Lugares y territorios (Zonas de encuentro):

the novelist Karen Joy Fowler saves her rejection slips in a fat envelope so she can show her students that even award-winning authors must cope with rejection. Some writers tape rejection slips above their desk for inspiration. Still other writers post theirs on the internet. A google search for the term “rejection slips” nets close to 6,500 hits, includ-ing many sites where published authors post their rejection slips online—ostensibly as a way to encourage unpublished writers, though one gets the sense that many of these authors just want to say “i told you so” to the lame-brained editors who dared reject them way back when.

in more practical terms, rejection slips are useful in helping you determine how close you’re getting to publication, providing a barometer—albeit a highly imprecise

one—of interest in your work. A single form rejection tells you nothing except that a magazine doesn’t want your manuscript. But if you send the manuscript to lots of mag-azines and it garners lots of form rejections, they might collectively be telling you it’s time to revisit the story or start a new one.

On the other hand, if a story accumulates several favorable personalized rejections—

preferably signed, preferably offering detailed feedback—you might reasonably hope that it will soon find a home (though “soon” may mean months or years, depending on the response times of the magazines to which you’re submitting). if the notes are signed by editors rather than by assistant or associate editors, all the better. Check the masthead to get a sense of how far up the ladder your story climbed, keeping in mind that, at smaller magazines, there may be only one rung on the ladder.

With some magazines, the turnaround time on a submission also might hint at the level of editorial interest. if a rejection slip comes back fast, that could mean the editors quickly determined the story wasn’t for them. if the rejection slip is slow coming, that could mean the story is getting a closer look—presumably being passed around among the editors or held back for an editorial board meeting—and occasionally a rejection note will indicate as much. it all depends on the magazine’s usual response time: a few are always quick to reply, the majority are chronically slow (mostly due to small staffs), and others are totally unpredictable.

rejections are also crucial in establishing relationships with editors. granted, it’s usually not much of a relationship—the exchange of a few brief sentences every few months or years—but such a correspondence is enough to keep you on an editor’s radar screen. if you get a signed note from an editor, it’s a good idea to send your next submis-sion to that person—even if it’s a slush pile reader or a lowly assistant editor. Having shown interest in your work, he is in a better position to push your story up the edito-rial ladder, and chances are that if you bypass that person and try leapfrogging your way to the top by sending your manuscript directly to the editor, it will end up in the slush pile anyway—perhaps with a less sympathetic reader this time.

However, don’t expect editors to remember you without a little prompting. Use your cover letter to gently remind them of their interest in your previous work by thanking them for their comments or suggestions on your last story. And by all means remind them if they expressed a willingness to see more of your work (“thanks for taking a look at my last story, and thanks for the invitation to send more. Enclosed is a new one ...”).

rejections can also be useful in revising a story, but writers should exercise caution in this regard. Often, when an editor perceives merit in a story but doesn’t want to publish it, she offers the writer a criticism or two in her rejection note. it’s a generous impulse, but it can lead to misunderstandings. i’m guilty of writing such rejections my-self. Many a time, i penned notes that praised a story but expressed dissatisfaction with one or two of its aspects—the slack pacing, the weak beginning, or the fact that i felt like i’d read the same story before.

When an editor registers such complaints, she may be right on the money, but she hasn’t necessarily zeroed in on all of the story’s faults, or even its biggest faults. rather, she’s glanced at the manuscript long enough to know that she doesn’t want it and to

quickly note a problem or two. Chances are that she hasn’t even read the whole story.

Unless she’s trying to build a strong relationship with the author, she has little incen-tive to read it more closely and offer a detailed critique. After all, there are tens or even hundreds of other stories on her desk waiting to be read.

Such notes can be especially puzzling for the beginning writer, who might take the editor’s criticisms to be the “reasons” she didn’t accept the story. the beginning writer might then infer that, were it not for problems X, Y, and Z, the magazine would have accepted the story. the temptation is to quickly rework the manuscript per the editor’s suggestions and resubmit it. this is a bad idea. if an editor wants to see a story again, she’ll say so. And besides, if she likes a story enough to publish it, she’ll probably go ahead and accept it with the assumption that the problems can be fixed during the editing process.

But even if the beginning writer resists the urge to resubmit the manuscript, it’s still a bad idea to revise a story based on what was likely a cursory reading. i’m always grate-ful for an editor’s candid reaction to my story, positive or negative, but unless there is evidence that the editor read the story closely—such as a detailed critique or particularly insightful comments—i don’t revise the story based solely on his reaction.

in such cases, a writer should be guided by common sense and not swayed by a mag-azine’s or editor’s reputation. A good rule of thumb is that the shorter and less detailed a rejection note is, the less attention the editor devoted to the story, and therefore the less weight you should give to her criticisms. On the other hand, if several editors zero in on the same problem, or if the editors are telling you the same things you’re hearing in your workshop or writing group, they may be on to something.

E

ager faces at writers conferences cloud over whenever the editor or agent on the panel reminds the audience that writing their novel is only half the job. the other half is selling the novel—not to a publisher but to the book-buying public. But doesn’t the publisher do that?

Sadly, no, except for brand-name authors. in Making a Literary Life, Carolyn See writes, “After you write your book, you must sell it ... not your publisher or your agent or anyone else is going to do it for you.”

novelists can get discouraged in their drive to sell their books by reminders from experts that nonfiction books generally dovetail better with promotional angles, news hooks, or organizations interested in a particular subject. But, before you scrap your dreams, stop, close your eyes, and name five best-selling authors.

Chances are all five authors you named are novelists—and every one started their career as an unknown writer. it could be you haven’t even read books by a couple of writers on your list but they’re such brand names, they spring to mind anyway. this is a fundamental advantage for fiction writers—novelists can build a brand name that transcends their individual titles.

In document LA ACCIÓN COLECTIVA JUVENIL: ESCENARIO DE FORMACIÓN PARA EL EJERCICIO DE LA CIUDADANÍA (página 170-180)