Ratika Deshpande
Ten years ago, at age 15, I made my first submission to a literary magazine, submitting what I realize now was a personal essay, or perhaps even autofiction, in the Short Fiction category. It was rejected; reading it for the first time in a decade, I know why; the form was the least of the problems.
Still, I wasn’t discouraged; all writers faced rejection, so the email confirmed that I was, indeed, becoming A Writer. I didn’t submit anything for the next two years, instead practicing by writing every day. When I started submitting again, I got some acceptances back-to-back, followed by a lot of rejections.
And they come to me still, carrying not just a polite “no,” but also lessons about the process of putting my work out into the world. Below are the 6 big mistakes I’ve made over a decade of submitting, and what I learned from them:
Submitting too soon
When I’d made that first submission, I’d hardly written a dozen stories in my life. I hadn’t been practicing the craft. Not only was I beginning to learn fiction writing, I’d more or less submitted a spell-checked first draft. I didn’t check for plot, for characterization, for the presence of a story in the piece. I just wrote down something because I’d come up with a nice line that I wanted to put in a piece, and then submitted it. I didn’t read that magazine nor had any particular reason to submit specifically to it. I was concerned too much with getting published to focus on the details that actually need the most attention.
Now, when I see calls for submissions, I first consider whether it’s a journal I know well; if not, whether the deadline is far enough for me to get to know it; whether I actually care about the topic; and whether I have practice writing in the genre/form.
Not reading and practicing forms that were new to me
When I’d started submitting, I’d wanted to be a writer of short stories, so that’s what I practiced. I rarely wrote essays or poetry, which I struggled to understand, let alone write. Despite this, I submitted poems to journals because I believed that if I was going to be a writer, I had to keep sending stuff out, even if in retrospect I didn’t have anything good enough. All of those poems were rejected, of course—an expected result for work that doesn’t come from practice, understanding, and at least some love for the form you’re writing.
Trying to imitate stories published in my target journals
Reading and appreciating the stories/poems published by our target journals is important. But that’s different from writing for them in a way that tries to be formulaic. When I tried to take too systematic an approach to reading my target publications, I hated writing because I was trying too hard to make my stories similar to those I’d read, hoping to increase my chances of acceptance. But one can’t force quality; one can only get better through regular practice, producing both good and bad stuff (you don’t always know which is which during the writing).
While not all my rejections were related to the quality of writing (I did get some nice notes and feedback), I lost something when I sat down with the intention to write something to fit a publication—rather than writing what I wanted to write, inspired by my reading and my interests, and then choosing a journal for it. The key is fitting a journal to the story, not the story to the journal. (This might not apply to themed submissions for awards and anthologies, however.)
Writing and submitting out of desperation
When writing—something we love—becomes attached to rewards like publication, prizes, and/or pay, things get tricky. How do you balance the internal rewards with any external outcomes (some of which might be necessary if you’re aiming to get a book published/become a full-time writer)? Aside from doubt, fear, and perfectionism, it can also lead to sheer desperation. And desperation, in turn, leads us to write things we don’t want to write or aren’t really interested in.
My initial submissions were like this, and while I later learned the importance of practice, this desperation returned anew when I started freelancing. I wrote and submitted way more than I had ever before, and I did write a lot of pieces I was proud of. But the desperation also drove me to write, pitch and/or submit a lot of things that were half-baked, not well thought-out, or simply meh. When I prioritized the outcome over the craft, my writing suffered—and so did my submission outcomes. [LINK IN THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH DOESN NOT WORK]
Trying to do everything in a single piece
Because I love learning about topics like internet culture, history, books, psychology, neuroscience, astronomy, language (to give a few examples), I read a very wide variety of nonfiction pieces. Each work that inspires me to write something like it is usually something I hadn’t encountered before.
And while these pieces show me the possibilities of nonfiction, they also set a high bar when I sit down to write something of my own—especially when I think that my topic would be perfect for that dream publication.
I end up taking all the good stuff from my varied reading, trying not only to imitate great work but also because I think, “This worked for them; maybe if I put it in here, it’ll work for me too.” This stems either from desperation or from trying to show off. Either way, the result is bloated, incoherent. Anyone’s eyes, including mine, would glaze over the words that are trying to go somewhere but actually go nowhere.
Plus, what if I miss the submission window? What if the journal closes down? But there’s no race, no limit. I don’t have to do everything in a single piece. There are lots of empty pages waiting to be filled, lots of excellent ideas I haven’t even had. We don’t run out of stuff when we do something out of love and interest.
Submitting only to well-known journals
As a young, unpublished writer, I used to think, If no one’s heard of the place where I’ve been published, what’s the point? I wasn’t concerned with an acceptance so much as an acceptance that would tell others how good my writing was.
However, I learned as I grew up, practiced and submitted more that the quality of one’s writing—or even one’s capabilities—has no direct correlation to where or how much of their work gets published. We all know of books that have made us think, “I can do better than this.” Famous presses have published absolute bummers, while little-known journals have published some very fantastic work.
Submitting only to well-known journals can be discouraging, not only because the competition is tough but also because it becomes about getting validation. And that can make us fall out of love with writing, or even hate it.
When I cast my net wide, I discovered genres I actually enjoyed and understood (fantasy and sci-fi rather than literary fiction). I started playing with writing and enjoyed the submission process because I knew those publications well and was excited at the thought of contributing to them—they’re where my favourite stories and essays were housed. Eventually, my work also found a place there. And I was proud of that work because I did it out of love.
Of course, love doesn’t necessarily guarantee an acceptance and, even if only for a minute, any rejections I receive still hurt. But if the sting doesn’t go away, there is always this little (fictional) rejection letter by Jana Bianchi, which makes me feel better when I realise that no matter how much I get rejected, things won’t get this bad.
And that’s very encouraging!
Bio: Ratika Deshpande is a writer from India. Her work has appeared in Authors Publish, Reactor Magazine, the Brevity Blog, and other platforms.
