Reading the tea leaves of rejection

When I first started this blog, I wrote a lot about the sordid guts of getting rejections. I didn't do it to be morose, exactly. I wanted to accurately reflect both what one encounters and what one thinks while trying to publish stories. There is something reassuring to knowing that you aren't the only one getting tons of no answers, wondering if you were close, wondering why the stories that did get picked are better than yours, wondering if you will ever get anywhere with it and if it all makes any sense.

About a decade a go, another writer who was going through the same issues started a blog called Literary Rejections on Display. It had quite a following for a while. I'm not sure if its popularity ebbed because nowadays, people seem to prefer to watch people on YouTube talk into a camera rather than read a blog, or because she actually finally did break through and get a few books published. When I started my own tour of rejections, though, it was a great help to me to go back through her litany of rejections.

It was especially helpful that she posted a lot of the actual rejections she got. Commenters chipped in, too, which meant you got to start to form a sense of whether the rejection letter you got really was encouraging or if that's just what they send to all the writers.

The options when it's a no

Most journals just send a pretty unambiguous no, something like "Thanks for sending to ___, but unfortunately, this story isn't for us right now. Best of luck placing it elsewhere."

Sometimes, though, you'll get a note that says something like, "Although we are not publishing this story, we admired your writing, and would like to see more of it." There are two options here: either it's sincere, or it's letting you down easy. Why let you down easy? I guess to get you to keep submitting. This is especially possible if it's a journal that charges enough from its reading fees to make money off of them.

But for most journals that are either free to submit to or only charge a few dollars, why would they lie? I assume this is a second kind of form rejection letter. The journal probably has three choices. Door number one is to accept. Door number two is to reject. Door number three is for the good-but-not-good-enough, who get a consolation prize of the more encouraging rejection letter.

I assume that when a journal that isn't charging a lot for submissions tells you they want to see more of your work, they mean it. Nobody wants to read through crap. If they see something that's almost there, they'd rather get more of that in the future. I assume they only want to encourage writing of the kind they'd like to see again. But it's so hard to be sure.

A lot of writers suggest that you just look at whether it's a yes or a no and forget the rest. There is nothing to be gained by considering how long it took to get a decision or what they said after the no. But with some journals in particular, the kinds where to get in would really be a big breakthrough, I can't help it.

Which brings me to the past two weeks

I've had either one, two, or three of these kinds of rejections in the past two weeks, depending on how you count them.

#1: Although this piece isn't going to be a go for ____, we like your writing and would welcome the chance to see more from you.

#2: While we enjoyed 'Story X,' we didn't quite feel the ending wrapped up in a satisfying way. We appreciate your interest in NR, and hope you keep us in mind for future submissions--we'd love to see more.

#3: Unfortunately this particular piece was not a right fit for ____, but we were very impressed by your writing. We hope that you will feel encouraged by this short note and send us something else.


I could take any of those to be the kind of response you'd get if the editors thought they'd just seen a story worth at least a moment's thought. #1 might just be what they send everyone, since it's not terribly effusive, but again, why would they encourage more stories they will just reject? #2 suggests that they at least read to the end, which is actually a very good sign. #3 is the real one I wonder about. #3 was a journal that would have been a very big deal to get in. But they also tend to be a bit aggressive with offering extras, like writing seminars. So maybe my hope is important to them. It's very hard to know. I just know that I sent out a lot of work to some very hard-to-crack journals out there, and I'm likely to keep getting more rejections in the next few weeks, which means I'm likely to keep trying to read tea leaves to know if there's more to the no than just a no.

I can't imagine I'm the only one like this, which is why I'm sharing it. If you are reading this and thinking that you can't stop wondering what your "no" means, that means you're like everyone else.