Do I Just Plain Suck? Overcoming Rejection

By M. Brandon Robbins

You've spent hours making every aspect of your story or article flawless. Every sentence is a work of art; every simile, every metaphor, is resonating. There are just enough adverbs and dialog tags to give your prose a flowing quality. Now you've found the perfect market for it and you've sent it off, either by e-mail or the old-fashioned way. And now, with giddy anticipation bordering on mania, you check your inbox ten times a day (hour, minute, whatever) or beat a path from your laptop to the front door, waiting for that response.

Then, one day, it comes. As you start reading the letter that the editor kindly sent to you, the answer reveals itself before you get to the second sentence. This is a response you've seen before, maybe once or twice but more than likely a hundred thousand times: it's always some variation of "thanks, but no thanks." You've been rejected, and it hurts like salt water on a paper cut.

Rejection is hard to take, but it's part of the career. Those not willing to be rejected need not submit. That doesn't mean, of course, that one should shrug rejection off and act like it's not that big a deal. It's always a big deal when hard work doesn't pay off. So what is the writer to do? Turn that rejection into a chance to better your writing and your prospects of getting published.

And since rejection is an emotional issue before it's a writing one (you're not exactly thinking about how to improve your character development when you read that dreaded letter now are you?), the first step is to get your feelings in order. Don't start out by blaming yourself. That's a shortcut to giving up. Maybe your story wasn't as good as you thought it was, maybe your article didn't tackle all the tough questions that you thought it did. But right now, just take it for granted that it's not your fault you were rejected. Feel free to be a little peeved at the editor: no one expects the guy in cubicle D to harbor no hard feelings towards his middle-management boss when he gets the boot, do they? You can get a little ticked off the person who just rejected you. Put the letter down, go get some ice cream, and then come back to it when you've calmed down and gotten over the sting of being rejected-- even if that takes a day or more.

Taking this time to throw a pity party will allow you to approach the letter with fresh eyes that aren't seeing red due to bad emotions. So now, read the editor's letter all the way through. All too often writers (myself included) read just enough to know what they are reading and then make a contribution to their local community's recycling effort. This is not wise. Even form rejections should be read to the end; how else will you spot one?

Speaking of form rejections, feel free to throw them away. They offer the writer nothing but an easy let down. But personal rejections, when the editor has actually taken the time to give you some feedback, should be kept. Especially if they come from a reliable source such as a well-established publication that's widely read or an editor that you know from experience knows her stuff. These will be invaluable in the future. Even if you never re-write the piece that is commented on, you may want to use it as the basis for a new piece and can use that advice to help you do so. By the way, right about now is when you should stop feeling peeved at the editor; if he gives you a personal rejection, he is rooting for you.

Once the rejection is read and you're satisfied that at least you learned something from it, it's time to decide what to do with your rejected piece. Should you try and save it? Should you re-send it to a different market? Should you try and market it as a tutorial on how not to write well? Whatever the case, you'll probably know if you can re-write it or tweak it once, knowing what's wrong, you re-read the piece. If it can be saved, save it. You never know when you'll see a similar market. Having something ready to go is a great way to get lots of submissions out, and if you want to enter contests, contests have deadlines. Those deadlines are much easier to meet if you don't have to make something from scratch.

And even if it can't be saved, then cannibalize it. Change the characters and settings, maybe the chain of events, and adapt the style and basic idea of the plot into something new, using the criticisms of the old work as guidelines.

But before you sit down to work on your writing, do something very, very important: respond to the editor. It doesn't matter if your response did come via snail mail, still do this. And if you've been conversing by e-mail, there's no reason to not drop the editor a line. Of course form letters do not merit this nicety, but if the editor took the time to give you personal feedback, take the time to thank him and maybe ask if there is anything else he would like to see. By doing so, you've established a rapport with the editor. She might recognize your name and something might click in her head, and that something might be "Hey, this kid was pretty good. A little rough around the edges, but weren't we all to begin with? Maybe he's improved." And by all means, if the editor says that he or she would be interested in seeing a re-write, send a re-write. Again, even if the editor rejects the re-vamped piece, you're keeping your name associated with concepts such as ambition, determination, a willingness to accept criticism, and a desire to improve; and none of those traits can be bad.

I just had a short story rejected by an anthology. I was hopeful about this piece, was confident that it was an easy sell, but I got a rejection that gave me a good bit of criticism. That criticism was delivered in a way that convinced me the editor belonged on a certain reality show where people sing for votes and fame, but the advice was good nonetheless. I'm convinced that this story cannot be saved, but the set-up and theme can be turned into a new work that is similar to it. And guess what? Most of the work involved in re-tooling it is done for me! Rejections are absolutely horrible, but they're only horrible for a moment. They can turn into a learning process.

And if all else fails, take comfort in this knowledge: everybody gets rejected. Stephen King collected rejection letters on a spike; Louis L'Amour got rejected some three hundred times before he was finally published. David Rigsbee, one of my professors in college, is a nationally-known poet with nine published books under his belt. He was rejected by The New Yorker. Everybody gets rejected; sometimes it's because their writing is not up to par, sometimes they get the "it's not you, it's us" treatment, and sometimes it's simply because the editor was-- well, we'll say, difficult to worth with. No matter what the reason, it's incredibly easy to bounce back, even if the fall is awfully, awfully hard.

M. Brandon Robbins has been writing his whole life with a vague idea that he wanted to make a career out of it. In college he found out how to start. Now he threatens to quit after every rejection he gets, and seeing that nobody is really disappointed by such threats, continues to carry on out of spite. He has been published on such websites as Bards and Sages, WomenGamers.com, and Absolute Write. Brandon also reviews graphic novels for Library Journal and has been published in his alma mater's literary journal The Olive Branch.

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