Monday, May 23, 2016

What rejection means: Go write something better



I’m coming off a long dry spell in submitting, and yesterday I experienced the rare treat of a two-rejection day.

Both rejections were for essays I’d submitted to some intriguing online journals that I hadn’t sent to before, and both rejections were extremely kind and professional in their approach. However, they were examples of a specific type that literary editors in general may want to rethink: the “It’s-Not-You-It’s-Me” rejection.

In this type of rejection, the rejection language is clear—the work didn’t make it—but the editors work perhaps a little too hard to assuage presumed disappointment. This is what they said:

Case study #1: “This is not a reflection of your work, but a reflection of how our current issue is unfolding.”

Case study #2: “We are currently receiving more high-quality submissions than we are able to publish, and I’m afraid we decided to pass on this.”

But let’s be clear about something: Barring a few exceptions (bias and prejudice come to mind), when a writer is rejected, it is the writer’s fault. The writer made the mistake of writing and submitting rejectable work.

When my work is rejected, It’s-Not-You-It’s-Me doesn’t apply. Of course it’s me. And honestly, it’s OK that it’s me instead of an editor. The knowledge that it is me, writing work editors can live without, motivates me to do better.

Were I a better writer, my essay would hit the (virtual) submission pile, and when it rose to the top of an editor’s queue, she would read it with breathless attention. She would then rip her clothes and begin crying and keening, holding her laptop tightly against her body. The rest of the staff would come running. “What is it, Louise?” they’d ask, all concern, and at her wordlessness—her complete inability to articulate the beauty she had just witnessed—they would wrest the computer from her hands and read the essay together.

At that point, I’m pretty sure the entire staff would run out of its basement or attic or academic office and start dancing in a circle, crying and strewing flowers and making love. Crowds would form, and everyone would join in, not knowing the source of the beauty, but recognizing it as essential and pure.

Somehow, that didn’t happen with these two essays. Instead, an editor encountered it in his queue and said, “Hmm, that was an OK essay, I guess,” and then forwarded me the “good” rejection—the one that asks the writer to send again. It’s not bad news in the broad scheme of things, but it’s not flowers and maypoles and parking lot sex, either.

I’m obviously exaggerating. The best essay ever written probably fell short of making everyone who read it fall in love with life and the Earth and each other. But maybe a great essay could. And maybe I need to write that essay.

What I wrote instead were two different (and, hmm, kind of similar) rejectable essays. It’s incumbent upon me to do better, and it’s incumbent upon editors to keep their standards high, because with these two kind and professional journals, I fully intend to try again.


12 comments:

  1. I've found this kind of rejection funny ever since the language started getting tweaked like this, the more loving and caring rejection. I don't remember rejections, fifteen years ago or longer, ever taking responsibility like this for the rejection, magazines feeling as if they have to soften the blow by blaming themselves. I think it's insulting, and a smart writer is going to see through it. Writers need to be tough. It's a no? Okay, fine. I realized that going into this venture, that it's 99 percent no. I'll send it somewhere else. If it's good, someone else will take it. If it's not, I'm wasting my time, but that's for me to figure out.

    At Mid-American Review, and now at Moon City Review, I've been careful to word our rejections in the "this is not a match" perspective. I think that's a better way of putting it, and I think that because it's true. We don't like your work enough to publish it, but we're not passing judgment and encourage you to try it elsewhere, as someone else might go with it. Happens all the time. I see stories I rejected in lit mags show up in other mags. I'm happy. You found a love connection! Great! I don't need to make every love connection.

    My all-time least-favorite rejection is one that Karen describes above, the we-don't-have-room-for-this-anymore rejection. I got an email rejection from someone once who used this method, who said something like, "We like your story, but we just don't have any more room in this issue." I immediately wrote back and told her to keep for the next issue, that my story could be the first thing they take for that, that I could be a head start. Of course, the editor never wrote back. Why? Because she was lying. She used this softening-the-blow phrase that didn't make any sense, and when I called her on it, she had to shrink away and pretend it wasn't happening. Had she said no, flatly, she wouldn't have been caught in a lie. Had she said, "This isn't for us," I wouldn't have called her out, just accepted that.

    Another scenario: And editor wants to let the writer know that their work came close, but didn't get in. You know what the best way to do that is? Just scribble "This came close—try us again." on the rejection, in the comments section online. Then the author knows that the work came close, but is still a no. It's encouraging, but doesn't confuse anything. Doesn't lie.

    Since every writer, their grandma, their teddy bear, and their college roommate who is majoring in Communications is an editor of sorts for some kind of lit mag these days, I hope that more people are into the straight-up NO rejection than any kind of guilt-ridden mixed message. It's the editor's job, and it can be a tough job. But they still have to do it.

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    1. Not having room is a strange concept indeed. If you have a print journal, add some pages. If you have an online journal ... what? There's no real limit to an online journal. No room doesn't even make sense.

      Thanks for sharing your perspective. <3

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    2. No, it doesn't. Unless it's the magazine's last issue, then that makes sense, or a special issue with a special theme. I get that. But who really cares how long a story takes to get to print once it's accepted? Who cares if it's a year instead of six months? That's why it's just lying, unnecessarily.

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  2. As an editor of an online journal, I do want to make sure that our issues stay manageable (for my own time in setting them up and for the purpose of presenting readers with something they can read in a sitting if they choose). I hate it when a journal publishes a TON of work in one issue. Where is the curating? Who will even read an entire issue that's filled with so many pieces and has no unity?

    That said, I also hate the "not enough room" excuse as a writer, but not quite as much as I hate "not a good fit." My poems are not obese people trying to shop in the juniors section. I agree that knowing a specific poem came close is useful, but otherwise a quick no is better than a drawn-out lie.

    Thanks for this, Karen!

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    1. Your shopping comparison is priceless! And I agree completely -- even online journals can't take everything. But they CAN take everything they'd die without. BE THAT WRITER -- that's my goal! Ha! :)

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    2. Katie,

      If you liked something, and were out of room for your current issue, wouldn't you just hold it for the next issue?

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  3. They do write this kind of rejections for linguistic conferences, which, of course, is a different type of thing. =) "We had X number of high quality submissions, and we accepted only Y abstracts/Z percent of all the submissions. we had to reject many high quality abstracts, blah, blah, blah." And you are right. If the idea is good, the writing is good, the solution is good, then the abstract does get accepted to a conference. So, no, it's not you, but it's me.

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    1. And that's OK! I like the challenge to do better next time. Too much of that can wear us down, of course. I get that.

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    2. I hate rejections. =) I have excellent results, and want the world to know, you know! ;)
      There must be some way of writing more concise, elegant, and all that with all the good hypotheses, predictions and discussion, and, within 2 pages.... but I haven't mastered it yet. ;)

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  4. Well, you might be being too hard on yourself. Many a great published work was rejected countless times prior to an acceptance. I've had pieces rejected 20+ times before landing in a top tier lit journal (without really changing it notably in the interim). I've had stories accepted at reputable (but perhaps not top tier) places when they were rejected 50+ times at other places over the course of about 10 years. It is true in some cases as you say, that the piece should be better, but it is also true the piece is fine as is and the author should believe in it, be proud of it, and, the most important part - be patient. Most high end markets accept less than 1% of incoming work. And then there are those intern/first readers that could easily have missed a shining star. Several lit mag editors I've spoken to through the years say one of ths biggest problems they have is entrusting the first read to the right people.

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    1. Thanks for the comment and the worthy perspective! An aspect of this for me is the simple fact that one shouldn't put too much energy into whether one piece gets accepted or not. As you say, you have to keep trying, and the thing to do while you try is to WRITE. I know a few writers who lean pretty heavily on one piece and live or die by how it does among editors. That's no way to be a writer, right? :)

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  5. >>Barring a few exceptions (bias and prejudice come to mind), when a writer is rejected, it is the writer’s fault. The writer made the mistake of writing and submitting rejectable work.

    This is a sensible sounding statement that I think is probably largely false. Most work submitted via the slushpile system is not given adequate serious consideration to say that it's good, bad, or indifferent. There's simply no way that the thousands of submissions many publications receive *could* receive adequate attention. So in a great many cases, it *is* them more than it's you (which, of course, doesn't imply that one is submitting publish-quality work).

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