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An Open Letter to Editors
By Paul Campbell
Dear Editors,
I feel your pain. Bad writing is like fingernails scratching on a chalkboard. I can only imagine that for editors, reading badly written unsolicited material is a bit like being Randy Jackson listening to a tone deaf contestant on American Idol. I picture you sitting there, surrounded by the mountainous slush-pile, enduring the next nightmare from the bottom of the heap, and saying out loud to yourself, "No. No dawg. That's just bad." Then sending it rapidly back to its owner.
I empathize. As a writer, and a reader, I can think of nothing more painful than reading someone else's poorly crafted writing. It is excruciating! The bad grammar, no punctuation, passive voice, bizarre shifts in point of view, all of the elements of writing that we all were forced to spend at least thirteen years learning in school are butchered at the hands of people that should know better. Good stories eviscerated by the vagaries of the human psyche.
In fact I suggest that the approach to rejection letters be forever changed. Instead of the classic "Unfortunately your material does not suit our needs at this time," rejection slips should henceforth read: "No Dawg. That's just bad." I don't think that Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe are going to find a way to make American Writer an exciting enterprise, but at least having something new on your rejection slip will be refreshing. It also has the element of being honest with writers. "The problem is not about fitting our editorial needs. You just suck! Keep the day job douche, because you are never going to be a writer."
I have encountered so much truly bad writing recently it makes me want to cry when I think about the editors that are enduring it daily. It makes me want to just send them a fruit basket and a sympathy card instead of a manuscript! Some of this material doesn't just need editing, it needs triage! What exactly is the writing equivalent of tone-deaf? Rhetorically challenged?
So to my editor friends and colleagues I just want you to know that I appreciate what you are enduring. Like the soldiers that defend us from aggression, you defend us from the horrors of the writing butchers that are bent on making us want to gouge out our own eyes.
No Dawg. It's just bad.
What's next?
