Tuesday 5 July 2011

Dear Jane

This is my 100 word (exactly!) contribution to the GBE 2 weekly topic.  It's a parody, using some of the phrases I got in one rejection, and applying them to a rather famous writer!

Dear Jane
Thank you for submitting your novel. I enjoyed your depiction of manners, morality and marriage among the landed gentry. Your writing is assured and capable, and your character development is strong. However the romance between the hero and heroine was slow to develop. Other issues, subplots and secondary characters received more attention than the romance, and this is not what we are looking for right now.
If you submit this elsewhere, may I suggest that ‘First Impressions’ is not the best title, and that you might consider the hero’s pride and the heroine’s prejudice instead?
Yours faithfully (etc)

37 comments:

  1. That was awesome!! AND one of my favorite books!! Cheers!!

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  2. LOL Jenn, I enjoyed inventing this one! And it gave me an excuse to post a picture of Colin Firth too :-)

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  3. Thanks, Jen!
    Now guess which phrases I got in my rejection letter!
    The rejected novel has now been accepted elsewhere, I'm pleased to say!

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  4. This is too funny, Paula. I'm convinced now Jane would have received a rejection letter just like this and would have had to shop P&P around to innumerable publishers until she finally found one. Strike that. She would have self-published.

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  5. LOL, Ana - at thought of Jane shopping around! But in today's climate, she might just have had to do that. I read somewhere she had a friend who knew the publisher. See, it's not what you know, it's who you know!

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  6. wow..so glad you did this...dang.. what #$%^&*)$# crap...great way to deal with rejection

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  7. Paula,

    Nicely done! This is soooooo clever.

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  8. Awesome! And when Fred Astaire first tried out for film, they said he was balding but could dance a little. O_o

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  9. I got a kick out of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. This is a great post! =D

    --Diana Jillian

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  10. That was outstanding! I really enjoyed reading this! Reminds me that you cant always listen to criticism!!

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  11. That is so cool! Hahaha...it took me a minute to figure out where it was going but once I got it - brilliant! :) :)

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  12. Brilliant summing up of the story too, Paula!

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  13. Thank you all, I enjoyed inventing this little piece!

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  14. Priceless Paula! Still smiling.

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  15. LOL! Excellent :O)

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  16. Thanks, Ann and Madeleine! Glad it made you smile!

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  17. That was fun. Thanks!

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  18. What a great rejection letter, Paula. I really enjoyed that. What a fun idea! I'm even sure Jane would have enjoyed it as long as she knew it was made up of course. Who likes rejection letters after all? Fun post!

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  19. Thanks, Adrienne.

    Cathy, I wonder if Jane ever DID get any rejections?

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  20. WOW, simply WOW! Love the book and as Paula wonders, good food for thought - did Jane ever get a rejection? Worth some research!

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  21. Wow! I loved this book and related to it!

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  22. Well done! Reminds me of the ones they sometimes do in Writer's Digest!

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  23. Claudia - Wikipedia indicates that Jane did have some rejections, and also had to buy back the copyright of one novel from a publisher who did nothing with it!

    Thanks, Marian and Word Nerd!

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  24. *chuckle* I wonder how she would have reacted had she received such a letter back then. Maybe she did! A very inventive take on the prompt :)

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  25. And haven't I been there and read that! lol I still write and I still believe I can. For me, writing is about writing and publishing is about someone else seeing your value. I would LOVE that, but I am not NEEDING that.

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  26. Yes! Great take on this week's challenge.

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  27. Mojo - I believe she had to buy her copyright back from one publisher who did nothing with her book.

    Jo - absolutely right, you write for yourself, being published is an extra bonus.

    Langley - thanks! Had no idea what to write so invented this!

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  28. I loved this post! What a great idea, very well done!

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  29. Hi,

    LOL: fab post, brilliant prose! ;)

    best
    F

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  30. Thanks, Francine. A lot of the phrases were culled from a genuine rejection letter that I received!

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  31. That was so cool! Loved the book, and the movie! Kathy
    http://www.thetruckerswife.com/

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  32. Thanks, Kathy. The 1996 BBC series with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle was SO much better than the movie with Keira Knightley and ?? (can't even remember his name, so that's how much he didn't impress me!)

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  33. Another very creative 100 word story! Thanks for sharing!

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  34. Good for you! :-) You didn't take it personal and found humor.

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