Tuesday, January 16, 2018

What Not To Do When Submitting a Short Story (even though it worked out for me)



WARNING: The following story may contain some mixed messages.
I begin today’s lesson with an announcement. The great sci-fi forum known as Daily Science Fiction has agreed to publish another of my short stories! Those of you with scary good memories may remember “Cognito, Ergo Sum”, my first story with them—actually my first professional publication ever—that came out in September of 2016 (P.S. it is a short story, so if you finish it quickly and want to read more there’s always my Published Works page). Anyway, I liked the publication and its community so much that I thought I’d try to put another of my stars into the DSF galaxy. Which leads me to the first warning I’d like to give you all.
1)      Do not over-submit to one publication.
DSF had rejected me once before they took “Cognito, Ergo Sum.” Between that story and the one they’ve currently accepted, I made…(checks records)…yes, seven more attempts, and they weren’t shabby attempts if I do say so myself. For me, that is a lot of tries, and I’m certain that some writers have produced a bulk of flash-fictions for a machine-gun-style submission process; as soon as one story gets rejected, they fire right back with another one. Even though I’ve used a similar process a time or two, I’m not really a fan of such a method—I don’t know how attentive editors are to authors’ names, but I don’t want to run the risk of becoming “That One Writer” who makes the staff roll their eyes at your latest shenanigan in their inbox. Seven rejections is probably pretty mild, but it still felt like a lot. I decided to take a different angle with Number Eight—which leads to caution Number Two.
2)      Do not base your story on the publication’s rejection letter.
They say to write what you know. I knew a lot about the DSF rejection form letter. Therefore, my latest 500-ish-word effort, “The DSF Rejection Ceremony”, was a brief probably-fictional account of what happens every time a short story is rejected. It wasn’t anything bitter or vindictive; in fact, it was dramatic to the point of comical, not blaming the editors for the disappointing form letter that the writers receive and acknowledging how difficult it must be to reject so much work so frequently. At any rate, it was fun to write, and I kind of figured that the poor DSF editorial staff would get a kick out of it. Heck, rejecting the story would be rather appropriate.
Then, in mid-November of last year, I got an email from DSF. As was my custom, I flinched when I saw it in my inbox.
Contrary to my expectations, it was a brief letter personally written (I assume) by the editors Jonathan and Michele themselves. This was the entire missive:

Benjamin,

I love this. I doubt we'll publish it, will have to ponder, but it does feed my narcissism quite nicely! Well done.

 - Jonathan & Michele, Daily Science Fiction

After—yes, I keep bringing this up—seven straight rejections, this new communication seemed to be a fresh chance at salvation, even though they said they doubted its chances. But a chance was a chance, so I did the third thing that you really shouldn’t do when submitting:
3)      Do not reply to rejection letters.
A lot of publications make it clear that they do not want anyone complaining back to them if one of their stories is not accepted. As a rule, it is a good idea to not address an editor unless they ask for it. But in this case, I judged that A) this wasn’t really a rejection letter, as they implied there was still a chance, and B) this was a personal letter—so there was a better probability that they’d actually read a reply. So I replied. It was basically a list of reasons why it would be a great idea to publish “The DSF Rejection Ceremony.” I kept it polite (if sometimes humorous—I believe it does people good to laugh at emails), tried to keep everything short, and made it clear that—accepted or rejected—I appreciated their time and the opportunity they presented.
I don’t know whether or not it was read. All I know is that, a few days after Christmas, I got another email from DSF. After my customary flinch, I read it.
I have the good fortune of knowing what their form acceptance letter looks like, so this new message appeared to me like an old friend. Well…it wasn’t completely a form letter. At the bottom there was an added postscript:
“We understand that we are being mocked, and yet we are amused.”
That is one of the highest compliments to my writing that I have ever received.
In conclusion, keep an eye out for “The DSF Rejection Ceremony” in the relatively near future—if it’s not on my Published Works page already—and please please please don’t do anything I did when submitting your own short stories. In my humble opinion, the story above is evidence that divine intervention has a sense of humor.

P.S. After I wrote the first draft of this post, the new publication Sonder Midwest replied to one of my queries—they’ve accepted another sci-fi/comedy short story of mine! It’s been a pretty good month here.



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