KNIGHTS OF THE HOLLOW may be one to follow

Bonjour, Matt Spencer:

Merci beaucoup for thinking to send Knights of the Hollow for consideration by what is clearly the right place in the universe for it here at TQR.

You know your characters well, and you know too of what they are capable. The telling of your tale is swift, efficient, entertaining, erect, tight, executed by a mind and hand advanced in sculpting his material with precision into the final product intended. Or so it seems...

The Monkey squeals with delight and allows you the most brief but significant sniff of his tail.

Let's see what happens in The Terminal, for the ones who occupy those rooms dissect the caps with instruments I've only heard whispers of here on the lowly Floor.

Bonne chance!

Gabrielle DePlancher / The Floor - TQR / Sent while levitating from my own Bright Cloud.

Close, but no banana! Can you really call this a rejection?

Dear James,

It's a pleasure, in a horrifying, dystopic twitching kind of way to read your submissions. You must keep scratching it out, keep folding your paper airplanes and directing them straight into the cracked windows of TQR.

I almost LOVED this latest, your Fruits! Oh man, how I wanted to send it upward. You got the goodstuff, James. You know it. I know it. We know it.

Can you please tone down the foreshadowing though, James. Big-armed, loveable Molly tells us too much too soon. We know Jeb's a madman. He's so perfect...couldn't he stay that way in her rollypolly love-seeking mind----and therefore in ours, too----until that little creep inside who knows the truth pecks until there's a hole in her conscience and the blinding truth blazes through? Huh?

Merde, James. You're so close to everything the Monkey dances his ritual dance for, he can probably sniff it.

Read it through and see if what I'm talking about makes sense. Honestly. I want this one...I just don't want to know from the beginning that everything's a nightmare. Molly. Maybe she needs more lovestruck injection to keep her less suspicious so we, the readers, don't know so soon the extent of what she's gotten herself entangled in with Jeb boy. We need to wince at her predicament, writhe with her conflict.

I hope you know what I mean, James, because this one's got to find its way back here. And whether it's Doomey or me who reads it next time, it will soar.

With flatterous but genuine applause,

Gabrielle DePlancher / The Floor / TQR

Sent while levitating from my own Bright Cloud.

YOU KNOW YOU'RE A VAMPIRE's minor monkey slap down

Hi Douglas,

Merci for thinking of our rag-a-lag when looking for a home for your cap, You Know You're a Vampire. We appreciate your interest. Without people like you, we'd have nothing to read and, well, Doomey and I would probably get distracted.

You need some work here, soldier. For one thing, you ought to hang around places, listen to the way people speak to each other. Eavesdrop. Talk to your mirror reflection and mimic what you hear. I think it will help.

You're a storyteller, I don't doubt it. There's an understory here, but it's bogged down and obscured. PTSD is real. It hurts. In Vampire, I just don't recognize anyone I might even remotely care about, you know? Bill and Chad and the Manager...none of them seem to have much of a pulse. I don't know what their skin smells like or what really matters to them. You got to wake these zombies up, Douglas! Make us care.

There's a base here. Take down the flimsy walls and rebuild them slowly and with care. Put some windows in the house and turn on the lights so we voyeurs can find out what these guys are cooking inside their souls. Reach inside them---and yourself----and wrench it out. It's there; you know it is or you wouldn't have bothered.

Not this time, Douglas. Monkey slap down for you.

It's a tough business.

All the best,

Gabrielle DePlancher / The Floor / TQR

Sent while levitating from my own Bright Cloud.

Boligard pisses upon INTRUSION's pre-ordained inclusion

Hello Gary,

Examined your cap a few times, found it well crafted but lacking in power. And by lacking in power, I mean the prose was limp. Nonresponsive. We're looking for something that explodes in your hands. Or your face. But you're great, as your cover letter lets us know, and so you shall rise, sirah.

Keep it unreal,

Boligard Doomey the Floor www.tqrstories.com