Two thoughts on the writer’s quest to be published – the one a reminder to persevere, the other a cautionary tale of sorts.
Opinions may vary…
As a writer, rejection can always shake your confidence, but it is important to remember that tastes vary and one venue’s rejection might be another’s acceptance. To illustrate this, allow me to share a recent experience of mine.
I had a story rejected by a publisher that uses readers and the comments of the three readers were included with the rejection email.
The reason why it was rejected was because one reader had given it a score of 1/5. Although they were enthusiastic about my actual writing, they felt the idea had been done before and wasn’t worth publishing.
But, the other two readers had given it 4/5 and 5/5 and the latter actually commented that they didn’t see the ending coming!
Had the first reader been replaced by someone else, it’s likely my story would’ve been accepted, but, more than that, the way in which one reader was jaded by the plot and another surprised, shows how you never can tell who will (or won’t) like your story.
The moral, naturally, is to shake off the rejection and send your story out again and again. Of course, if they make points about flaws that you can see the validity of, consider rewriting your piece, but, if not, don’t assume it’s rubbish – it probably just hasn’t reached the right editor yet.
When editing fails…
Of course, even when you have your story accepted, there can be problems. Magazines can fold before publication, you might withdraw it because you don’t agree to the contract offered, and sometimes the editor will drop it. This latter recently happened to me.
Having spent a lot of time and effort editing a story for an anthology, it was dropped because the chief editor felt my edits weren’t what he wanted.
Now, perhaps I am just too literal minded, or perhaps several months with a lot of stress and little sleep had left my brain unable to tease out the nuance of what was wanted, but while I had responded to all their suggestions, it seemed they had wanted a substantive and wide-ranging rewrite rather than the straightforward edit I had interpreted their request to be.
The problem was that not only were we approaching the edit at cross-purposes, they didn’t tell me I was coming at it wrong. In fact, the editor who responded to both redrafts I sent (a different person to the chief editor who dropped my story) not only said nothing, but actually stated it was ready for layout! (Call me naive, but that certainly sounded as if they were satisified with the piece – maybe they thought it was okay and the chief editor didn’t, or maybe they just automatically sent the email without checking it, but whatever the reason I assumed I’d produced a satisfactory job until the chief editor emailed me a few days late to say he was dropping it.)
Had they clarified what they wanted after my first rewrite, I probably would’ve had to ask for it to withdrawn as I doubt I could’ve produced such a substantive rewrite to such a tight deadline. But, at least that would’ve saved us both some time and effort, as well as avoiding misleading me as to the story’s status.
The moral of the story for writers has to be, if an editor asks for more than a simple proofread of your story and a response to minor tweaks, clarify just how much rewriting they expect so that you can either get it right or, at least, avoid wasting everyone’s time.
But, for any editors who might be reading, there is a stronger moral for you – communicate clearly and in a timely fashion. Make it clear what you want at the beginning and if the writer doesn’t appear to be doing what you expected, let them know before the editing window closes. And, if you have other members on your editorial team, have them run any responses by you – this isn’t the first time I’ve had one editor tell me something only to be overruled (a member of the editorial team at one magazine told me they could pay via PayPal when they couldn’t, leading to a lot of hassle).
But, even though these sorts of mishaps can occur, the answer remains, keep submitting. Remember, if your story was accepted by one editor, it stands a good chance of being accepted somewhere else.
Tags: editing, Editors, Feedback, Rejection