Rejection, part 8
Rejection can’t be avoided, but many rejections can be.
In part 7 I revealed many reasons why you (or an editor) fucked up. Fucking up is how most writers learn to avoid the unavoidable. May this newsletter be a shortcut.
8. Resolutions
Reason for rejection: You don’t read or follow the submission guidelines.
The fix: Find, read, and follow the submission guidelines. Meet the word count. Format correctly. Submit to the correct editor and section, and spell names correctly. I see so many good writers submit all wrong. Put in 15-20 minutes of prep before you submit to make it difficult for an editor/reader/intern to decline your submission.
Submission isn’t a trick. It’s a process of preparation that benefits everyone if you do it right. As with everything, let submission make you a better writer/person/lover.
The reason: Your submission shows you’re unfamiliar with the outlet.
The fix: Reading is the first step to writing and to publishing. Obsessively read the venue if you want to write for it. Study the archives. Have you read the most recently published pieces? Prove it. Editors want you to prove it (in your cover letter and in your submission’s vibe). The joy of life is figuring out where your writing fits.
Another fix: Many outlets have pitch guides that tell you exactly what they want, how they want it, and when. If only unmarried people had pitch guides. . .
A third fix: Search for interviews with editors, and follow editors and outlets on social media to get to know them and their publication desires.
Editors spill their desires all the time. Like what I’m doing now. Because, while it may be your dream to be published, it’s our dream to publish you.
The reason: Your cover letter blows.
One fix: Approach a cover letter knowing that a real person will read it, and this person loves to read/laugh/love and wants to publish writers and to give readers good writing.
Other fixes: Take my classes or email me for my cover letter template to submit with confidence.
It’s important to hit that sweet spot between not confident and too confident. While reading
’s poem “Meat Eater No. 5” in The New Yorker, I caught this line about confidence in article next to it: “‘It’s a belief in the evidence of things unseen.’”
The reason: You don’t follow up.
The fix: Follow up.
As an editor, I love when writers advocate for their writing. I accept 60% of follow-ups.
But don’t be too aggressive about following up. Don’t follow up before the submission guidelines specify when you should hear back. Don’t follow up more than twice. And don’t follow up by sliding into anyone’s DMs.
If you don’t hear back after you follow up twice, then assume you have been ghosted. As with dating, radio silence is a gutless rejection.
A reminder: Don’t feel embarrassed to follow up (or to submit) (or to be rejected). Again, that’s the job.
The reason: You’re the ex of someone on staff.
The fix: Don’t date.
The reason: You submitted to a legacy institution that gatekeeps and publishes what it knows and loves.
The fix: Analyze what has been published like it’s a test. How do published pieces work? Break them down, beat by beat. Opinion pieces often open with a scene and end with a plan to ride at dawn. Crack the formula, then emulate it.
You may not want to sacrifice your originality to do this. As a writer, I hope you don’t. As an editor of a humor column, I hope you do. As a freelance editor, I hope you’ll pay me to tell you what to do.
Another fix: Traditional publishing can really get in the way of writing, so self-publish. Try Substack, Medium, Reddit, Hinge — to develop your voice, skills, authority, audience, and writing practice. A side effect may be that editors and agents come to you via these avenues.
A third fix: Know that there are hundreds if not thousands of publishing outlets, not two or three. I keep a list (that I give my students); do you?
Here’s a comprehensive list of creative nonfiction literary magazines, generously compiled by author Erika Krouse.
A final fix: NEVER GIVE UP.
The reason: You rejected convention and wrote what you wanted.
Would you rather: succeed on everyone else’s terms or be rejected on your own?
The reason: You resubmitted something new immediately after a rejection.
The fix: Don’t resubmit to a new venue or submit a new piece to the same venue the moment after a rejection. Let the rejection be feedback, and revise (at least once). Read your piece aloud to yourself — you’ll catch flaws (at least 10). Address the mistakes you can only catch with actual and emotional distance from your writing.
The reason: You have bad timing/the publication calendar is full.
The fix: Writers publish based on timing, not talent. Respond to calls for submissions at the beginning of the call vs. days later. And always have a polished piece or pitch ready to update/peg and submit.
A warning: Don’t let your anxiety dictate when to submit.
Writers often submit too soon — because they want it off their plate or they’re sick of it and don’t want to look at it anymore or they want glory right this second. Instead, be like a teenage girl who wants a boyfriend and act chill.
Again, these are general reasons why any given editor/outlet may not publish good/bad writing.
Behind the paywall (below) I’ll share more complicated resolutions re: the writing itself.
EVENT: Hysterical: A Panel on Humor Writing
November 14th (Tuesday)
6-7pm EST
IRL at The New School
Free
Everyone’s invited to this panel of funny writers and editors who will gab about how to be funny in print, online, for TV, and at parties. Panelists Emma Allen (The New Yorker), Sofia Manfredi (Last Week Tonight, Clickhole), and Sarah Pappalardo (Reductress) have done it all: published viral pieces, published books, founded popular satire sites, won Emmys, and edited or subscribed to The New Yorker — and they want to tell you how. Say yes to the event!
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NEXT SEMINAR: How to Write a Tragicomic Memoir
November 18th (Saturday)
3-6pm EST
Online, via Lighthouse Writers Workshop
Learn to make readers laugh while RIPPING OUT THEIR HEARTS in a sad but funny book about yourself and your exes/parents. I’ll go through my rejections and what they taught me about how to write a book. And look forward to foolproof writing prompts, infinity handouts, an AMA, and more, a lot more.
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JUST ANNOUNCED: Writing Workshops Dublin
April 28th-May 3rd
Apply now through December 1.
Writing Workshops Dublin stars fiction instructors Amber Sparks and Ethan Joella, and nonfiction instructor me. Fiction and nonfiction join forces for an intensive week of workshops, craft seminars, one-on-one conferences, platonic massage trains, and in-depth discussions on the craft, business, and other craft (witch) of writing.
ICYMI: I’m Elissa Bassist, and I teach short conceptual humor/satire writing, funny personal essays, tragicomic memoir, emotional emails, and that’s it. I edit the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus, and I wrote the award-deserving book Hysterical.
Smash:
Smash, or I’ll think you’re mad at me:
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