STORY: Classic Rejection

     Some of the world's greatest literary classics might not have seen publication had they run the gauntlet of today's editorial and marketing experts. Here are a few of the rejection letters the authors of yesteryear might have received from the editors of today.

Dear Mr. Dickens:
     Thank you for your recent submissions. I regret to tell you that we are unable to use them. In David Copperfield, all of your characters are stereotypes, particularly your young women, every one of whom adores her father, weighs less than 100 pounds and cannot understand business. Also, the use of coincidence must not be strained.
     Above all, you are far too wordy. Nicholas Nickleby is three times longer than the books we publish. Cut, cut, cut! Your sentences are far too involved--page 693 is a single sentence that runs 354 words! Try using short paragraphs and choosing simple words. You are assuming too much on the part of your readers.
     Thank you for thinking of us.
     By the way--A Tale of Two Cities might work if you retitled it Heads Must Roll.

Dear Mr. Melville:
     Your manuscript, Moby Dick, is difficult to get into. Try opening with the climactic scene in which the whale is harpooned, and then use flashbacks. Start with something like, "When the breaching whale tossed our longboat bow over stern, I heartily wished I had never signed on board the Pequod."
     What you really have here is two books--a novel about man's conflict with nature and a documentary of whaling. You will need to decide which you want to go with.
     Please keep us in mind for further submissions.

Dear Miss Austen:
     Your book needs more action. What you have so far in Pride and Prejudice is a group of very nice people working out their problems in rural England. The Napoleonic Wars are under way at the time your novel takes place. You should have some echoes of that, perhaps some minor characters going to war and getting killed.
     The elopement is offstage. Let's see and hear it. Show; don't tell!

Dear Mr. Dostoyevsky:
     We find The Brothers Karamazov obtuse, confusing and downbeat. What are you really trying to say?
     Crime and Punishment has possibilities, but that name will never sell. How about calling it The Old Pawnbroker Murder Case?


Dear Mr. Cervantes:
     Your work needs variety. You have dialogue, followed by a mini-adventure, followed by dialogue. The action is corny.
     Try interweaving drama and dialogue. You might open with, "'No, no, Don Quixote!'" cried Sancho Panza. "'Not the windmills!'"


Dear Mr. Hugo:
     I am sorry to say that after consultation with our lawyers, we are going to have to cancel our contract to purchase Les Miserables. Your book attests strongly to the triumph of faith over opposition. The ACLU has warned that it will take immediate legal action against us, on behalf of unbelievers everywhere, if we proceed with publication.


On the other hand, an acceptance these days might be worse. For instance:


Dear Mr. Hemingway:
     We think your latest manuscript may work as a movie, if we visually heighten the drama in the boat. We'll have close-ups of the old man's hands and back as the line plays out, cutting his flesh to mush. Lots of blood. We'll play up the cracked lips, the searing sun. When he eats a fish raw, we'll have the audience gagging.
     How about this? He's got the marlin alongside. He's desperately trying to fend off the sharks with his harpoon--he falls overboard! He thrashes, he screams, the water bubbles red. Good box office.

Dear Ms Bronte:
     Jane Eyre is nicely done, but can you rework the love scenes and make them more explicit?

--Jessica Reynolds Shaver and Ted Reynolds



(First published in Westways, July 1988)