Rejection Missive From Raphael's Village

Me: Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Hee-hee-ho-ho-ho-he-ho-ha-hee!

Them:

Hi Mark,

Thank you for submitting your humorous short, "Jeden Pošetilý Povídka!" to our Healing with Humor forum. The piece is well written, but unfortunately, we're going to have to pass on this one.

Because we know it's helpful to understand why a piece was rejected, here are our general reasons.

1. Too many sexual references. We aren't against sex, but most of the references seemed intentionally crude merely to shock instead of to cause someone to laugh. "Penetrative anal sex" isn't exactly a thigh slapper (yes, okay, pun intended), and it and phrases like it didn't add to the humor of the piece.

2. Too disjointed. Not sure what lice and homosexuality have in common, but the lice gags alone might have worked. With the homosexual stuff going on, it became too jumbled, and it's unclear what the piece is actually going for.

3. Negative undertone. The piece started out interestingly and humorously, with Simon waking up and realizing he was a homosexual. It turned into something with some nasty-feeling undertones. While gay humor can be hilarious (Le Cage aux Folles, aka The Birdcage, for example), gay bashing isn't funny at all. That may not have been your intention, but it's how the tone of the piece came across to
us.

4. No point. We reached the end and wondered why we'd gone on the journey.

Effective humor has to have a clear point. The only point we could get out of this was that the author doesn't like lice or homosexuals, but he does like talking about penetrative anal sex and making other gay sexual references.

Again, may not have been your intention, but it's how it came across to us.

5. Didn't sustain humor all the way through. Most likely because of the lice and homosexuality lines of thought crossing each other up. Separated, maybe each story line would be funny; together, they don't add up to more, they add up to less.

6. Including pictures. Unless it's specifically stated somewhere on the publication's submission guidelines (and we mean for all publications, not just ours), no one wants pictures submitted to support the story. Considering your story's content, we're rather relieved you couldn't share the pictures with us, but suffice to say, as a gentle suggestion, don't try that anywhere else. You can say that you have pictures you'd like to include if the story is accepted and if possible, but don't send them along with your submission.

Best of luck placing this elsewhere. We do hope you'll consider us for other submissions -- just because we didn't like this one doesn't mean we won't love your next piece.

Best,
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Editor, Raphael's Village