Rejection, Protection, Redirection: Finding Homes for Fiction Submissions
I either forgot my writing outline at work or the cat chewed it up, but the beginning of the New Year brings forth new promises and new submission openings for literary magazines. Part of my likely too-small dreams has been: an apartment in a city, living as an ex-pat at least once, and getting published in one of those pretentious, arty literary magazines, glossy with the promise of new and established talent. In college, I didn’t even dream of finding an agent or publishing a book, but to have my name as the byline of my creative work.
My name’s been a byline in a publication before. In high school, I wrote an article about a Speech and Debate winner at my school. But I never believed anyone would truly care about what I had to say in writing.
Before any writer can get into one of those publications these days, they have to first make peace with the dreaded rejection letter. The letter stated that despite the long drafts, the late nights or early mornings, the mindset work and meditation to send out the work in the first place — or a glass of wine in the middle of the night, the work wasn’t worth publication in the magazine. Writers will collect a slew of these letters before one acceptance. And what if it’s an acceptance but not at the magazine of your writerly dreams?
I mention all of this because I spoke with a friend of mine a few weeks ago. They lamented that one of the big literary magazines — the ones that are household names, or if at least not household names, the magazine names dropped at cocktail parties when someone is either interested or wants to appear smart — those types of magazines; rejected their work for the third time. What sucked is that the magazine held onto the work for a long time.
I listened to my friend and asked them if they’d consider sending the work to a lesser-known journal — perhaps not the literary journal with the household names, but the journal with a much smaller readership, and presumably less competition. My friend bulked at the idea because they want to debut in a major publication.
“But you’ve been after this goal for eons,” I said.
“It’s where I have to try,” they said.
And I scratched my head because I asked myself? Why?
Literary Rejections: Is Literary Fiction Even Popular?
The first question one might ask is, is literary fiction even all that? The last time I checked the stats for these magazines, a low-performing magazine has an acceptance rate of 40%, a mid-tier magazine, likely 10%, and a top-tier magazine, less than 1%. I read for a magazine in the mid-tier. There are lots of submissions, so yes, literary fiction is popular and people are willing to re-submit over and over again to get into one.
Perhaps literary fiction is more popular than I would’ve thought because literary fiction is seen as more mature, more nuanced about the human condition, and the better option for appearing smarter in a crowd. And, while I enjoy how pretentious it makes me feel at times, it’s the genre of fiction that I and I assume many, enjoy the most.
There’s this myth, I suppose, that author debuts are more prestigious than starting in smaller journals. However, I can’t think of that many people who have debuted in a major literary magazine. The literary urban legends of yore feature writers who for the most part, had a prior connection to the major magazine in which they debuted. That story was far more popular than ZZ Packer’s alleged class beginnings, where she shows them all of the rejection letters she received before she published in The New Yorker (she tried for 10 years). I get the allure behind that because it’s an interesting story, and an amazing reference to have.
But for every ZZ Packer I’ve heard about, what about the writers who try for years and years for that debut? Is it worth it to try for so long?
The answer I came up with is, it depends. Literary rejections suck, because rejections in general suck. The question I have is, is the emotion around the literacy acceptance worth it to wait out a decade or more to receive the debut? Packer had time on her hands (she was 28 when published), but for those of us, who may run out of time, or may not run out of patience, what’s another approach?
Not a Good Fit: Literary Journal Rejection Letters
Where does this attitude of only wanting the top 1% of journals even come from? Part of it is that it’s a very romantic story. I sometimes wonder if writers delude their napkins to Mac Books stories because the truth might deter future writers. Or if it’s a combination of that and education. In my MFA program, a professor almost got in trouble for encouraging students to submit to journals, and then the statement was retracted because we weren’t ready. After all, we spent all that time and money on the program, we had to submit to the best.
The trouble with this “Only aim for the best” approach, is that it puts a spin and expectation that because we invested, we’re all great, so if we see ourselves as great, then there’s more emphasis on meeting a standard of greatness that it ruins the goodness of the argument. If a group of aspiring writers wants to publish their work, shouldn’t there be more emphasis on getting published in a journal as opposed to the top journals?
I say it like that because I can’t think of anywhere else where there’s an expectation that someone comes out of the womb gifted with the pen. Not everyone can be ZZ Packer or Elizabeth Gilbert. Most authors who debut in those magazines, it’s not because their skillset is any better or worse than authors who publish in the smaller journals, but they usually have other factors which set them apart: they have an agent, a pedigree from one of the top tier schools, or a connection. It was less about their (usually amazing) talent but about who they knew outside of that.
Perhaps I’m biased because I’ve never held the expectation that I’d be accepted into one of those journals early in my career. In one of the Best American Poetry editions, the age of the average poet was 52. Writers such as Virginia Woolf , TS Elliot, and James Joyce were publishing in their 20s, but they didn’t start to reach the potential for their work until they were in their 40s. On my One Story subscriptions, most of the authors have been writing for decades, with impressive resumes spanning various awards and institutions.
Focusing so much on getting accepted into a top-tier journal is like a karaoke singer believing they should walk onto the stage and win American Idol. It’s a nice idea but doesn’t exist how we think it does in execution. And then when preparing, ranting, and raving for that top-tier spot (which is often filled by people who have been writing for decades upon decades, not debuts), we miss our opportunity for the first byline. We miss the forest for the trees, as that saying goes.
Literary Magazine Rejection Preparation
So I obviously never believed that the debut is at the beginning of a career. This was later cemented when I met someone who did debut in one of those magazines. Their lives weren’t easier. They weren’t better solidified as writers. There was a rush of joy that lasted about a half hour, they described, and then their life of endless submissions happened again like an endless hamster wheel.
Literary magazine rejection is much like Sisyphus, where writers write submissions, all for them to go out and get rejected. Once we receive the letters, it’s like the boulder rolls back down, and we chase to roll it back up.
Writers’ lives are an existential dread that no sane person would choose.
Of course, one has to decide if they even want to write. In undergrad, several professors told me that I couldn’t write. I should’ve majored in English or Finance. In graduate school, I received feedback that yes, I could write, but I wrote about stuff that no one cared about or wanted to read. So it was a talent, but a wasted talent.
But I had all the years invested and the student loan debt to not quit. I had to decide to get over myself. I accepted the fact that I was going to be rejected. And these rejections weren’t personal. Rejection wasn’t a sign that my story was lacking, but a host of other factors, because I couldn’t let it cloud my faith.
Second, I poured over research for several magazines — well, several hundred. I wasn’t picky. In 2021, my aim was for 50 rejections. Yes, rejections. I aimed for rejections because acceptances can take a while to get, and if I aimed for the rejections, I could be ensured that I was submitting to enough places. Three of my submissions were published in 2022. Before the first acceptance, I had received about 27 rejections. My 2022 round of submissions included about 38 rejections (it keeps going up), but I had two acceptances.
I say all of that to describe the not-so-fun moments of writing. Of course, there’s writing the darned piece, but there’s also researching the magazines, putting together a spreadsheet, the endless amount of reading and submissions fees I’ve submitted, as well as taking the time every Saturday morning just to press a button to submit.
This is the boring stuff that no one talks about when it comes to writing. That jazz album can make the session a little smoother but submissions are a pain, and rejections are annoying to receive.
The key I believe, is to start with the foundation that as a writer, you’re not willing to argue about how great or not great the submission is, because the willingness to argue means that the worth and the value is an open questions.
And we don’t slave away at our laptops, postpone or cancel fun times with loved ones, or stay up late just to open our mouths and say we’d be willing to argue the validity and the value of our writing, now do we?
Do prepare mentally for it. It only takes one acceptance to take your submission off the market. Draft cover letters. Submit on a schedule. Send polite withdrawal letters. Someone’s going to publish that submission, I swear.
The Positives of Rejections
This is getting long, perhaps because I went sans outline, but I swear there are positives. The other positive of rejections is that they can point writers in the right direction. In school, the reader is always a rando who’s already in love with your work, but in real life, you want people to read your work and buy your book right? And that person will likely read in a certain niche.
Now I can share the good news. Two of my stories were recently accepted for publication (after a bunch of rejections), but now that I’ve had a few stories published, I have a snapshot of what my audience reading preferences will likely be; readers who like New Adult, Travel Literature, and Women’s Fiction. I wouldn’t have had this information before going through the slew of rejections and all the money spent on reading fees. But it does help me for the next phase of life.
So do I think it’s worth it to just focus on the upper echelon of literary magazines? No, absolutely not. Writing careers should be like building a response, establishing a voice, and finding your crowd, not about getting discovered in a top-tier magazine.
Writing is in essence, about work. And we should always strive to constantly work.
