The Cure (Star Trek: TOS story)

Fanfiction
Title:	The Cure
Author(s):	Charlotte Frost
Date(s):	1989
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Cure is a K/S story by Charlotte Frost.

Note: Frost refers to the zine in which this story was published as "Rejection Slip," but that title was not used; instead the zine is Undercover.

From the Author

This story gives me a chuckle. Nobody wanted it! Over the course of a year or so, I sent it out to at least six different editors. Even those who had never had a C Frost story before – and would have liked one – rejected the story. In between rejections, I would sit down and think, “Okay, I’m going to fix this so that somebody wants it.” And I would read it and not find anything that needed fixing. You know the famous fanon “double ridges” of Spock’s penis? I got to thinking how annoying it would be if he got a little germ in between there, and it itched and itched…. Zine editors were not amused. One person later explained to me why the story gave them the willies. This was at a time when AIDS had been around less than ten years. The idea of a germ concerning the genitals… it just didn’t sit well with people. One day, at a con, somebody told me that she was going to publish her own little zine called REJECTION SLIP, because she had a novella that got rejected and, by God, she wanted it published. (It was actually quite a good story. I think it got rejected by an editor who had already accepted a story with a similar theme.) So, I told her about my six-times-reject, and she said she would be happy to publish it. There was also one other little story that was included. So, “The Cure” finally saw print. Don’t think I ever heard from any readers about it. I doubt the zine had much in the way of circulation.

With the ability to post online at will, fanfic authors no longer have to worry about being rejected.

In my first foray into fanfic writing, focused exclusively on Kirk/Spock slash, I had a story or two rejected. I also had a few sent back to me with the request that they be fleshed out. (I don't think the internet generation even knows what "fleshed out" means, since super short communication is what rules.)

All rejections were eventually turned into accepted works that saw print. One of those stories, however, came very close to never seeing print, and probably wouldn't have, save for an unusual set of circumstances.

I used to read Writer's Digest as a preteen, and I remember an article about a short story that was rejected 147 times before it saw print. Slash fandom didn't have enough zine editors for a story to be rejected that many times, but relative to its the fandom's size, it was the same concept.

The story was called "The Cure". The fanon at the time (I don't know if it still exists) was that Spock's Vulcan penis had double ridges. So, I wondered what would happen if some little germ, or other irritant, got between the ridges. Other than that, I don't remember what happens in the story, though I do think it had a somewhat humorous tone. I sent it around to an editor or two that I was familiar with, and none of them wanted it. I sent it around to a few more editors that I normally didn't send stories to, thinking they'd appreciate a Charlotte Frost story, but they didn't want it, either. It made them uncomfortable. I sat down and re-read the story, with an eye toward "fixing" it, but I couldn't find anything wrong with it. It had a plot, theme, climax, etc. -- all the elements of a short story. I tried with a few more editors that were way down my list of editors I wanted to publish with, and even they didn't want the story. Somewhere along the line, someone told me that, in the current atmosphere of AIDS (this was the late 80s), Spock having that kind of problem just sounded icky and gross.

So, it looked like I was going to have a story that was a complete failure and never see print.

At the next convention I attended, a fan was complaining about a novella of hers being rejected, because the zine she'd submitted it to already had accepted a story with a similar theme. Since she wasn't someone who wrote much, and had poured her heart and soul into this one novella, she took the rejection very badly and was angry about it. She had decided that she was just going to publish the novella herself, in a little mini-zine. I told her that I had a multi-rejected story, and she was welcome to include it, if she wanted. She said she would take it.

So, within a year, an little zine was published with the name of Rejection Slip. It was an odd size -- perhaps 5x8 -- and also included a vignette by a well-known specialist of that length. (I don't know if the latter had actually ever been rejected.) The zine had little circulation, and I don't recall ever getting any feedback on my story.

What I do know is that all three stories in that little zine were solid stories. I could understand why the editor was upset that her novella had been rejected. She surely could have gotten it published with a major zine if she would have made an effort to shop it around after the initial rejection. But then, rejections have historically been the bane of the writing profession, and they never feel good.

Now, that bane is removed, unless someone is determined to get published in one of the few remaining fanzines, and the publisher doesn't want their story. Even then, one can just post their story online.