You submitted your story to a market and the editor rejected it. Should you edit the story before submitting it elsewhere? Some say yes and others say no. Let’s examine both schools of thought to see what’s best for you.
Last week I blogged about whether to write many stories fast, or take the time to perfect fewer stories. That prompted a Facebook discussion with a fellow author who makes quick edits to every rejected story before submitting to other markets. He said he sees flaws to fix each time.
At a critique group meeting this week, another fellow author asked, “After how many rejections should you consider editing a story?” I said, “I’ve heard of stories getting upwards of 70 rejections before getting accepted, so ask me again after you hit 70 rejections.” Here’s a fun list of well-known books that many editors rejected before acceptance occurred. Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance took the prize at 121 rejections.
Another fellow critique group member said she has edited stories after rejections, but only to fit the rules of a particular anthology she’s aiming for.
My glib response at the critique group meeting stemmed from my understanding of the Rules for Writing Fiction, developed by author Robert A. Heinlein.
Of interest, Heinlein and I graduated from the same institution, a few years apart. Both of us ended up writing fiction. There, any similarities end, I’m sorry to say. I still aspire to attain a fraction of his writing skill.
I’ve blogged about Heinlein’s Rules before, but I’ll list them again here:
- You must write.
- You must finish what you write.
- You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
- You must put the work on the market.
- You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.
I interpret Rules 2, 3, and 4 to mean you finish a story to some level of satisfaction, submit it to a market, and upon rejection, immediately submit it to another market (without editing), and repeat. If an editor says she’ll accept it with some rewrites you find acceptable, then and only then do you edit the story.
Others interpret RAH’s Rules differently. Robert C. Worstell says Heinlein’s Rule 3 discusses rewriting, which is different from (and more extensive than) editing. In other words, he believes minor editing doesn’t violate Heinlein’s Rules at all.
Let’s summarize the thinking behind both schools of thought:
- The Always-Edit School. Don’t keep throwing a bad story at different markets; you’re wasting your time. What if your story is just a few edits away from being great? It doesn’t take that much time to re-read a story and correct the errors you see before sending it out again. As your writing matures, you’re improving your older stories with each edit session.
- The Never-Edit School. Have some pride and faith in your stories. Time spent re-editing old stories is time not spent on your current Work in Progress (WIP). All that editing is slowing you down. What if your edits are making the story worse?
Which school of thought should you join? I offer the following questions to answer as you make your choice:
- Can you spare the time to re-read that story and edit it?
- Have you received rejection letters with suggestions for improvements (admittedly rare these days) and do those suggestions make sense?
- Are you sending the story to an anthology, and will it require editing to meet the antho’s submission guidelines?
- Has the story received more than X rejections, (where X can be 20, 30, or any value you choose) and you’re running out of pro and semi-pro markets to submit to?
The more of these questions get a ‘yes’ answer, the more you should consider re-reading and editing the story before you send it out again.
I don’t take this bending of RAH’s Rules lightly. After all, he’s Heinlein, and I’m just—
Poseidon’s Scribe