Received a rejection today for The Sorcerer’s Wife. I sent them this story MARCH 8. We’re coming up to 9 months. How ridiculous is that? So ridiculous that I had actually resubmitted this story elsewhere because I assumed they were MIA (nor did they respond to my follow ups).

This is what I received back:

Thank you for your submission. I liked the atmosphere of your story and the protagonist who must take pills to keep his headache coming, or he will see the dire end and entropy of everything. However, I found I didn’t believe him to be that good a bodyguard when at the funeral there are so many people/beings shooting and armed and he takes a while to get going.
Not to mention that one grenade would have finished the sorceror’s casket.
As well, if this woman was an immortal, how did she stay alive so long if she needed someone to protect her from golems and guns?

Good luck with this; I did enjoy the read.

This rejection is called a ‘not right for us’ rejection. Because her criticisms aren’t constructive criticisms at all. They’re just nit-picks. Am I being difficult? No, I don’t think so.

For those that haven’t read it, these are very small concerns about a fairly complex story (as complex as you can get in 6000 words).

– didn’t use a grenade on the coffin…well, instead, someone tried to use a Rod of Corpse Explosion. Something I thought was far cooler than a grenade.

– The comment ‘as a body guard he takes a while to get going’…yes, that was the point. He kept saying he was distracted by the chick’s chest. So distracted that the enemy got the drop on him.

So these are tiny comments, nit-picks…things that I won’t change because that’s the story. There comes a time when you cannot make anymore changes, that the story has to stand on its own (or not).

This is that time.

Besides, this was a bonus rejection (a bonus rejection…what the hell does that mean?) because I assumed they had already written me off.