Submitting 101: The Decision
I’ve been editing The Harrow for over ten years, and this series will summarize the advice I’d give a beginning writer.
You see the letter or email with the editor’s name on it, and your breath catches a moment. This is it — are you going to be dancing or dejected?
The most common decision a fiction zine editor makes is rejection. We receive many more submissions than we can possibly publish, and the more a zine pays, the more submissions it gets — which means the more manuscripts it’s going to reject. Naturally, rejection is the most dispiriting of all decisions for a writer to receive.
If you get a rejection letter — and you will, especially as you start out (check out this post from Jim Hines) — the first thing to remember is that the editor is rejecting a work, not you. Don’t take it personally! The second thing to remember is that being rejected by one zine doesn’t mean being rejected by all. Editors reject stories for a variety of reasons, and not all of them are because the story sucked.
Relatively few editors will tell you why your work was rejected. The most common rejection you’ll receive is “this work doesn’t fit our needs at this time.” It’s meaningless, but it’s easy on the editor — writing detailed rejections takes a lot of time and diplomacy. If you’re fortunate enough to receive a substantive reason for rejection, be grateful the editor took the time to write — it means s/he considers you worth the investment of effort. (If you get a snarky rejection, the editor’s behaving unprofessionally.) You may not always agree with the editor’s reasons for rejecting your work, but at least you know what was going through the editor’s mind.
Never argue with an editor over a rejection. You’ll only make yourself sound unprofessional. There are lots of zines; just move your story along to the next.
Should you thank an editor for a rejection? Form letters/emails don’t require a thank-you, but if the editor took some time on the rejection, then a quick thank you seems reasonable, and good manners never hurt.
What do you do with a rejected story? You re-read it, fix up any problems you notice this time, and submit it to another zine. Submission costs you nothing (well, with the exception of some contests), so make a rule for yourself that every rejected manuscript should be sent out again within a week of your receiving the rejection letter.
Every once in a blue moon you may receive a request for revision. This is common in nonfiction but unusual in fiction. It means that your story is really desirable, but it contains some substantial problem or weakness that prevents the editor from snapping it up at once. A logic flaw, maybe, or a lapse in narrative voice, or a failure to sufficiently foreshadow an event — something fairly big but not damning. The editor will explain the problem and ask you to revise and resubmit the work.
If you receive a request for revision, re-read your story with the editor’s comment or complaint in mind and figure out how to address it. Revise quickly — within a few weeks, if you can — and resubmit the story with a cover letter reviewing the editor’s comments and explaining what you changed, added, or deleted to resolve the problem.
Yes, you can decline to revise; if you do this, politely inform the editor of your decision. A statement of your reasons would be polite but isn’t mandatory. I spent a lot of time writing requests for revision, so if a writer declines to revise, I feel a little put out. Still, that’s the risk an editor takes with such a request, and one reason editors seldom bother to issue it.
Note that a request for revision is not a guarantee that your work will be accepted. It’s possible your revision won’t satisfy the editor. However, most editors won’t ask for a revision unless they feel pretty strongly about the story, so consider such a request a promising sign and do your best to revise well.
The best of all decisions to receive is an acceptance. Sometimes you’ll get an unqualified acceptance, and all you have to do is jump up and down and tell all your friends. At other times your work will be accepted with a request for some minor changes — small problems that require some significant rewriting (as opposed to fixing grammar or spelling) but aren’t substantial enough to count as revisions. Go ahead and jump up and down and tell your friends, but then make those changes and send back the manuscript in a couple of days, if you possibly can.
drupagliassotti @ February 23, 2008