Writing Through Rejection

You hit submit and sit back, taking a shaky breath. Your story, born in your imagination and crafted by your heart, is in the world and rejection is impossible.

The response comes back and your heart plummets. The downward spiral of self-doubt begins, peppered by confusion, rage, sorrow, jealousy, anxiety, and depression. Before you assume the worst and conclude your writing has no value or purpose, remember you are the protagonist in your story, and your ending has not yet been written.

Rejection Hurts

There’s no getting around it. Rejection is painful. Not only can it cause emotional anguish and physical pain, it can knock us from our center. When your self-confidence takes a hit, finding the courage to stand up and put yourself out there again can feel impossible.

For some creatives, it is impossible, and they’ll protect themselves by quitting. If this is where you are, that’s okay.

However, if you believe in your story, don’t let a no stop you. Your words matter.

“I know that when a door closes, it can feel like all doors are closing. A rejection letter can feel like everyone will reject us. But a closed door leads to clarity. It’s really an arrow. Because we cannot go through that door, we will go somewhere else. That somewhere else is your true life.” ― Tama J. Kieves

Reasons For Rejection

Let’s put rejection into perspective; not all rejections are equal. Further, some reasons for rejection are within your control, and some are not.

Craft Issues

Take heart; craft issues are fixable. If you find your writing is rejected for craft issues, use the experience as an impetus to learn. Take courses, read books, watch videos. Learn how to fix structural weaknesses in plot, develop characters, and edit inconsistent or inaccurate language. Writing is a skill you can build.

Timing Issues

Querying a story is tricky. If querying agents and publishers, you’re trying to find a person who loves your story, knows how to sell it, has the capacity to work with you, and doesn’t have a similar project they’re trying to push.

If you’re submitting poetry or short works, you must find a publication where your piece will fit with the other pieces selected for the issue, and appeal to the readers of the publication.

Submitting a story written for a hot niche into an overcrowded market can fail if the public’s demand for that type of story dries up. Similarly, what’s going on in the world affects readers and their appetites for specific kinds of stories. This video by K-lytics explores ebook reading trends over the last year as impacted by the pandemic.

Topical Issues

Some stories resonate with us because of personal perspectives, but similarly, there are others which we cannot consume for personal reasons. The topics and themes in your story can contribute to the rejection of your book. I’ve seen publications list topics they are not interested in; if your story contains a theme they’ve expressly listed as a no-go, don’t submit it. Similarly, don’t submit genres or topics to agents who don’t represent those types of stories.

Universal Issues

I know of no stories which are universally loved; even best sellers don’t resonate with all of their readers. We’ve all witnessed backlash against popular fiction, and experienced the rabid fandom of cult classics which had little to no initial success. Most breakout novels were initially rejected because they were too different from the rest.

Famous books rejected for publication:

• Animal Farm by George Orwell – ‘Dull, obvious and boring’ and ‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.’
• Ann of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• Carrie by Stephen King – ‘We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.’
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller – ‘I haven’t the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say…Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level.’
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach – ‘Nobody will want to read a book about a seagull.’
• Life of Pi by Yann Martell
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov – ‘overwhelmingly nauseating, revolting’ and ‘I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years’
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding – ‘An absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.’
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank – ‘The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the ‘curiosity’ level.’
• The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett
• The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling – ‘I’m sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.’
• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway – ‘tedious and offensive’
• The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
• The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum – ‘Too radical of a departure from traditional juvenile literature.’
• Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
• Watership Down by Richard Adams – ‘Older children wouldn’t like it because its language was too difficult’

Arm Yourself Against Rejection

All writers experience rejection. It is a part of the creative’s experience. If you also take comfort in knowing that, check out LitRejections, a site dedicated to proving rejection is universal. Know that you’re in good company and persevere.

Find Your Why

Why do you write? Your answer is the single biggest salve to the sting of rejection. If you hear a particularly painful “no”, return to your why to help you through. The reminder of why you write is especially helpful when you’re feeling doubt and uncertainty after hurtful critiques, reviews, or rejection.

If you can’t find your why, that doesn’t mean you don’t have one. Something kept you driving forward through the many stages of your story. Your book is a tremendous accomplishment; your why made the effort worthwhile. Keep looking.

Do Your Best

Write the best version of your story that you can. Learn to self-edit, ask for feedback, and improve your craft. Work with editors, or, if you can’t afford to hire an editor, trade your time and skills for editing help from other writers. Read more, both in your genre and outside of it. Use the energy of rejection to hone your story.

Get Rejected More

Write more books. Submit short stories, poems, and essays. Enter contests. Your writing will get better over time, and you will develop your voice and your readership. Not only does the sting of rejection fade over time, the more stories you have, the less the rejection of any single story hurts.

Lastly, remember that your story is not you. They have rejected your story, not you as a person. How have you continued as a creative, despite rejections?

Header Photo by Fred Kearney on Unsplash