FYI
Very often at ePregnancy and now at Lit Mama I get submissions from people whose only story is that that they experienced an event. So they will pitch, “I will write about my struggle with infertility” or “I am recently divorced and have an essay about the challenges of being a single mom.” But there’s no story there — it’s just an event.
It sucks to write those rejections because I want to be kind and honor their pain but hey, there’s no story (or plot, if you will). And the strength of those events (the universality) is also the weakness (because what makes the author’s experience more true than anyone else’s?). That’s not to say it’s hopeless — people just need to pitch better. They need to explain what they will do to make that story resonate or illuminate someone else’s life. They need to show the story behind the event — the way the experience changed them and how sharing it will change the reader.
can you give examples Dawn of examples of how these queries could be changed to have potential?
I’ve mentioned befor that I am a scientist, and the equivalent to what you just described in science is something that goes like this: I want to measure the responses in the brain when children get really excited about their new toys (or while they watch television, or whatever). Where the description diverges a bit, is that the “experience is universal” — because not everyone knows how to measure responses in the brain, and those who do have an edge up in convincing someone to let them do it (or talk about it). But, the description shares the problem that it doesn’t explain why you want to make that measurement: why will we learn something from it?
Your example shares that flaw, and I’m wondering how one takes a desire to talk about an event and turn it into a potentially interesting story for others (actually, to turn it into a one sentence description that might convince an editor that it might be of interest to others). That’s the same task many others face (I mention science, but I’d imagine that something similar happens in marketing, starting a small business, selling a photograph . . . )
bj
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