“Dear Val:
Many thanks for sending “Your Story” my way. I found your story to be well-written with good description and believable dialog. You did a nice job slowly revealing what was going on, and building sympathy for our killer.
The only qualm I had with the writing was the use of “began” in the story. Began is a very passive word that can usually be eliminated from a story. If you think about it, you can only “begin” to do something for a nano second before you’re actually doing it. Why use “he began to shake” when you can write “he shook”. Unless something is going to stop him from shaking, the word has not point. Again, this is not a big issue, just something small to improve on.
I though that the conclusion of the tale was well done in that it was both horrific, yet poignant.
Unfortunately, I tend to shy away from accepting revenge pieces. Although your story is very well written, the main point of it is to show someone getting violent revenge on someone who wronged him. As a result, there was never any doubt in my mind how the story would end. I tend to receive a lot of these stories and, as much as I may enjoy them, they rarely offer anything original. You’re tale is by far one of the best of these types of stories I’ve read, but it really didn’t have any twists or turns. As a result, I’m going to pass.
The above comments represent only one person’s opinion; another editor may completely disagree. “Your Story” is a good story that I’m sure another market will appreciate.
Best of luck in all of your writing endeavors,
The Editor”
Now THIS was a nice rejection letter. Not only did he like it (even though he didn’t want to publish it) but he also offered some constructive criticism. (The only thing that really could have made it better would to have actually published it 
)
