, either it will be accepted or rejected. Rejection is inevitable.

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Daylight

tour boat

© The Storyteller’s Abode / Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers

It had been sixty-two years since Sean Becker had last seen the light of day. He had been thirty-five years old when he was murdered in the early morning hours of July 23rd in his native Los Angeles. Cause of death was a mysterious loss of blood.

For six decades, Sean walked the night and shunned the day; a creature whose name was only whispered in dark secrecy: “vampire”.

He first encountered Dr. Elizabeth Woods as she was leaving work at London’s Biomedical Research Centre. He stopped attacking her when she cried out that she could help him. Woods was developing treatments for rare blood disorders. Fourteen months later, she’d cured his.

Woods wanted to run more tests, but Sean was more interested in taking in the daytime sights. Tears streamed down his face as he boarded the tour boat.

I wrote this as part of a flash fiction writing challenge. The challenge is to write a flash fiction story with a word count of 100-150 based on the weekly photo prompt you can see at the top of the page. Find the challenge at Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.

To read the other stories based on this week’s prompt, visit InLinkz.com.

Once again, I “blame” Iain Kelly, since reading his work, including his response to this challenge, has inspired me to write more flash fiction. I brought this one in (not including this after-statement) at 148 words.