How to Deal with Literary Rejection

Rate: (1 Ratings)

Rejection hurts in any form. This is especially true of literary rejection. You put your soul down on paper only to find someone who says, “We don’t want it.”

Flag Article

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

Optimism

Step1

Expect it to happen. Rejection is inevitable. Even if a story/novel gets accepted, it’s likely to have been rejected by the majority.

Step2

Realize that rejection has nothing to do with the quality of your work. Maybe the place has published a similar story recently. Maybe they’re more interested in making a profit than publishing innovative work. Maybe they only have so much money or so many spots to fill. There are a lot of reasons—you’ll likely never get to the bottom of why your story was rejected.

Step3

Read up on the rejection history of wildly successful writers. They’ve been rejected too. It might make you feel better.

Step4

Keep submitting. There are more places to submit a story than every before—both online and in print. As long as the story or book is out there, there’s still hope.

Step5

Keep writing. Nothing is as good for the creative spirit as writing itself. It’s not very healthy to wait around for email or the postman to come. You can rest easy in the fact that you’re improving as a writer, moving forward.

Tips & Warnings

If you are being rejected over and over for the same reasons, there may be some truth in consensus. Look into what people are saying—there is some value to rejection (if it’s not just a form letter). Do a revision using the critiques and resubmit.
Be honest with yourself: is the story as good as you could make it? If not, the rejection will sting a little less. If you’re confident in the story, it’s their problem, not yours.
If all else fails: self-publish. It’s gaining traction as a legitimate outlet, especially as it becomes more difficult to publish with major publishers. If it’s a story, post it on a blog.
Don’t throw away rejection letters. If someone has been encouraging, you can send a new story to them. It’ll also make it that much sweeter if you ever hit it big.