Writers often complain about rejection, as if it’s the worst part of this business—sending query after query and receiving nibbles for partials, only to be shot down a month later with a form rejection.
Yep. Rejection really bites. It’s isolating and painful and just plain sucks. But it’s not the worst part about this business. The worst part of this business is the prevalence of false hope—and writers are their own worst victims.
False hope is the antithesis of real hope. Real hope is a shiny, happy, elysian emotion. Real hope is a necessary part of a writer’s dream. It motivates us to believe in ourselves and our writing, and it inspires us to be proactive in the face of adversity. Each query is a “little hope,” sent out into the world with the courage and desire to make our dream a reality.
False hope, on the other hand, is a writer’s worst enemy. False hope starts out as real hope. We receive a request from a top-tier agent for our full manuscript, and we’re ecstatic. We email the agent. "Yes, of course she may read the rest of our masterpiece. And yes, we’re so glad she loved the first fifty pages." Witty email banter ensues, and Ms. Top-Tier asks you to email your full.
Even better! This is thee one. You know it. You can feel it. She's the perfect agent. You google her name a thousand times and you're certain you'd be thee perfect fit her client list. This is destined to be. Suddenly, the whole world is pretty and lovely and good.
Now, here’s when all newbie writers scream, "OMG, what could be worse than Ms. Top-Tier rejecting your full manuscript?" Meanwhile, experienced writers whisper: false hope. Yes, false hope is much, much worse.
Two weeks go by. Then a month. Then two months. No email. No phone call. Nothing. Every day you're forced to wait is a day you want to crawl out of your own skin. You’ve completely stopped querying other agents. You’ve even stopped working on your new novel. You’re paralyzed. False hope is squeezing you through its nose like nauseous, pink play-doh.
Three months go by. Nothing. You finally break down. You don’t care anymore whether she rejects you or not, you just want to know either way, so you can get on with your life. You adopt a proactive attitude and shoot off a polite “checking in” email to Ms. Top-Tier. What’s the worst that can happen, right? She rejects you faster? You’re ready for it. Bring it on.
Instead, what happens? Nothing. No response. None whatsoever.
Is it fair? No. Is it professional? Not really. And now, after four months of waiting, you’re emotional oatmeal. Why? False hope.
Is it your fault that things turned out this way? No. But it is your fault that you indulged in the idea for four months that Ms. Top-Tier was thee perfect agent while simultaneously accomplishing nothing but hand-wringing and internal Chinese water torture. Admit it. You fell for the trap. You wanted to believe that this was your one big break, that you were destined to be her client, so you stopped querying, stopped writing, and started indulging in the fantasy that she was Your-Perfect-Agent.
No agent is Your-Perfect-Agent. There are many, many, many agents out there—nice, polite, professional agents—who will return your emails and read your solicited manuscript in a timely manner. And trust us, they have the same access to the same editors as Ms. Top-Tier Agent. Really, they do. So don’t stop querying those agents until you have an offer of representation. Because you—and only you—are in control of your own literary destiny. Not false hope.
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