Free The Children of Hamelin by Norman Spinrad Page B

on our collective desk and we fell to squabbling over the spoils.
     
    Dear Mrs. Clinestadt:
     
    Thank you very much for your most interesting short story, A Mother’s Love. It is always a pleasure to encounter for the first time the work of a new writer with as much obvious talent as this piece clearly shows...
     
    Ah yes, you old douche-bag, you clearly have an obvious talent for writing $10 checks. Stick with Dirk Robinson, baby, and we’ll have you turning out five-pointers in no time.
     
    ... and I especially admired your prose-style, which combines a sure sense of sentence structure with a wholly feminine ambience entirely appropriate to this touching tale of a mother’s unsuccessful efforts to save her son from the wiles of a wicked woman...
     
    The technique of writing a Dirk Robinson fee letter is such a simple exercise in abnormal psychology that I just don’t understand why so many fee readers bomb out after a few days. I suppose they just can’t type fast enough or maybe they’re stupid enough to read everything in the old compost-heap word for word.
     
    ... however I’m afraid that you, like so many other Dirk Robinson clients who later have gone on to fame and fortune in the literary arena, are not yet familiar with the elements that make a story salable on today’s highly-competitive market...
     
    Just follow the rules. Rule one: each short story gets a two-page (single-spaced) letter of criticism, four pages for a five-pointer, six for an eight-pointer, eight for a ten-pointer. (Which is why the five, eight, and ten pointers are valuable—less paper to cover with babble per point.) Therefore, write as inflated a prose as you can and use short paragraphs. (The double-space between paragraphs equals about fifteen words of letter.) Rule two: every writer is “talented”; bums we don’t get at Dirk Robinson, Inc. Never criticize prose-style, that’s sure to hurt the blown-up egos of the fee creeps, and a deflated ego means no more submissions and that makes the Man unhappy.
     
    ... therefore, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to return this story to you as unsuitable for the current literary marketplace. However, I feel certain that your undeniable talent, combined with diligence and regular production will soon place you within the ranks of our selling authors...
     
    Rule three: hit them with the rejection quickly, cleanly, and before the end of page one and follow it immediately with praise for the old talent. Never tell them the story is a dog (remember, they’re Great Writers); tell them it just happens to be unmarketable. And follow that with a sales pitch for more submissions.
     
    ... this is not to say that a salable story of this nature cannot be written, but due to the current state of the market, only a most unusually strong piece in this vein has a fighting chance...
     
    Rule four: don’t discourage nobody from writing nothing. Get those new submissions! Maybe this old bat can write only sniveling motherhood stories, the way the Mad Dentist can only write about the Communist Fluoridation Plot or Martin K. Beale about Aaron Burr. Let the creeps do their thing. Rule five: don’t actually lie about the story. Tell them how great they are, then chop the story to pieces fast, and get out neat:
     
    ... I’m sorry that A Mother’s Love could not be the story that breaks you into the ranks of our many selling authors, Mrs. Clinestadt, for your own sake as well as mine, since our modest reading fees merely cover our editorial costs in considering the work of new writers for the market. However, I feel confident that your next submission will be a giant step forward in your literary career. I’ll be looking forward to seeing more of your work soon.
     
    Sincerely,
     
    DIRK ROBINSON
     
    That’s all there really is to it. Attach the letter to the manuscript and off it goes to the mailing room. And return bitches are the worry of Jack Miller, the fee-correspondence specialist.