what about weird rejection slips?

[GrammarGoddess]

Hi, I have been editing here only few months, and one one of my authors got an odd rejection letter. His story was rejected because of "underage sex." The story is about 2 staff members at a high school--both of whom are well over 18. No one else in the story has sex, and there is no mention of students at all in the story. I thought the story was pretty clear about that, so I was suprised at its rejection.

Do any editors have any experience with rejections similar to this, or any advice on how to resolve this? I would help him revise it, but it already meets the adult-sex-only criteria, and he says there is no other comment on the rejection that suggests other problems with the story.

thanks,
--gg

 

[LadyCibelle]

Hi, I have been editing here only few months, and one one of my authors got an odd rejection letter. His story was rejected because of "underage sex." The story is about 2 staff members at a high school--both of whom are well over 18. No one else in the story has sex, and there is no mention of students at all in the story. I thought the story was pretty clear about that, so I was suprised at its rejection.

Do any editors have any experience with rejections similar to this, or any advice on how to resolve this? I would help him revise it, but it already meets the adult-sex-only criteria, and he says there is no other comment on the rejection that suggests other problems with the story.

thanks,
--gg

HI GG,

I'd recommend he submit it again with a note in the comment box saying that it had been rejected for underage sex but that there isn't any...none at all!! That way the story reviewers can take a closer look at it and make sure it meets all their requirements.

 

[cloudy]

The reviewers are human, just like the rest of us.

Lady Cibelle's suggestion is the best way to approach it. My halloween story was rejected for spelling because I had the words to a creole song in it, so of course, a spell checker would reject it. I just resubmitted it with a note that it was in creole, and it went right through.

 

[GrammarGoddess]

thank you Cloudy and Lady Cibelle. I'll suggest to him that he resubmit with a note as you both suggested.


thanks,

GG

 

[Reverse_Cowboy]

I recently helped a anouthor with a similar problem.

When she originally submitted her story it was about an underage character having sex for the first time. of course it was rejected. She re-wrote it and re-submitted it only to have it rejected again for the same reason.


When I read through the the story I found one line at the very end of the story where a male character was talking to the girl in the story and basically said that if she told anyone what they did she'd be in trouble because they were all old enough to have sex and drink and she wasn't.

I changed this for her along with some other minor corrections here and there and she once again re-submitted it making note in the comments section that she had with the help of an editor changed to story to meet posting guidlines.

I know it's not the same problem you're author is having, but I thought it might help others.

 

[GrammarGoddess]

Thanks for the advice guys! He resubmitted and got accepted!
--gg

 

[mithragoddess]

I got a weird one too...

One of the guys I edited for, his rejection notice said that the lines were too long. With no explination as to what they meant. I edited it through and saw no real problems that would point to such a topic, but I broke up his sentences to make them flow better (simply for grammar) and it went though. I dont know if it was because it was written and submitted in wordpad or if it was just a reviewing issue but has anyone had THAT issue before?