I recently crossed the threshold of 50 short story submissions, and I’ve decided to celebrate that milestone by talking about rejections! For most writers, rejections are a natural part of the submission process, and it’s expected for a short story to rack up at least a few before finding a publishing home.
Why Bother?
For most writers, feedback on a story comes through beta readers, critiques, or a writer’s group or workshop. The feedback found in rejection letters is usually paltry in comparison.
The one advantage of this feedback is that it comes directly from the editors and readers that you are selling to. Hopefully you submit to editors and publications you believe have good artistic taste, but if nothing else, these are the opinions that matter for getting a story to print (and money in the writer’s bank account).
Occasionally, this feedback might expose a flaw in the story, or in your submission process. I have a story that I submitted to fantasy publications, but it has only a single fantastic element and could be seen more as magical realism or slipstream. A helpful editor explained in a rejection, “your story has some interesting concepts, but on evaluation, it doesn’t fit well in our definition of the fantasy genre.”
This let me know that I needed to be more careful in submitting this story to publications that have a more “traditional” view of fantasy. It also gave me a better idea of what that particular publication was looking for. And since they finished the rejection with a positive note and a suggestion to submit again, I did exactly that—with a story that was a better fit—and got an acceptance.
Not every rejection will work out so well, but it’s still valuable to read the tea leaves of your rejections.
Form Rejections
These are the lowest tier of rejection, but by the probabilities of the slush pile, they are also the most common by far. Most publications (especially those that pay) receive dozens or hundreds of submissions for each one they publish, and they simply don’t have the time to give personalized feedback to each.
Unfortunately, form rejections differ slightly between publications. They typically follow a format like this:
Dear Author,
Thank you for sending us Story Name. Unfortunately the piece is not right for us at the moment. [Possibly additional sentences about how it’s not you, it’s us.] Good luck placing it elsewhere.
Sincerely,
Editors
A typical form rejection politely states that the piece is not accepted, and doesn’t offer any specific notes or ask you to submit again. However, I have occasionally received what appears to be a straight form rejection that encourages the writer to submit other work to the publication, so that shouldn’t necessarily be taken too seriously.
Some form rejections say something to the effect of “sorry for sending a form letter, we’re really busy,” which I actually quite like, because it removes any ambiguity.
Tiered Rejections
Some publications (usually bigger and more successful markets) have a tiered reading or evaluation process. They may pass each story to multiple readers, or have slush pile readers who recommend their favorites to editors for additional scrutiny. If you’re lucky, they will describe this process on their submissions page, and if you’re doubly lucky they will explain what kind of rejection a piece receives based on the “tier” where it was removed from contention.
Getting to any tier beyond the first reader already marks the story as highly-regarded by the publication. Usually the significant majority of stories get an immediate, first-tier form rejection. Since far fewer stories make it to the subsequent tiers, a rejection at this stage is much more likely to have a small, personalized note to explain why it was rejected.
In my experience, this type of rejection will almost always ask you to submit more work. Take note of this! If you get to this stage, you likely have storytelling sensibilities that align with the editors. There is no small amount of subjectivity when evaluating fiction, and for a story to get published it has to not only be well-written, but also match the vibes of the publication.
Personalized Rejections
If your story makes it into higher tiers of editorial evaluation, or you happen to submit to a rare, incredibly generous editor, you may get some personalized feedback in a rejection. This typically takes the form of a couple sentences of “what we liked and what we didn’t like,” since the story usually has some solid points that let it escape the slush pile and some weaknesses (or incompatibility with the publication’s sensibilities) that caused it to lose out to the stories that were accepted.
Some publications also offer an option to support them by paying for feedback on submissions. Use this at your own discretion. There is no guarantee that the feedback will be particularly helpful, and while most of these offers are an honestly-provided service that also helps keep the publication stay afloat financially, some less scrupulous markets don’t provide much for the fee.
I would suggest paying for a service like this only if you think highly of the publication and would be happy to support them even if you weren’t getting feedback. However, if you don’t mind dropping the money, you can always try these and see if the response feels worth it. In most cases, you’ll get considerably less than you’d get out of a writer’s circle, workshop, or critique group, so keep that in mind.
Holds
On rare occasions, you may receive a “hold” request. A hold is short fiction limbo—it’s essentially a notification that you’re going to have to wait even longer for a response.
A hold will only be issued if the publication thinks they might want to buy the story, so this is a great sign. However, it can also mean the publication is hedging their bets in case they get a submission they like more, especially if there’s a long submission window for something like an anthology.
Holds can also be a way for a publication to collect stories while trying to suss out the overall tone or theme for an issue. They may like your story, but find that it doesn’t fit well with several other stories they want to publish. As a result, a perfectly good story ends up rejected because editors have to worry about the total package of what they’re publishing.
Non-Response
If you submit enough, you’ll eventually run into a non-response. Among the hundreds of submissions publications receive every day, a few are bound to fall through the cracks. These days, many publications use submission managers like Submittable or Duosuma to help with this, but some are still working with shared email inboxes.
Firstly, if you’re submitting directly through email, it pays to whitelist the address. It’s easy to miss a response that gets caught in the spam filter, and this is much more likely to happen when the publication uses a random gmail address. It’s also worth watching your inbox and checking spam regularly, although I’ll admit I’m not very good at this.
When submitting, make sure you follow the formatting instructions provided by the publication on their submissions page. Don’t rely solely on tools like Duotrope or Submission Grinder, which can occasionally be out of date or incorrect. If you use the incorrect formatting, or ignore instructions like removing identifying information from your manuscript for blind reading, some publications will toss your submission. This may seem callous, but editors who need to weed through hundreds of submissions don’t have the time to deal with submissions that aren’t correctly formatted. Correct submission format is a basic expectation to be taken seriously as a professional writer.
Finally, pay attention to information the publication provides about its own responses. What’s their expected response time? A few publications have a policy of not responding to rejected stories, so a non-response is effectively a silent rejection. Be aware of this when submitting.
If you’re beyond the expected response time, feel free to send a short, polite query letter asking about the status of your submission. Provide your name and the title of your story. If you received an acknowledgement of the original submission, there might also be a submission number or other identifier to include.
Sometimes It’s a Mystery
While there can be valuable tidbits of information to be found in rejection letters, not every rejection will be useful. Sometimes the value is only apparent in aggregate over a number of submissions.
As a writer, I would love it if all the publishers in the world got together and organized around some standard wording for rejections so I always know exactly where I stand. However, writing (and publishing) are creative enterprises, and there are no hard and fast rules. There will always be publications that buck trends and give strange or inscrutable responses.
The best way to develop a better understanding of rejections is to submit frequently and widely. I’ve accumulated dozens of rejections, but I still have a long way to go compared to some authors who have hundreds or thousands.
Finally, it’s important to remember that a perfectly good story still needs to find the right fit to make it into print. Being patient with repeated submissions may be necessary for some stories to find an acceptance.
Words Deferred 