BJ asked
“can you give examples Dawn of examples of how these queries could be changed to have potential?” She was talking about this entry.
Well, recently I got a (disguised for privacy) essay that basically said this for 1200 words, “I survived a fire. There was a big fire. It was really scary. I ran for help. The help came and put out the fire but I lost everything. I was sad.”
I wanted to feel like I was a part of the experience with a stunning portrayal of what it’s like to survive a fire. I wanted her to write so that I felt like I was there with her. Or else I wanted her to use the fire to give me a glimpse of the way the experience changed her. But this author though the fire itself was so compelling that all she needed to do was say, “There was a big fire.” And that takes us back to this entry where delightful Becca said, “Have you thought about why you feel compelled to write this? Who do you want to read this, and to what end? … [I]f you can figure out why anyone else should care, it might help you get to the core of the essay.”
See, when someone is reading a story they don’t have you there in front of them to humanize it with your voice or your expression so you need to humanize it in the way you write it. It’s one thing to tell a compelling story at the dinner table when your very presence makes the story more real and more terrifying (because it happened in REAL LIFE to someone the person listening has actually met) but when it’s on paper you have to find a way to make that story take the broad leap into someone else’s heart and soul.
But it’s hard to write that rejection with useful criticism without being dismissive. To the woman who survived the fire (that was not a fire but another awful event) I had to say, “The big fire just isn’t that compelling. The thing that devastated you and destroyed your life, it’s not that compelling just standing there on its own.” Sometimes people write me while they’re still pretty raw and to hear that the story is just a, well, a story is hard to hear. When someone emails me a query and they’re saying, “I survived this” it’s hard to say “so what” nicely to explain why it won’t work (as written).
I try very very hard to be nice and encouraging but I sure know how much rejections suck.
Nancie Atwell, in her book Lessons That Change Writers, has a chapter called “The Rule of So What”. She says, “Every time you write, there should be an itch you’re trying to scratch - something in the topic that intrigues you for some reason, whether you can name it or not, and your job as a writer is to find out why. … This is your challenge as a writer [...] as you select topics from the various territories lists that you generate this year, as you feel that pull or itch inside of you that says this is a subject that matters to me, can you go below the surface, use writing to push your thinking, and find the meaning in your experiences, ideas, and feelings? Can you ask yourself So What?”
This may not help you write those rejection letters, but it helps me figure out why I want to write something. Asking myself So What? often pulls out the thing I really want to say.
Another way to say it is there has to be a take-away. The reader has to take away something relevant to his or her own life. Or if not that, the story, at least, has to pertain to more than just the writer’s own life. I have a lot of “essays” that I don’t send out (and, embarassingly, some that I have sent out) because when it comes down to it, they’re just funny stories about my life. There’s no larger point to them. But, damn, they’re funny. Ask me about the flasher on Halloween in England sometime.
I think it’s extremely useful to write about the fire. It can be healing. But it’s not usually that useful to read about the fire. Not everything that is written needs to be read.
“The Rule of So What!” I love it! What a great question to ask yourself! Imagine the most cynical, acid-voiced chain-smoking woman you’ve ever seen (she may or may not be an editor). She’s sitting in front of the slot machine, her overly red lips stain the rim of her drink. You tell her your story. She doesn’t take her eyes from the revolving cherries, bells, and jackpot symbols. When you’re done talking, she puts in some more money, pulls the hand again, and when she doesn’t get three-in-a-row she coughs once, lights another smoke, looks up and you and say, “Yeah? So what?”