The 'so what?' factor

Last week my day was book-ended with rejections. It started with an email from the editor of a literary magazine that I really admire, that said…"we thought the writing…was extremely assured, and in the words of one of our readers: "the author conjures up an atmosphere with a very limited and well-chosen vocabulary". However, on balance, there was not a strong enough core that made us want to turn the page as much as we would've liked. I hope this is helpful.'

Gut reaction? G-r-eat way to start the day. Initial analysis? You can string a sentence together but you can't tell a good story.

This is a problem I'm acutely aware of: I have no plot. I build a story on things I see and hear, random thoughts and groups of words that appear. Trying to find the narrative, to build an arc, is not only daunting, it's such a labour. I like editing when it's detail - I love finding words and sentences that sound like something, but what I end up with is an extended atmosphere or set-up and not much substance.

I used to polarise workshop groups. I used to spend far too many words trying to be clever, and abstract, and pretentious. I still want to make a reader think, but I am far more considerate of them now, and not surprisingly this has shown when I have stories critiqued by other writers.

But the rejection I got reopened the sensitivity.

And then I remembered a session by Deborah Levy at xxxx. We each had to stand up and say an aspect of writing we were good at and something we needed to improve. I said my writing fails the 'so what?' factor.
She said, 'What?' wanting me to speak louder, as she'd made everyone do.
Feeling like an idiot I said, 'I USUALLY FAIL THE SO WHAT FACTOR.'
And she came up very close to me and said, 'Do you really care?'
I didn't want to answer because I didn't want to look arrogant or smug or I don't know what, but the truth is I sort of don't care. I mean, I think I've come a long way in terms of giving the reader a journey of some sort - it's never a plot with a twist or a