Rejection Rejection Rejection

Dear Dan,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to consider THE TRUTH ABOUT TREASURE ISLAND.  It was a pleasure to meet you at the G.L.A.W.S. panel; my apologies for the delay in getting back you – I was a bit rushed over the holidays and am just now catching up!

Though I was impressed with your writing and creativity, after careful consideration, I feel that this project is not quite right for me. I see a lot of promise here, but it’s just not the kind of novel that I represent, and I really feel that I wouldn’t be the best agent for this. In general, I did feel confused at a few points, first with the narrator’s gender, and second with keeping all of the names straight. I got lost without introductions. As you know, however, these decisions are highly subjective and another agent or editor may have a completely different opinion from mine. 

Again, thank you for the chance to consider THE TRUTH ABOUT TREASURE ISLAND; I wish you every success with your work.

Sincerely,

Natalie M. Fischer

Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency

natalie@dijkstraagency.com

This is the new opening of the novel:

"Dear Dr. McNay,

            It was nice to meet you. I’m glad you are so well versed in the period and the literature. I will value your help a great deal; I’m just not sure I want to be the ‘wisp of a girl accountant.’ Can you come up with a better label for me? I once had a childish dream of being a writer, how about George Sand? Here is the first installment of what we discussed.  Joe Strong in all his glory. He is an honest man- here in his diary. He is also very masculine. His journal, in the beginning made me angry with his insensitivity and it oozed with an imagined sense of smelly socks. But he has become my friend in the last two years. I’d like to tell you how I found him."

Well, that was confusing wasn't it. Maybe the writer really isn't 'a wisp of a girl accountant' or someone who wanted to be called George Sand? Maybe she's really a boy or a fifty year old man. AND maybe the diary is really by a woman pretending to be Joe Strong. The opening line used to read "I'm a wisp of a girl and an accountant..." -you think I sent her that instead by mistake. I can see how that could really be confusing.

I should have sent a glossary. You meet the Girl Editor and then you meet Joe Strong and then his son and his wife and then the Stevensons. Gosh, maybe I didn't send her those pages.

I was in a Writers' Group where we read snippets from our works in progress. Mine was out of the beginning of this book, a little bit later when the Editor explained where and when it took place: Samoa 1893. After i read five pages the guy in the front row asked, "Where does this take place and what is the time period? Ah, in 1893? In Samoa?

(Oh, I didn't really meet this woman. She was at a G.L.A.W.S. panel that I didn't attend. Everyone I talked to afterward who was there said it sucked. These people just got up and played holier than thou and made every one in the audience feel really bad. I didn't have to feel bad to take advantage of the situation. It doesn't surprise me that she remembers me well from the meeting. Her perception and mine are quite obviously on different planets.)