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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/21347
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Editors often reject stories for reasons that have nothing to do with the “quality” of the story (whatever that might mean).

A few weeks ago I watched seven editors select stories for anthologies. Each editor was buying stories for their own anthology. There were about 250 stories submitted by 40 writers. Every editor talked about every story, and said whether they would buy it if they were editing the anthology.

I haven’t tallied up the reasons for rejection, but it seems to me that approximately half were for reasons like:

- **Personal taste.** Just not the editor’s kind of story. This happened a lot. I would say that a quarter of the rejections were for this reason.
- **Balance of stories.** The editor already had two humorous stories, or too many stories in the same genre, or too many in a very similar setting, or …
- **Fit with the anthology theme or requirements.** The editor couldn’t see how the story was clearly connected to the theme of the anthology. An editor rejected one of my stories because it was a cozy mystery, and she had explicitly asked us not to submit cozies. I goofed. “You, sir, have committed cozy!”

Note that the 40 writers were all invited to submit stories. They were all known to the editors to be generally good writers. So these were not typical slush pile stories. Overall, about a third of the stories were selected.

I like to apply Heinlein’s third rule: _You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order._ And by “editorial order” he means the order of an editor who could buy your story (not an editor that you might hire to make suggestions).

So I don’t rewrite stories unless someone who wants to buy it asks me to. And even then I apply Ellison’s Addendum to Heinlein’s third rule: _… and then only if you agree._

My recommendation is to send it out again. And again. And again. And maybe package it into an ebook (and maybe a paperback) and put it up for sale.

Move on. Write something else.

Original score: 10