Reject Letter: a lesson in etiquette by: GF Willmetts.

Dear Sir

I wish to thank you for accepting my story for publication. However, as I have rejected the quality of my own story, I feel it is no longer worthy of seeing print. Please accept your cheque back and I will endeavour to do better in future and be worthy of your magazine.

I found my material to be too liberal with words and the descriptive tone stodgy with repetitive descriptive tone words instead of a tone which would bring the words to life on the page.

My characters also lack the flair which would, in other writers’ hands, would make them three dimensional. This isn’t helped by my lead character Chrisp Flavour sounds like, as a friend remarked to me, like a potato chip (we call them crisps over here) flavour which I hadn’t realised before. Things were not helped by calling his side-kick Cheesy Dip and his girl-friend Onion Ring. Calling their town Kebab was also a mistake I regret.

When this is added to a plot that I thought original when I wrote it but realised that it is in fact a combination of several plots I must have absorbed in the past which reduces the level of originality that I sought to find.

I am sorry for my lack of effort. I trust this letter will reach you before you publish my poor effort.

 Yours shamefully

Ikin Hack