ARTICLES | WRITING TIPS
Why Are Your Stories Getting Rejected From Publications?
Some of these answers may surprise you
Story rejections are never fun. At first, it may feel like you are being rejected. You may have negative thoughts run through your head as a result. You may even feel like giving up. Don’t. There are many reasons why an editor may reject your story and none of them are personal.
As an editor here on Medium, I can tell you that some of the reasons I’ve had to reject stories have nothing to do with the writer, nor his/her writing style. Some of the reasons are technical, some are per the publication’s guidelines, and one is for a very simple reason. It is number one below.
Here is a checklist to go through if your story gets rejected:
- Private Notes — the only way an editor can communicate with you about editorial issues on your submission is via Private Notes. The first thing you want to check when you join your first publication is if you have Private Notes enabled on Medium (this isn’t always automatic!). You can check for this in your Settings by clicking on your Icon and choosing Settings in the dropdown menu. Go to Accounts and make sure that ‘Allow private notes’ is on. If it isn’t, turn it on. If it is, go back to your draft and check if there are any stars (*) on the right-hand side in the margins. That will signal that your editor left you a private note. If an editor cannot leave you a private note, they have no other option but to reject your story. If you do not reply to the private note(s), they will have no other option but to reject your story.
- Did You Comply With The Publication’s Guidelines? This is very important. Most publications have Submission Guidelines or Write For Us articles. Some of these guidelines are very technical. Some editors prefer quality over quantity. They’d rather publish one quality piece that has followed their guidelines than a dozen that have not. Editors will tell you what they are willing to accept and what they are not willing to accept. Always read the guidelines thoroughly and if you are not sure your piece works for that publication, then check with the editor by leaving a Private Note on your article for the editor. Some editors will leave you a private note telling you that your piece doesn’t work and that is why they are rejecting it. Some will not; they will just reject it.
- Improper Story Formatting — this includes Title, Subtitle, Kickers (if the editor stresses using kickers in their guidelines), Proper Citation of Images, and Reader Interest Tags. Most editors will leave you a private note asking you to add or correct these. Some editors will not because they’ve already listed these in their guidelines and feel that you should know about this IF you’ve read their guidelines thoroughly.
- Too Many Grammatical Errors — this includes misspellings, bad sentence structure, or improper punctuation. Most editors will stress in their guidelines for you to polish your stories before submitting them. This means that they expect you to edit your own stories first before they even land in the editor’s submission queue. Most will even suggest editing tools in their guidelines such as Grammarly. Here is an article that lists some other free editing tools as well. Some editors will make suggestions for edits in private notes. Some editors will just publish your work, errors and all. Others will reject your work if there are too many errors — some will leave a note, others may not.
- Your Story Doesn’t Meet Medium’s Guidelines — yes, even Medium has guidelines of acceptable and unacceptable articles. And guess what? If a publication publishes your story and it is unacceptable to Medium and it gets flagged, Medium will not only cancel your account, but the publication’s account as well. I suggest that you carefully read all of Medium’s guidelines and follow them.
The above reasons for rejection are the most basic ones. Each editor has preferences though and if your stories get rejected for reasons besides the ones I have listed, you should respect the editors, regardless. Editors on Medium do not get paid. They earn zilch for owning and editing a publication. They provide us writers with a place to submit our work as a labor of love. Remember that and always respect them. Do not get crass with them. This will only ruin your reputation as a writer on Medium because word does spread around among editors about rude and disrespectful writers.
Hopefully this article will help you to understand why your story has been rejected. Don’t give up hope though. Learn and do better the next time.
©2022 Lori Carlson. All rights reserved.
Lori Carlson is a Writing Coach with a BA in English and a MALS in Creative Writing. She writes poetry, fiction, personal essays, creative non-fiction, and articles. She focuses on the Writer’s Life, Spirituality, Life Lessons, Self-Awareness, Relationships, Mental Health, and LGBTQ+. She is the Owner of Promptly Written, Not For Bedtime Stories, and You’ve Been Informed!. You can find her older stories on her creative writing blog, Ravyne’s Nest and random ramblings on her personal blog, A Delicious Torment.
