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Five Strategies For Writers to Deal With Rejection and Critique

Posted on | January 30, 2011 | 8 Comments

It’s happened to all of us at some point; you have high hopes for something, so high the air is getting thin up there…and then suddenly your writing is rejected or gets a bad review and your hopes hit the pavement like a rubbish bag full of yoghurt.

How you deal with rejection is going to be one of the things that defines you as a writer, and can make or break your career.

1. Remember, it’s the work that’s been rejected, not you

We create our writing out of whole cloth. When you put a story out into the world, especially to your loved ones, it’s like you’re out there shivering in the cold. Or even worse, like you’ve sent out one of your kids for review.

So when a bad review or critique comes back, it’s so hard not to be hurt.

But we need to remember that the critiques and rejections are of our work. Not us. Not our children. Just something we wrote.

Some people just aren’t good at depersonalising their critiques, so it will come out as them saying you got it wrong, where all they are really trying to do is tell you why they didn’t like your work.

And if some ever really does attack you e.g They say you’re a terrible person instead of saying they didn’t like what you’ve written, then feel free to ignore them.

2. One Step Closer

This is a trick, but it’s a good trick.

I tell myself that any story I submit has a certain number of rejections it will have to go through before it either gets accepted or I write a better one.

It might be one, it might be fifty.

I don’t know. Thinking like this I have to take any rejection as a positive thing, because no matter how quickly it is sent back or turned down, it means I’m one step closer to either getting published or churning out an even better story.

I got a rejection letter about a week ago. It was short, but very nice. I finished reading it and immediately got started on something new, motivated because I think I can see how to improve on what I’ve already done.

3. Persistence Alone

I’ve said this before and I’ll almost certainly have to say it again. If you keep writing, you’ll keep getting better (as long as you are open to improving you craft). If your writing isn’t up to snuff now, and you keep writing, you’ll be closer in a year.

If you stop writing, improvement stops.

It’s a sad fact of publishing that not all of us are going to get published, no matter how good we get. But those of us that persist and put ourselves out there are at least in with a shot.

Wouldn’t you rather have a shot at being published?

4. You’re In Good Company

J.K Rowling was rejected the first time she sent out Harry Potter. And thirteen more times after that. Imagine if she’d taken that badly and quit? None of us would know about Hogwarts and out world would be poorer for it.

Stephen King’s novel Carrie was turned down more than a dozen times before it was picked up and shot King up the bestseller lists.

How about something more literary? William Golding’s The Lord of The Flies was rejected more than twenty times before it was finally picked up.

More commercial? James freaking Patterson, the Lord of the bulging royalty payment, was turned down by more than a dozen publishers before he got picked up.

Even then, he only got $8500 (actually not a bad advance for a first timer, but nothing compared to his current paycheques). Just imagine if he’d taken it personally and decided to stop writing?

If you need more Google “famous writers who got rejected” and see that almost no one hits it big first up.

5. Make The Statistics Work For You

I’ve been told that only 1% of writers ever get published. Technically that may be true, but it’s a skewed statistic. For one it takes into account everyone who’s ever decided to try and write a book, but hasn’t written anything longer that a grocery list.

I know I’ve this before too, but how many of those writers do you think have finished a book?*Finish just one book and you’re chances of being published, statistically, are low.

Finish two and they get better. Not many writers have the intestinal fortitude to write another one if the first one doesn’t work out.

Writing a third one when the first two didn’t work is even harder, which is why writers who can do it improve the statistical likelihood that they get published.

How good do you imagine the odds are for the people that complete four?

Ten?**

There is no way to guarantee you’ll be published, or that you’ll have any success when you do. But by writing multiple books you bump up the odds, and even if you don’t get published, you’ll have a backlist to help you make money if you decide to self publish.

Summary:

Rejection sucks. Mean critiques suck (even if they’re right). Critiques from loved ones can be heart rending.

It doesn’t matter.

Because only you can make the decision to keep going. To take the rejection as motivational instead of despair inducing. You can’t make someone accept your work if they don’t want it, but you can chose how you react.

How do you deal with rejections and tough critiques?

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Comments

8 Responses to “Five Strategies For Writers to Deal With Rejection and Critique”

  1. Tweets that mention Five Strategies For Writers to Deal With Rejection and Critique | Andrew Jack Writing -- Topsy.com
    January 30th, 2011 @ 11:06 am

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Queen Bitch, Florian Flobo Boyce, Clark Knowles, Gina Cole, Andrew Jack and others. Andrew Jack said: Five Strategies For Writers to Deal With Rejection and Critique: http://wp.me/pyMqx-bW #writechat #amwriting I would appreciate a RT :) [...]

  2. SarahNo Gravatar
    January 30th, 2011 @ 11:41 am

    I’ve discussed this with you off-line, so to speak, but for the record it depends on who’s doing the rejecting. I haven’t had many rejection letters – because I haven’t submitted much, not because I’m a frickin’ genius – but I’m okay with them, especially when someone’s taken the time to hand-write a comment. But when my husband does it? Tears ensue. Followed by licking of wounds in a quiet corner, finally to be capped off by sucking it up and going back to the work to see if he’s right.

  3. AndrewNo Gravatar
    January 30th, 2011 @ 2:48 pm

    Hey Sarah, talking to you about this what reminded me that I still had this sitting in my “to post” folder (that and I got a rejection back this morning). It is harder, much harder when it’s someone close to you, but as long as you get to the point where you can go back and see if they’re right (and there’s nothing to say that they actually are right) then you’re on the right track.

  4. SarahNo Gravatar
    January 30th, 2011 @ 3:38 pm

    Yup, am with you 100% on that. I’d add to that that I hate it – totally! – when he is right, but nonetheless I go back to check what he says to see if there’s “an answering yes” inside me. SO hard to do, and so necessary.

    Commiserations on the rejection. Just quietly, can I ask: was it the long one or the short one?

  5. AndrewNo Gravatar
    January 30th, 2011 @ 4:35 pm

    Short one, but it was a very nice, encouraging rejection :)

  6. SarahNo Gravatar
    January 30th, 2011 @ 5:44 pm

    Well, if there’s a “best” kind of rejection letter (aside: don’t suppose we can use the term “pink slip” in the digital age, can we?), I guess that’s it. Fingers crossed for the other one :)

  7. Krista D BallNo Gravatar
    January 30th, 2011 @ 5:49 pm

    I think writers, especially new writers not used to rejection, need to step back after a couple on the same piece and wonder why they are getting them.

    Places like duotrope.com can help, as folks enter in their acceptances/rejections. Now, the numbers are skewed because people are far more likely to enter the acceptances, but it gives a reference point. If a magazine has an acceptance rate of 2%, well, it isn’t all that surprising you got a form rejection. No bigger.

    But, if you have been submitting to places that give personal rejections 50% of the time and you always get form letters, then you need to look at your piece. Is it the writing? Is it the idea? Is it the markets you are submitting to?

    Rejection is a valuable learning experience. Not enough people treat it like that.

  8. JUDITHNo Gravatar
    July 26th, 2011 @ 12:55 am

    I loved this I love to write but very likely will never be a successful author but readingthis has helped so much
    Thankyou and good luck I hope youb make it
    Jude

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