Short Story Markets and other Irritations

Look, I don't want to get started on a rant here. Okay, I do want to rant, but I'll try to keep it within reason. The other day I received a story rejection in the mail. Not that big a deal to me anymore: shrug, sigh, move on, right? But this one got my goat, as have a few other recent ones for similar reasons. Why?

Because it gives the impression that my story was read and rejected by a grade school student. (This is not the entire form, just the pertinent part, and I'm not naming the magazine.)

Now, I understand that not everyone has perfect penmanship. I understand that the person who filled in this form is likely NOT the person who read and rejected the story. This is probably some summer student working long hours for crappy wages, who fills out dozens and dozens of these forms daily and sticks them in horrible-tasting SASEs. I don't blame the person who wrote this. At least it is legible.

But I do blame the professional magazine that allows their rejection slips to go out looking like this. My seven-year-old son prints more neatly. Magazines have always seemed to want authors to believe that each story is treated with care and attention, and while we may be savvy enough to know that this isn't always exactly true, the illusion of professionalism would still be nice. So give the poor rejection-form flunky a typewriter and the rejected writer some dignity, already.

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On another note, what is up with the ever-burgeoning proliferation of magazines looking for "dark" fiction? In browsing the SpecFicWorld market listing for suitable markets for a 5k word non-"dark" fantasy story I find--a bare handful. I mean, it's one thing if I can't sell a story this length because it's not good enough, but it's a completely different thing if I can't find more than a market or two to send it to. Luckily, this little rant has me thinking dark thoughts, so perhaps it's a good time to get off the 'Net and start writing...