If You’re Sick Of Getting Rejected — Tell Your Business

The heart of a great article.

I wrote a whopping four articles yesterday. The most I’ve ever written in one sitting. I felt on top of the world because I pushed myself to my limit. I thought it would pay off eventually when I submitted these articles to a publication on a different platform.

I waited anxiously for ten hours just to get a flat out no. Not one or two — but all four got rejected. Seriously?! The anger boiled in my veins.

Whatever. It never feels good, but it’s never going to stop me from continuing my writing journey.

After I calmed down, I looked at my archives and compared the articles that did well and got accepted into that publication to the ones that were rejected.

The main difference I noticed looking at the good and bad articles is one thing:

Vulnerability.

All of my best articles had specific personal stories that I could tell while the others were hollow paragraphs with words.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “What am I supposed to do with that”?

Bear with me here. While I truly believe personal stories are the heart of an amazing article, they’re still hard to write. Like, I’m literally telling you to blurt out all of your business online. It’s scary.

Also, not everything you do will be interesting. There will be days when you feel like you don’t have a story to tell.

Here’s how to have an interesting personal story to tell in your article all the time:

1. Remix old experiences that have shaped your life.

Go back to those huge game-changers that really shifted your life in some way. Whether it’s a sexual assault (which I’ve written about before), vandalism, a breakup, a death in your family, or mental health, you can use these timestamps in your life and find new ways to write them. If it’s a life-changing story, it never gets old.

I have a numbered list on my phone of all the timestamp stories that have changed my life. Whenever I feel uninspired, I look at that list, pick a story, and write about it in a new way.

2. Go out and create new experiences.

Now I’m not saying you have to go sky-diving off the Eiffel Tower. You can write about anything you’ve experienced today whether you think it’s boring or not. For example, I wrote an article about a conversation I and my friend had while we were eating lunch.

Of course, going out to eat with your friend isn’t the most interesting story to tell, but the conversation we had led me to think of an idea. So I wrote an article about “4 Implicit Qualities That Separate a Friend From an Acquaintance”. I submitted this to a publication and the editors loved it.

Final Thoughts

For so long, I’ve always asked myself what makes an article go viral or what gives an article more potential to go viral. I’ve finally figured it out.

People resonate with personal stories. Most of the time when I write articles that do well, they only took me thirty minutes to write and I think they’re crappy so I wait longer to publish them. But they blow up because I included a personal story — I showed my scar to the reader.

People love relatable people. That’s it.

So if you’re tired of getting rejected, write your personal story and teach the reader what you’ve learned. All you have to do is remix old experiences or create new ones.

I know you don’t want to tell your business but…readers are nosy. So please let them in.