Rejection is hard. But is it is always nice to get feedback from the publisher/editor and not a form letter. I feel like we should save all of ours but Tod (my husband) handles most of the submissions.
Well, I have always written. After I was really sick a few years ago. I decided I wanted to polish and submit some of my writing. I had been holding off submitting because... well, it is complex, but my sister always was going to be the writer and I was the scientist. And, it felt wrong to step in her lane. I kept waiting for her to get some stuff out and then figured I could as well. But she has wonderful stuff but doesn't send it out into the world. I guess because of how ill I got I sort of was like, what am I waiting for?
So, I asked for my husband to help me. He started helping mostly as an editor. Then he got his own ideas and wrote and I edited for him. We decide together when to submit and what to submit, but he tends to handle the submitting unless it is for something big like a novel. I handle in person pitching and he handles the email. We write under one name, but both of us always touch the story.
Thank you so much for sharing this! This post makes me feel validated😌 I started writing and submitting short stories to magazines about 5ish years ago. Last year I finally saw some acceptances😮💨It felt like an unnaturally long time and made me seriously wonder if the stories were just not good (frankly some of them weren't....)
But as I got more experience with the market, I realized even a great story can take YEARS of submitting to find a home. The strongest stories can be rejected from a magazine if the timing is wrong or if the story doesn't quite fit their vibe. It's extremely competitive out there.
But honestly? I find the cycle of submitting and getting rejected healthy in its own way. The rejections hurt a lot less after a while. You get good at dusting yourself off and trying again.
Absolutely, you’ve got the right attitude. It’s a very “try, try, and try again” mentality, but it’s a good one to weather unfortunate outcomes. Because sometimes acceptance isn’t even the endgame, it’s actually getting published. I’ve had a few instances where an accepted didn’t see publication.
But as long as you keep at it, you’ll get somewhere.
Wow... You've racked up quite a list of rejections for "Homunculus"! None of my stories have that many rejections yet... but none of them have been on the submission circuit since 2013! Persistence pays off. Congrats!
Ha, this was great — thanks for sharing! Do you find it hard to get humorous / absurdist stories accepted? I feel like the rejection feedback on your Beasty Cycle piece missed the point of the story entirely.
I’ve sold a fair amount of humor stories; sci-fi humor seems to do better, in my experience. No idea why, maybe we’re just used to Star Trek/Star Wars parodies.
That’s another nice thing about personal rejections: you can tell when the slush reader didn’t get it—or didn’t even finish! But now you can have the satisfaction of being smarter than a slush reader. 😁
Thanks for sharing examples of your rejection's. It takes guts and grit to query and all those rejections add fuel to the flame of The Audacity to keep pressing onward.
Personal rejections are usually a positive sign (although it doesn’t always look that way), it means the editor cared enough to say something. If anything it means you’re on the right track! Plus, they’re kind of funny. 😁
I do love the "Beyond Ceaseless Skies" feedback the most. I feel like they get Claude to write their feedback letters, same with ironically named Flash Fiction Online that feedback was longer than most flash fiction I've read. But yeah, you're just reinforcing why I'm likely going to go direct to readers here and continue through independent publishing. There's a reason it's dying like butter churners and people that twist bottle caps on. My writing is a labor of love and madness. I'll let the readers be the judge and serve a niche. You certainly do. But this type of note is what I'm here for.
I appreciate BCS’s commitment to always giving personal rejections, however, they’re not that good. And 100% they’re using a rubric of some sort, because a lot of my personal rejections have started to sound the same. I also haven’t shared with you the funniest BCS rejection!
BCS used to be better, I think my stories would’ve found a home with them ten years ago, but their quality has definitely gone downhill—and they wonder why they need to beg for readers. 🤔
Yeah, I admire BCS for their stance on feedback, but the few times I've submitted to them I just haven't found the comments helpful😕I think being asked to provide meaningful feedback for every story is too much for any slush reader.
Likely so. I’m almost certain they use a rubric of sorts, because almost all my “personal” rejections sound eerily similar. And yeah, it’s never useful—you just shrug and move on.
Thanks for sharing all these with us. I thought my list of rejections was long with each story, and I'm glad to see I'm not alone. But hey, that makes the eventual acceptance that much sweeter. :)
That is very true and a healthy perspective! 🙂 I try to adopt that sentiment before I send out something! Do you know, if there is some kind of list to know which magazines there are? Here in switzerland we get nothing like that and searching the net brings more nonsense than good things I think… how did you decide which magazines are worth it or take entries and stuff! 😳
I keep making notes about this market database, but Substack’s algorithm keeps sinking them. But yeah, I just submit wherever I think my story will fit. I do read guidelines and if there are stories freely available from that zine, I will check those out. But sometimes, it can be a crapshoot. 😂
I took a look at BCS’s stuff recently—not impressed. But back ten years ago, I did really enjoy some of the fiction they published, and discovered one of my favorite short fiction writers. Things change, I guess.
But I would still encourage you to submit to zines!
Yes, you are a very tenacious street fightin' woman. You could teach some dudes here a lesson on perseverance.
Haha, thank you. Yeah, a lot of limp noodles around here. 😂 Some of you guys give up way too easily.
Rejection is hard. But is it is always nice to get feedback from the publisher/editor and not a form letter. I feel like we should save all of ours but Tod (my husband) handles most of the submissions.
We got one email from a magazine that was incredible. If we wanted to resubmit, we know exactly what they want. I have it pinned in my email. -Tod
Wait, so do you write the stories and your husband submits them?
Well, I have always written. After I was really sick a few years ago. I decided I wanted to polish and submit some of my writing. I had been holding off submitting because... well, it is complex, but my sister always was going to be the writer and I was the scientist. And, it felt wrong to step in her lane. I kept waiting for her to get some stuff out and then figured I could as well. But she has wonderful stuff but doesn't send it out into the world. I guess because of how ill I got I sort of was like, what am I waiting for?
So, I asked for my husband to help me. He started helping mostly as an editor. Then he got his own ideas and wrote and I edited for him. We decide together when to submit and what to submit, but he tends to handle the submitting unless it is for something big like a novel. I handle in person pitching and he handles the email. We write under one name, but both of us always touch the story.
My story for when were multi-millionaires and famous is for me to respond to "why do you write" with "she made me".
Lol!
We write them together. Anna had issues hitting the submit button, so early on, I would hit send. She's gotten better though. -Tod
Is there a story behind being rejected for the snow??? wtf
Not that I know of. This is according to one forum-goer.
Thank you so much for sharing this! This post makes me feel validated😌 I started writing and submitting short stories to magazines about 5ish years ago. Last year I finally saw some acceptances😮💨It felt like an unnaturally long time and made me seriously wonder if the stories were just not good (frankly some of them weren't....)
But as I got more experience with the market, I realized even a great story can take YEARS of submitting to find a home. The strongest stories can be rejected from a magazine if the timing is wrong or if the story doesn't quite fit their vibe. It's extremely competitive out there.
But honestly? I find the cycle of submitting and getting rejected healthy in its own way. The rejections hurt a lot less after a while. You get good at dusting yourself off and trying again.
Absolutely, you’ve got the right attitude. It’s a very “try, try, and try again” mentality, but it’s a good one to weather unfortunate outcomes. Because sometimes acceptance isn’t even the endgame, it’s actually getting published. I’ve had a few instances where an accepted didn’t see publication.
But as long as you keep at it, you’ll get somewhere.
I write grimdark but doesn't have as many scars as turnips. I feel... competitive. Need to get myself some scars.
Yarrr! The Grinder is a great place to start!
https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/
I have taken my many rejections as reason to improve my writing. I used to be shit frankly, so it was time to get better.
If they’re form rejections, you never know. But it’s always good to keep improving. 😉
Ahh the wonderful rejection dance. Got more than a few of my own too lol
It's a badge of honor. Just got my newest rejection from Clarkesworld
Sorry about the R. Hopefully GigaNotoSaurus reopens, they take longer stuff (and also take long to respond).
Wow... You've racked up quite a list of rejections for "Homunculus"! None of my stories have that many rejections yet... but none of them have been on the submission circuit since 2013! Persistence pays off. Congrats!
Thank you! I knew it was a good story, just very . . . different.
eu ar weirdly exceptional - those 'markets' need 0+01 zlap-upzide-dze-head.
Ha, this was great — thanks for sharing! Do you find it hard to get humorous / absurdist stories accepted? I feel like the rejection feedback on your Beasty Cycle piece missed the point of the story entirely.
I’ve sold a fair amount of humor stories; sci-fi humor seems to do better, in my experience. No idea why, maybe we’re just used to Star Trek/Star Wars parodies.
That’s another nice thing about personal rejections: you can tell when the slush reader didn’t get it—or didn’t even finish! But now you can have the satisfaction of being smarter than a slush reader. 😁
damn. yes indeed. very tenacious, ++ lessons learned.
Haha, thank you. Also, a good chunk of those markets that have rejected me—I’ve outlasted them. 😂
Thanks for sharing examples of your rejection's. It takes guts and grit to query and all those rejections add fuel to the flame of The Audacity to keep pressing onward.
Personal rejections are usually a positive sign (although it doesn’t always look that way), it means the editor cared enough to say something. If anything it means you’re on the right track! Plus, they’re kind of funny. 😁
That is true! A no response just makes you wonder how bad it looked on their end!! Lol
I do love the "Beyond Ceaseless Skies" feedback the most. I feel like they get Claude to write their feedback letters, same with ironically named Flash Fiction Online that feedback was longer than most flash fiction I've read. But yeah, you're just reinforcing why I'm likely going to go direct to readers here and continue through independent publishing. There's a reason it's dying like butter churners and people that twist bottle caps on. My writing is a labor of love and madness. I'll let the readers be the judge and serve a niche. You certainly do. But this type of note is what I'm here for.
I appreciate BCS’s commitment to always giving personal rejections, however, they’re not that good. And 100% they’re using a rubric of some sort, because a lot of my personal rejections have started to sound the same. I also haven’t shared with you the funniest BCS rejection!
BCS used to be better, I think my stories would’ve found a home with them ten years ago, but their quality has definitely gone downhill—and they wonder why they need to beg for readers. 🤔
Yeah, I admire BCS for their stance on feedback, but the few times I've submitted to them I just haven't found the comments helpful😕I think being asked to provide meaningful feedback for every story is too much for any slush reader.
Likely so. I’m almost certain they use a rubric of sorts, because almost all my “personal” rejections sound eerily similar. And yeah, it’s never useful—you just shrug and move on.
Thanks for sharing all these with us. I thought my list of rejections was long with each story, and I'm glad to see I'm not alone. But hey, that makes the eventual acceptance that much sweeter. :)
Absolutely it does! Rejections don’t mean the story is bad, just it didn’t fit. But it will fit somewhere!
Exactly! :)
It seems I really need to toughen up before sending out my pieces! Some of them were hard! 😳
I see personal rejections as a badge of honor as that means the editor cared enough to say something. Otherwise, you get the default form rejection.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies will always send out personals, which is nice.
That is very true and a healthy perspective! 🙂 I try to adopt that sentiment before I send out something! Do you know, if there is some kind of list to know which magazines there are? Here in switzerland we get nothing like that and searching the net brings more nonsense than good things I think… how did you decide which magazines are worth it or take entries and stuff! 😳
Yes, I do: The Submission Grinder.
https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/
I keep making notes about this market database, but Substack’s algorithm keeps sinking them. But yeah, I just submit wherever I think my story will fit. I do read guidelines and if there are stories freely available from that zine, I will check those out. But sometimes, it can be a crapshoot. 😂
Ouh that is amazing! Thank you so much!! 😁🙏🏻 I need to look into this and maybe start submitting myself! 🙂 Thank you so much! 🥳
No problem! I wish I could pin that link somewhere for everyone to see. Or maybe the algorithm could stop sinking my notes. <shakes fist>
That would be quite helpful! Do you know why it gets drop again and again? Just Substack doing its thing? 😕
I took a look at BCS’s stuff recently—not impressed. But back ten years ago, I did really enjoy some of the fiction they published, and discovered one of my favorite short fiction writers. Things change, I guess.
But I would still encourage you to submit to zines!
https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/