Creative Rejection: The Hows, The Whys, The Way Through

One of the greatest battles for any creative—regardless of their medium—is dealing with the rejection inherent in creativity. There are some fields where you can be definitively right or wrong: no matter what, the knee bone really is connected to the shin bone, after all. But creative output and creative value is highly subjective (and I even feel like that’s an understatement). I wish I could tell you that you’re never going to be rejected… But in all likelihood, you will. After all, as The Writing Cooperative notes: ‘For Writers, Rejection is a Way of Life.’

And that’s okay. 

When Rejection Happens

Creative rejection isn’t a given… if you never share your work. That’s always an option, but for most of us, it’s not really the preferred path. Many artists want to see the world interact with their work. (Though if keeping your work private is  your jam, more power to you!) Unfortunately, this also means that the world may not react in the way or ways that you’d hoped or intended. It’s all too easy for a message to get skewed or misinterpreted, and there will inevitably be a population who don’t like what you’re saying anyway. 

So if you want to share your writing with the world, you’re going to get rejected. Knowing that, there are two follow-on questions to look at in a more depth. Firstly, what does that rejection tell us? And secondly, what are some ways of softening the blow ? 

What Does Creative Rejection Tell Us?

Defining what exactly it is we can and should take away from rejection is complicated. Why? Because it’s highly nuanced. Like creativity itself, there are a whole host of different factors that influence rejection. The challenge is to determine what our rejection can tell us, what we can learn from it, and what’s the best way to move forward from this point. 

There are a few possible key takeaways from receiving a creative rejection:

1. The Story Needs Revision

This is the first and most uncomfortable question to ask yourself: was my story actually ready for submission? It’s not hard to get caught up in how amazing our piece is. We type the last line and immediately flick it to any and all magazines/competitions currently accepting submissions. But while it’s vital to be passionate about your story, and great when it flows freely (hence my love of free writing), there’s a reason for second drafts. Sometimes the answer to our rejection is simply that we need to go back to the drawing board.

Sit down and spend some time with your story on your own, first. (My advice is to wait for at least a week. Otherwise you might be full of despair and just ditch the piece all together). Is it achieving what you want it to achieve? What’s the point of the story? Does it convey the message you want it to? (No matter the genre, form, or narrative, all stories have a message. Knowing what it is allows you to better shape the work to ensure the message comes across). 

Then Ask for Help

Now, if you didn’t have your story proofed by at least one other person—focusing on spelling, grammar, syntax and themes—it’s probably a good time to find someone who can give you targeted feedback. If this person knows about beta’ing/proofreading, awesome! You probably won’t need to give them much guidance. But if they’re relatively new to the game, think about what you want a reader to take away from your story. Tell your beta reader that! Ask them targeted questions to help shape what they’re looking for in your story. (Not sure what I mean? Look out next week for my post about asking for critical feedback!)

Take that feedback and revise your work until its ready to be submitted again. (Wash, rinse, repeat… the submissions cycle!)

2. The Targeted Publication wasn’t the Right Market

If you’ve already gone through the above process, have another look at the publication itself. Have you read any of their previously published work? Maybe they only accept literary fiction, and your piece inclines slightly too much towards genre fiction for their journal. Perhaps they’re only looking for very technical sci-fi, and your work is a bit too generalist.

Have a good understanding of the market to determine if you’re just not the right fit for them (right now).

3. The Timing is Just All Wrong

Sometimes you’ve got a great story and you’ve nailed the market. You’ve submitted to a journal that, historically, has loved fiction in a similar vein to yours… but they’ve sent a ‘thanks but no thanks’ response. This one is a little harder to determine, but it may simply be a case of poor timing. Perhaps you missed that they’re currently searching for themed submissions, or you’ve missed the submission window. Or it might just be that you caught someone on the wrong day (this ties into the bonus point 4, below). 

Finally, it may seem that none of these are the cause. This really is the fourth takeaway, but it doesn’t really help you at all—why? Because maybe it’s just: 

4. A Bloody Mystery

This is real. It happens. You may have done your research and thought you’d ticked all the boxes only to find out that somewhere along the way, you missed something. This is the most frustrating and puzzling kind of takeaway from creative rejection, because it’s really not clear how to remedy the issue in the future. 

It’s crucial to remember, however, that humans read submissions. Acceptances and rejections are thus inevitably determined by subjective assessment. Perhaps you and the editor have differing opinions about how well your story aligned with this issue’s theme, or today they just weren’t feeling whatever you’d put on paper. 

So, what’s my advice for handling rejection, then? 

Acceptance First

For a start, you have to, on some level, accept that creative rejection is a vital and ongoing part of any kind of creative output. It will happen and it will happen to you: it’s not a reflection on you as a person, or your worth, or whether people love you and like your work. People can love your work: you will still get rejected. Sucky, but true.

But even when you’ve ‘accepted’ that you’re going to get rejected, it doesn’t actually do much to take the sting out of it. (Though I’d argue it gets easier over time). Luckily, I actually do have another useful suggestion here.

Softening Creative Rejection Through Other Achievement

I was in the gym recently when I received an email: a rejection email. It was the fastest rejection I’ve ever gotten: a two day turn around over the Easter long weekend? I was mostly just impressed. Now, this rejection wasn’t super surprising to me; I sent a very Australian story to a US magazine, so I can get why it wasn’t on their ‘must read’ list. But regardless of anticipation of failure (which, incidentally, links back into the above: a poor market choice on my part), it still sucks to get a rejection. 

I believe we need other areas of success to help nullify the pain of creative rejection. 

I was in the gym recently when I received a rejection email. It was the fastest rejection I’ve ever gotten: a two day turn around over the Easter long weekend? Really, I was more impressed than anything else

Now, this rejection wasn’t super surprising to me; I sent a very Australian story to a US magazine, so I can get why it wasn’t on their ‘must read’ list. But regardless of anticipation of failure (which, incidentally, links back into the above: a poor market choice on my part), it still sucks to get a rejection. Especially because I’ve been trying to find this story a home for what feels like forever!

Visible, Measurable Outcomes = Energising

But it got me thinking. I love training and lifting weights: I also find it incredibly satisfying. Why? Because unlike writing, training has some element of linearity: if I lift enough weight, consistently enough, over time, I will eventually be able to lift more weight. The numbers will slowly climb. 

Training outcomes might be influenced by things like what I’ve had to eat that week, or how regularly I’ve been training… but all of those influences are within my control. (Barring a truly freak accident). Unlike writing, where a significant proportion of my success is dependent on the subjective evaluation of others, strength training is only dependent on me. 

It’s an incredibly encouraging and validating process to know that I’m in control of something and that my hard work will be visibly and tangibly rewarded (at some point). Lifting, then, gives me the accomplishment and control that can often feeling lacking in my writing. Does that mean you need a gym membership? Not necessarily: but it does mean that I strongly recommend all writers (or creatives more generally) find another hobby that allows measurable successes… to buoy you up & remind you that you can achieve stuff when someone sends (yet another) rejection email your way. 

So, what’s the takeaway? Creative rejection happens: we can’t avoid it. What we can do is have other areas of our life where we can control outcomes and achieve goals… And hopefully make the rejections less painful when they do come.

–A.