Rejection Feedback – Inspiring, Informative, or Insensitive?

Editorial feedback on a rejection is as varied as editorial tastes, and how an editor chooses to relate something like “close-but-no-cigar” to an author can be radically different from market to market. A recent discussion about a comment I received a while back got me thinking about this and how we, as authors, might react to different styles of feedback, even when feedback from different editors essentially says the same thing. So, let’s look at three comments I received on three rejections and see how each one lands.

All three of the comments I’m going to show you are from close-but-no-cigar rejections. Publisher names and story titles have been removed to protect the innocent. 🙂

Comment 1

An 8, while we’re looking for 9s and 10s.

The comment above is the one that got me thinking about this issue, and when I shared it with writer friends and on social media, the response was pretty varied. Some folks found the comment insulting, blunt, and didn’t like the idea of having their work reduced to a numerical value. My opinion? I’m fine with it. Yeah, this is not generally how editors handle feedback on a story, but when I take a step back and think about it, there’s nothing insulting here. The commenter is saying what a lot of editors say, i.e., this is good, but not quite good enough. Honestly, it’s hard for me to get upset at someone who thinks my story is an 8 out of 10, and I like the unambiguous directness of it. YMMV, of course.

Comment 2

Thank you for your patience. Your story [title] made it to the second round for consideration, but ultimately, our editorial team decided against accepting it. This reading period was very competitive, so I hope you won’t be too discouraged. We look forward to future stories from you next time we’re open for submissions.

This is a pretty standard response when your story makes it to late rounds or final round of consideration. The editor doesn’t make any kind of value judgment on the work nor do they give any actionable feedback (not uncommon), but they’re saying the same thing as the editor in the first comment – good, but not good enough. Now, they do hint at why it wasn’t good enough – a very competitive environment – but that’s gonna be true of any submission to any market. The comment tells me I should try again, and I definitely will. So, nothing to get upset about here other than garden-variety disappointment at getting this close and not making the cut. I’d guess most authors would have no real issues receiving this response from an editor.

Comment 3

We really loved this worthy and thoughtful story. It reached the final round of submissions. This is rarified air that the vast majority of submissions to [market] do not reach. I hope this news provides some measure of consolation, even though I know this rejection letter must be disappointing.

Personal note: Congrats on reaching the final round of submissions! I dearly hope you’re able to find a beautiful and appropriate home for such a daring and thoughtful story. This is such an elegantly written and surprisingly sweet story—it’s concise but not terse, and it conveys a real sense of cross-cultural intimacy and connection. It’s romantic but not cheesy or sentimentalist; the speculative conceit is metaphorical, to an extent, but it’s above all an avenue for closeness and connection. It reminded me a little of Kimi no na Wa, one of my favorite films.

Well, rejections letters don’t get much nicer than this, folks. The editor says a lot of wonderful things about my story, which I appreciate, and assures me that even getting to this point is a feat in and of itself. Knowing how few stories this market actually publishes, I believe it. That said, at the end of the day, the editor isn’t saying anything different than the editor in the first comment. Good, but not good enough comes in a much nicer package, but it’s the same message. Now, I’d guess most authors would prefer a close-but-no-cigar rejection to be delivered in this fashion, and I get it, but, if I really think about it, my reaction to this comment and the first one are the same: initial disappointment, some feeling of validation, and a commitment to try the publisher again.

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So, thoughts on these three comments? Do you find any of them inspiring, informative, or insensitive? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.