It starts slow, but it gets good in chapter 9!
I don’t care if there’s a fiver on the rock; I’m not wading through a lake of burning slurry to get to it. You started your book eight chapters too early. Deal with it.
Spelling and grammar are the editor’s job!
Manuscript, meet instant rejection.
Allow me to explain this in a simple, easy to understand way. Time = money. Hours of editor's time spent making your first chapter readable = instant bankruptcy.
The editor's job is to apply the final polish, in the same way a stone cutter polishes a diamond. Do you see anyone shoving a stone cutter down a mine and waving them off with a cheery, “There’s diamonds in here somewhere. Get to work!”?
Suck it up and learn to write.
But Tolkien did it!
(Note – Tolkien can be replaced with Dickens, C. S. Lewis, Stienbeck or any other famous literary genius)
Let’s pause and take a look at the name labels your mother kindly attached to your clothes encase you lost them. Do they say “Tolkien”? No? Then chances are you aren’t bloody Tolkien.
These petty rules are restricting my literary genimouse!
Well then, you go ahead and be super speshul awesome! And here’s a handy tip for you – if you shred all those rejection slips, you can use it as stuffing for a matress!
The standard of literature is in decline!
This isn’t technically a writing excuse, but I’ve included it because it ticks me off.
The books from the “golden age” of Dickens and the Brontes and all those great writers are so consistently awesome because the average and substandard books have done what average and substandard books tend to do over several hundred years and gone out of print.
Dickens sat on shelves next to thinly veiled erotica and crappy horror stories, but his shelf mates didn’t survive.
Yes, it was easier to get published back then. And here’s a handy statistic that might explain that.
Number of grooms who could write their names on the marriage register in 1841: 62%
Ditto, but with brides: 45%
We’re talking about writing your own name here. It’s hardly a great achievement, people. Not to mention that most of those people wouldn’t have had any free time.
So, I think it’s safe to say that you faced just a tad less competition.
We’re getting smarter, not more ignorant, so you need another excuse for the publishing world’s constant rejection of your greatness.
I know nothing exciting happened at all in the entire chapter, but I needed the description/set-up!
Know all that captivating action that starts a couple of chapters in? Three guesses what no one will ever read.
It's not too much description, it's vivid!
Here’s a fun fact for ya; after two big blocks of text, the readers imagination shuts down and they don’t see everything. Should reading continue, it’s entirely possible that the reader will become incapable of thought and go into a coma within two hours.
Just because someone else wrote a book about a boy wizard with a funnily shaped scar doesn't mean I'm copying!
It doesn’t matter if you did start writing yours years before you heard about that upstart Rowling stealing your idea, or that yours is totally different, honest! We’re bored.
I can't explain why five random guys are all in love with my loser, boring MC, it's called chemistry, geesh!
And this is called “beating you to death with your own book”.
I find my character's blatant author’s-wish-fulfilling interesting, thus the rest of the world must too!
This is one aspect in which you really are unique. And that is not a good thing.
Nothing bad ever happens to my MC because she's awesome like that!
I’m not sure “awesome" is quite the right word. But using the right word may mentally scar you forever, so I'll leave it to your imagination
