Monday, May 19, 2014

Dear Writer

Dear Writer,

Congratulations!  We have selected your piece.

Ha-ha, just kidding.  We wouldn't print this mess if our lives depended on it.

While we would never consider using this, you certainly gave the interns here a good laugh to think anyone would even bother typing this, let alone submitting it somewhere.  This is not to say your work was without merit.  For example, your headings were all that a good heading should be.  We believe it is safe to say, your headings could take their place alongside the best heading-writers of today: Margaret Atwood, Francine Prose, and what's-her-name, the woman who wrote Hunger Games.  If the rest of your manuscript lived up to your page headings, we'd have no hesitation about publishing this.

Typically, when looking for stories to publish, we like to find ones that have a plot.  This is not to say other publishers wouldn't touch it, but we don't know of any.  Your story begins with a ticking bomb that will detonate in a few minutes laying waste to a crowded city blcok unless the hero can unravel the clues to the secret code that will defuse it, clues cleverly planted all around Manhattan.  Then it goes on for twenty pages as you tell us what the hero made for lunch, including a detailed recipe for prosciutto quiche.

We tried the quiche recipe and it sucked.

Characters are also a good idea.  This does not mean that the hero should break down weeping at the sight of an injured squirrel.  (Parenthetically, the interns do not believe this aspect.  They have seen squirrels that were in fine fettle, full of vim and vigor, and they have seen dead road-kill squirrels with tire tracks running though them, but none of us can recall seeing a squirrel hanging to life by a thread.  That's the way it is with squirrels - they are either in obnoxious good health or they are dead.  There is no in-between.)

By all means keep on sending us your "work," and we'll keep on sending it back to you.