Deep Thoughts in Nonfiction
I got a rejection letter the other day for an essay, and the slip had the words Not Enough Thoughts on it. The word, thought, was underlined so forcefully that the tip of the pen had torn through the paper. Clearly, this editor was so offended by my piece and its vapidity that he (because of the handwriting) had to violate code of silence crappy work usually deserves. The editor had to say something, the same way my brother used to lean out of car windows to bark at bicyclists, about my essay. I’m not going to lie. I took it as a compliment. To elicit that kind of reaction from a stranger was powerful. After finishing Albert Memmi’s, Pillar of Salt, I wanted to stab him with a pen too.
I thought that an emotional reaction was at least worth something, that Dean Koontz wasn’t completely horrible if I wanted to water-board him with cat piss. He at least had an effect on me. A couple of days later, I reread my essay and realized that it just sucked. It was a subgenre of nonfiction that tends to clutter up submission databases. To sum it up, it said, “I was a reckless, profligate teenager, and after twelve pages of scenes, I realize that I was reckless, and profligate.” While the editor who rejected the piece may have been angry enough to slash my rejection with his pen, like myself, he was probably just disappointed with how many essay submissions turn out this way.
Editors want to find good work. I don’t get angry at horrible writing. I roll my eyes and move on to the next piece. Editors want to publish great work, not only because it’s exciting to put someone’s art in front of other people, but because it makes us look good. Who wouldn’t want to publish the first essay by the next Scott Russell Sanders, David Foster Wallace, or anyone else with three names? The problem, especially with essays, is that they live and die by their ending, that final push to conclude the logic of the piece, while simultaneously unfurling itself and transcending every word. There’s plenty of promising work out there with good, clean lines and style that smacks you around a little. There are thousands of compelling voices with unique perspectives. Everyone has had something notable happen to them. But when I wade through the slush pile, I realize that very few essayists can write an ending, making even the strongest prose trite. Many subgenres of nonfiction are reduced to platitudes—the ubiquitous “I hate you, dad,” piece.
Bad travel writing, “I went somewhere exotic and found it to be exotic.”
Bad survivor writing, “Rape, abuse, etc, are bad and I can’t get over it.”
Bad nature writing, “I love trees, and nature is better than society.”
There are too many examples of this to list, but you get the point. You can cut the last couple of lines in a poem, or the last couple paragraphs of a story, usually improving it, but if an essay’s ending is flawed, it invalidates the entire piece. It sounds simple, and seems like what I’m saying is obvious, but I don’t understand why so many good writers spend countless hours laboring toward a cliché. But then again, I do.
When I was in undergrad fancied myself a poet and I once got a rejection written on an old envelope, on which the editor or whoever had, of course, summarily dismissed my crappy poems, but he also wrote, on the spot I assume, a short poem about a wagon. To show me what a real poem looks like? It was the most interesting rejection I’ve gotten-to date anyway.
Scott: I wasn’t going to comment because I don’t know that I have anything to add, but I should say how much I liked this. Well observed. Very smart.
i have a tendency to wrap up my nonfiction essays with a sweet little bow…or a lesson/moral. it’s awful. i think there needs to be an entire class on “how to write an ending.”
Yes please! Maybe we can convince Natalie to change next quarter’s F&T to this topic.
Well done sir. Very true, so many essayists have trouble landing the plane. Not positive who you are or if we’ve met, but solely on the basis of this column i shall accept your ‘friend request.’ :)
This definitely falls under the category of “a good rejection” Scott. My last one—received earlier this week—was a mass email addressed to “Dear Writer.”
i keep reading instances of handwritten rejections. the letters i get could be written by a robot.
also, i’ve never been good at essays. always following forms and too scared to break those forms. this is certainly something i need work on.
[...] words on paper plummeted to the lowest low when Monday’s mail brought two rejection letters. Scott, Shira, and Sam have already “barked” on the subject and I don’t have anything to add other [...]
[...] words on paper plummeted to the lowest low when Monday’s mail brought two rejection letters. Scott, Shira, and Sam have already “barked” on the subject and I don’t have anything to add other [...]