Why I Turn Down Submissions

Common reasons I vote ‘no’ & how to avoid them

A couple weeks ago, I shared 5 Things I’m Looking for in Lit Mag Submissions. Today, I want to tackle the flip side, which is common reasons why I vote “no” on submissions. Drum roll, please…

The piece isn’t a fit for the journal.

At The Masters Review, we’re looking for character-driven, literary stories. These stories may slant toward or use elements of genre, but we are looking for literary writing first and foremost. Stories that are straight genre or focused more on plot than character probably aren’t going to be a good fit for us. Also, we don’t publish poetry at all, so please don’t submit it!

I realize that as writers, we often don’t have time to read a bunch of literary magazines to assess fit. However, at the very least, skim the magazine’s About page, guidelines, and a couple pieces they’ve published recently before you submit.

The quality of the writing isn’t strong enough.

As writers, it’s important to invest time and effort into honing our writing skills, getting feedback on our work from other writers, and revising, revising, revising if we want to be seriously considered for publication. A lot of the submissions I see aren’t ready for publication simply because the piece needs more work and/or the quality of the writing isn’t there yet. This is where having a writing group becomes really important — other writers can give you feedback on when a piece is (and isn’t) ready to submit.

I don’t understand what’s happening.

There is often a gap between the story the writer has in their mind, and the story that has actually made it to the page for a reader. Sometimes, the writer thinks they’re saying more than they actually are. This leads to confusion for the reader about what is happening in the story and why. Again, this is why it’s so important to get feedback from other writers across many, many drafts — to help pinpoint what has made it to the page, and more importantly, what hasn’t.

The story isn’t compelling.

I read a lot of “nice” stories, but “nice” isn’t good enough to get you published. Compelling stories usually have three important ingredients in them:

• A source of tension/something at stake: This hooks the reader’s interest and pulls them through the piece because they want to see what happens. Don’t let your characters avoid conflict — lean into it!

• Vulnerability: This gets the reader to emotionally invest in the character(s) or the narrator.

• There’s a small story and a larger story: The small story is what is actually happening on the page. The larger story is why this matters/why the reader should care. If I get to the end of a story and think, okay, but so what? it’s going to be a ‘no’ vote.

The pacing is either too slow or too fast.

You can lose a reader by moving too slowly, such as adding in too much backstory at the wrong time, or by moving too fast, such as skipping through important scenes too quickly or using summary for moments that should be in-scene. Most of the time though, writers are moving too fast in their work versus too slow.

The ending is a letdown.

Your ending will absolutely make or break whether your piece gets published. I’ve read so many good pieces that I ended up saying no to because I was disappointed by the ending. There are a lot of different ways endings can go wrong, so make sure you’re dedicating the time and care necessary to stick the landing.

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Looking at this list, I would guess this covers about 90% of the submissions I say no to. The rest tend to be silly technical mistakes like attaching a blank file, attaching work that has track changes in it, sending work over our word limit, etc. So, always double check your work and the magazine’s guidelines before you submit, as these are easy mistakes to avoid.

Another thing to note: 5 of the 6 reasons I listed above could potentially be avoided if you have a skilled writing group or critique partners who can give you feedback on your work. We may write and edit alone, but most of us don’t publish alone!

👋 Hi there, and thanks for reading! I’m Janelle Drumwright, a writer, teacher at The Writers Studio, instructor at Chill Subs, and reader at The Masters Review. I help writers strengthen their work and teach them how to submit to literary journals. Find me at janellewrites.com.