games I play with my editor

There's a friendly exchange going down between your humble author and Gordon Van Gelder, editor-in-chief of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine.

(If you haven't heard of FS&F, by the way, shame on you. They first published Stephen King's Dark Tower stories, Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon, and A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller. Understand why I'm trying to get published there?)

Here's how the exchange goes. I send Van Gelder my stories. He rejects them. I write something better and send it to him. And so on, and so on.

It all started in August 2010. I sent in a 3,000-word humor piece called "Wrong Life-Form, Genius." That came back with a personal note from Mr. Van Gelder, saying that the ending was "too obvious." Best of luck with it, though.

I let ten months go by while I wallowed in self-pity and remonstration. Then I got back on my robotic horse and banged out "Aptitude," a 23,000-word novella (decidedly more serious). That, too, came back rejected. But it also included a personal note: it couldn't hold interest.  Thanks anyway.

I should pause for a moment and point out that it is extremely unusual to get any kind of personal note whatsoever from editors. They're busy people. They have to make sure their publication is on the right track, that all is running smoothly, that every page lives up to industry standards, that the magazine is attractive to readers, and so on. And on top of that, they have to deal with hundreds of submissions, each of which they must read and decide whether to accept or reject. At best, you can expect a rejection slip: a cold, impersonal piece of paper informing you that you are not the writer you thought you were.

Gordon Van Gelder goes above and beyond the call of duty. He manually types out a little note and sends it back to me.

I know Van Gelder isn't writing to me, personally. He must get hundreds of dry, banal,  uninspired submissions like mine every month. But I can't shake the feeling that the two of us have established some kind of rapport. I feel like he's keeping tabs on me, somehow. In his lofty office somewhere in Hoboken, he's monitoring the pace and quality of my submissions and ticking off figures in a mental ledger. He sends me a critique. He knows I'll read it and write another story with it firmly in mind. It's almost like he's daring me to do better. He looks over my stuff, dashes off a rejection slip, and then waits for me to put something more suitable in his inbox.

That's the way I'm looking at it, anyhow. And I can't thank Mr. Van Gelder enough, really. Not only is he telling me that I need to do better, but he's doing so in detail. He could just stamp REJECTED on the cover page and send the story back. But instead, he's choosing to add notes and tell me what's wrong with my work. It's as if he's interested not in what I've done, but what he hopes I'll eventually do. I can't help but feel encouraged.

This is making me a better writer, no doubt about it. Up until this point I've been cursed with  a complete lack of feedback. Well...credible, informed feedback, anyway. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find somebody in this town who's not only into science fiction, but can tell good sci-fi from bad sci-fi (AND actually wants to read what I write)? It's next to impossible. I could go to the local writer's clinics, but something tells me it'll be just a bunch of glassy-eyed, tousle-haired, sun-baked Robert Frost-wannabes. Teenage kids who think they have something profound to say, or flaky middle-aged hippies who burn incense and believe they can commune with animals. No, that won't do at all. I need somebody who knows the genre, who's established themselves in the field, and will tell me, directly, succinctly and honestly, what's wrong with my work. And in Mr. Van Gelder, I have found that person.

So here's what I've got. "Wrong Life-Form, Genius" was bland, obvious, puerile. "Aptitude" was a bit less so, but was devoid of originality and failed to resonate with the reader. So I'm addressing these problems in my future writings. I've got some great ideas already. I won't say what those ideas are or what their titles might be, for fear of copyright infringement. Just know that I'm taking a seasoned editor's advice to heart, receiving rejections with grace, and attempting to improve in my subsequent scrivenings. 

Thank you, Mr. Van Gelder.