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rejection
This isn't going to be me baring my xombie soul, or a rant, or some whiny emo abortion. Let's get rid of that assumption right now.
Got two rejection letters from editors... two in one day. That's nothing unusual. Usually my stuff gets kicked from magazine to magazine and ends up someplace under the bed with the dust bunnies until months later. There's an almost audible record-scratch noise because I'd forgotten about sending it to whoever finally accepted it. Most of the time it never gets accepted at all. Goodbye, little story. Perhaps later I'll cannibalize you and use you for something else.
Seriously, all this means is that I've found two things that definitely will not work. Anything definite is good in an unpredictable world. Will send the story off to other magazines as soon as I find the time and energy. Lately my life force is being drained by the Job from the Abyss. Did you know that copiers are delicate sensitive flowers? After each copy, the one I have to deal with beeps four or five times like I'm bothering it. If you make ten copies it'll beep 40 times. Listening to those self-righteous beeps I couldn't keep from laughing. Thought about pulverizing the machine but the word "pulverize" made me laugh even harder.
...And life is still an adventure. So the only reason I'm writing this at all is because by this time I know quite a bit about rejection by editors. Here are some handy tips for submissions Thoughts-cats and Thoughts-kittens. I learned most of this the hard way.
Firstly, save yourself a lot of grief and read the submissions guidelines. These are rules, not suggestions. If the place you're submitting to has a 1,500 word limit and your story is 2,300 they are going to reject it. If your story is teen-love and you're submitting to a fantasy magazine, they are going to reject it. If your story is vampire fiction, most magazines (even fantasy ones) are going to reject it. Some of them even put NO VAMPIRE FICTION in their guidelines. For real.
"But Dreadnaught, my story is so good that they will--"
Shut up. No they won't. These people get squintillions of submissions. They don't need yours. You're not Stephen f*ing King. Besides, even if Our Lord Italo Calvino descended from the heavens and submitted his Only Begotten Invisible Cities to a gothic-horror magazine, they would crucify it and return it to sender. Doesn't matter how good you are (or think you are), there are 100 other stories that fit the requirements just fine.
In addition to reading the guidelines, pay attention to the submission format. Do they want the story attached in .rtf? In .txt? Pasted into the body of the email? Do they only take hardcopy submissions? Double-spaced? Pages numbered? Whatever they ask for, give it to them. This sounds obvious but a surprising amount of people don't do it.
Always include a cover letter. And I don't mean one of those tedious job application cover letters that all look the same because they all passed through the digestive system of a horse. You know the ones. "I think I would be a great candidate for the job because I utilize synergy to walk the walk and move the needle. I am customer-service oriented. I wish customer service could be my family crest. I have great skills in SAP, HTML, CITRIX and PCP."
Ew. Blech. No. Shovel that out with the rest. A submission cover letter is much clearer and to the point. Always put in the word-count. Always summarize the story in one sentence. If you can't, then you don't know what it is about. Don't ramble on about why you wrote the story or how. Thank the nice editor for her time. If you have been published before, let them know. It's like a resume. They'll pay a little more attention to someone with experience. If you haven't yet been published, for the love of pete don't say so. Always include your email address. You'd think all they'd have to do is hit "reply" but apparently it doesn't work that way. Again, pay attention to the guidelines. If they want a phone number, return address, short bio, whatever, make sure to give it to them.
Dear Editor,
Submitted for your viewing, "Circles in His Concrete," a 2,150 word story about a man who pleads with his creator to create him again, but differently.
Thanks for your consideration,
dreadnaught
Stories previously published in Fiction Magazine #1, Fantasy Magazine #2, and Surreal Stories #3. dreadnaught@email.com
These simple things will keep your story from being rejected out of hand or relegated to the slush pile.
When you get rejected anyway (and you will), remember these things.
1) The editor has nothing against you personally. You are not being attacked. Your story might be your baby but to him it's a job. You're not a copier-machine so don't be so goddamn sensitive.
2) Keep submitting. Write more and sumbit that, plus submit the same thing to other places. You might get rejected if you send your stuff out, but you're definitely not going to get accepted if you never send it.
3) Don't send one story to one place and wait to hear back. Send it to as many places as you can find. Most magazines don't mind "simultaneous submissions," which means you can send the story to several places at once as long as you let them know if it gets accepted somewhere else. This is different from "multiple submissions" which means sending several stories to the same magazine all at once. Most places hate that. Don't do it unless they tell you otherwise.
4) Pay attention to advice. If an editor tells you that the scene with the tree infecting the main character with psychic energy that induces a flashback to how the world as we knew it was destroyed is confusing, perhaps you ought to sit down and have a good hard think about that before saying "it's supposed to be that way" or "you just don't get it."
And now for some encouragement: editors often reject good stories, and stories they like a lot, for various reasons beyond everybody's control. Maybe your story doesn't fit with that issue of their magazine. Maybe they already have their set list for that month. Maybe they only had room left for a short-short. Et cetera.
So who'd like to hear about my rock and roll weekend at the Phish concert?
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