PSA for magazine editors

[mrissa]

Please do not tell writers that their stories are in a particular genre if you do not have a good deal of experience with what that genre is and is not.

"Romance," as a genre, is not the same thing as "fiction where two people fall in love." "Christian fiction," as a genre, is not the same thing as "fiction where the protagonist is a Christian clergybeing." "Western," as a genre, is not the same thing as "fiction set west of the Mississippi and before the First World War," nor even "fiction set west of the Rockies and before the turn of the 20th century." I could write you a science fiction story wherein a Christian clergybeing falls in love west of the Rockies, before the turn of the 20th century. I'm not going to, because I have a lot of other stuff to do today, but I could. Or a fantasy story. Or a mystery...do you see the point here?

It's not that I think they should have bought my story, because clearly they didn't think it was right for their magazine, and these things happen. I just really, really hate being told so definitively what genre a story falls into by someone who has clearly read very little, if anything, in that genre. We seek quality rejection slips here, people.

Comments

[davidbain.livejournal.com]

Ha! I also like people who, in general conversation, ask for a summary of a story, then tell you how to fix it or make it better for the particular genre they feel it falls into.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I've had that with art as well - I got in a wrangle with one person who had an image in his mind of The Perfect Fantasy Artwork and insisted on pointing out to me all the ways one piece of mine completely failed to live up to it, even after I pointed out to him that the idea of the piece was to subvert fantasy artwork ideals. The piece needed help (still does, since I never got around to finishing it), but not the help he was attempting to give.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I do hope this magazine(?) isn't mainly for stories in the genre they apparently haven't read much in.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No, it was "we can't buy this, it's [genre], not SF," except that it was not only pretty clearly SF but also not [genre] at all.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am no longer at all tolerant of this kind of behavior. Luckily, I run into it much less than I used to.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think I've told the story here, of the person who was critting my children's/YA SF novel and wanted me to change the main character's mother's profession to be the critiquer's profession, and then rewrite the book to feature the mother and her new profession much more thoroughly.

I did not do this.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Then they'd have to announce pastors', priests', rabbis', etc. arrival over the loudspeaker, so they could go, "clerrrrrrbeeeeee Puckett!"

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I am envisioning a line of Furby knockoffs...with a mitre (Catholic), with a yarmulke (Jewish), soaking wet (Baptist)...

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

You could send them a rejection: "I'm sorry, but your rejection did not meet my needs at this time . . ."