Finding Your Angel in the Haystack

"...gamify what is actually a labyrinthine submission process."

What if I told you there’s a way to see lit mag rejections as a positive force in your writing life, one you can embrace? What if I told you that you can submit your stories, poems and essays with abandon and that you can check on your Submittable queue with joy, not apprehension?

It all begins with a reconsideration of what you think is happening behind closed doors when your work is being considered for publication.

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For many writers (especially those new to the publication game), a submission rejection is a conclusive stamp of disapproval from a respectable institution. The whole of the organization that sends it, along with many others in short order, are raining “NO!” down upon you, decisively, and with regularity. You are left cold and shivering, drenched in negatives, and will need to spend a goodly amount of time getting dry before you can weather that storm again. Rejections are depleting. They are setbacks. You do not pass go. You do not collect $200.

That feeling of depletion certainly doesn’t serve you. Especially when you consider that quiet battles are actually raging at all of your favorite lit pubs, and your work may well be at the center of them. You’ll get clues to that possibility embedded in some of your rejections, and once you know what to look for, you can walk away from rejections energized.

The submission consideration process is usually tiered. Many literary publications employ volunteer readers, their first line of defense against the regular onslaught of unsolicited submissions that besiege them. Those readers will give a thumbs up or down and your piece will amass a track record as it ascends however many layers of readers each publication has in place. If they designate two volunteer readers per story, for example, a single thumbs-skyward could propel you to the next level. That may be to a smaller cadre of Associate Fiction Editors, who begin the thumb-gaming again.

Depending on the management style at the top (Egalitarian? Autocracy?), you could gain an acceptance in one top-level read. But more likely, as said magazine is racing toward a publishing deadline, the entire editorial team is holing up in an on-campus conference room, or lounging on a tragically-under-stuffed sofa at the best fair-trade coffee shop in town (or catching a minute between classes on Slack) to discuss which of the list of contenders is going to grace their pages.

Enter your Angel in the Haystack.

Your angel is the reader who, at any point in the process (from volunteer-reader to Managing Editor) is majorly moved by some aspect of your piece. Maybe it’s a particular character (a mirror for them?) Maybe it’s the setting (some reflection of home?) Maybe it’s a few well-turned phrases (“Angel in the Haystack? Love that!”) Maybe it’s theme or pacing or voice. Whatever it is, it speaks to that reader’s singular idea of what a good short story is supposed to be, and once that reader becomes an angel, they’ll hover above your work through the process, pressing their cherubic little thumbs on every scale your work is weighed upon.

Angel in the Haystack is a tortured metaphor, I’m the first to admit it. I kicked around “white knight” for twenty-seven seconds, but that’s a no-go :) Ditto “Angel Investor.” I went with angel because needle isn’t enough of a positive signifier in the haystack at play here. And the haystack matters. We must never lose sight of the enormity of the haystack.

Your angel is the reader who, at any point in the process (from volunteer-reader to Managing Editor) is majorly moved by some aspect of your piece.

Here’s a real-world scenario to breathe life into the hypothetical.

I received an email from a very reputable (but now defunct) lit pub I had submitted a short story to back in 2022. It read:

Your submission has garnered our editorial team’s attention and is now on the editor’s desk for final consideration.If “XXXXX” is no longer available for publication or has been published elsewhere, it’d be especially helpful if you’d let us know by withdrawing it in your Submittable account now.If the piece is still available, there’s nothing you need to do. We will notify you of a final decision in the near future, and we appreciate your patience as the timing of our decision-making varies considerably.

Champagne all around, right?! Well, not so fast. The story didn’t make the cut. The headstone email arrived about a month later. It started with this curt opener:

We appreciate the opportunity to read your work, but we will not be publishing “XXXXX.”

Jesus, give it to me straight, doc.

A kinder, gentler paragraph followed:

We’d like you to know that overall your piece was well-received by our reading and editorial team. We are sharing some notes below. We hope you find them helpful as you continue to revise or submit your piece elsewhere.

What followed was the greatest writing gift—short of an acceptance—I’ve ever received. It drew back a curtain that usually conceals a process that can feel heartless and mechanical. In that drawing back, it revealed, instead, the conversation that your work will likely one day find itself at the center of, if it’s not already.

Get a load of the startling (at least to me) variety of opinions* coming from each editor:

“I was pleasantly surprised by this story. The dialogue is organic, and descriptions are simple but clear. The way in which the narrator describes [XXX] is reverent without being over the top.”

My primary concern is that [XXX]’s role in this piece felt consistently unnatural at best… When [XXX] reappeared in the story for her big conflict with the narrator, I was disappointed by the cliché villain role assigned to her…She doesn’t come across like a real person in this story”

“This story was delightfully heartfelt and not in the typical [XXX] form either. There was complexity to [XXX] and the narrator’s relationship…The narrator’s commentary on [XXX] never seemed overly dry or pedantic. I was engaged throughout the entirety of the story and felt drawn in by the author’s style of direct writing.”

“This story has a lot going for it, but I think that it could be strengthened…I think that the opening suffers because of how limited and unnatural [XXX]’s role felt throughout the story…I also noticed the way that the story discusses [XXX]’s weight, and I think that it is important to know why [XXX] chooses to lose weight…This story truly is engaging and enjoyable, but by editing it further, I think it could be much more impactful than it already is.”

“It’s so much fun to read a story where the author clearly knows a topic inside and out--in this case, [XXX]--and to see that mastery woven into the writing. It lends such an authentic feel to the piece, and it’s even better when that authenticity helps to build theme, too.”

*these quotes/opinions are truncated in the interest of space, and each represents the thoughts of one individual.

Again, what a gift to see the actual sausage being made. That an editorial team was willing to make these notes available was a supreme act of faith, and I applaud the courage required to do it.

Long story short—I made changes based on these notes, and that translated to an immediate acceptance at a different, even more highly ranked, publication. The changes weren’t massive either, just some light sanding and polishing.

So what does this example prove? That no story gets an easy ride. We need to swing for the fences with bold narrative choices in order to get noticed and stand out from the slush pile. And in doing so, we’re likely taking editorial chances that make us more attractive to some for the audacity, and less attractive to others for stepping over the line of controversy.

The question becomes, how moved is your personal Angel in the Haystack by your work? The more moved they are, the louder an advocate they’re likely to be, and the more likely it is that your story will make the cut.

We need to swing for the fences with bold narrative choices in order to get noticed and stand out from the slush pile.

So, how does this translate to one seeing rejections as anything other than depressing?

The simple answer is by shifting your mindset from thinking of rejection as a barometer of your talent, to one where you gamify what is actually a labyrinthine submission process. This becomes easier when you acknowledge that you’re not submitting to a monolithic institution that accepts or rejects with one single, resounding stamp. You are, instead, dancing with entire teams of conflicting individuals, where admirers face off with detractors, and where your angel in the haystack may have the pull needed to get you over the hump. That translates to the straight-up necessity of diving into as many haystacks as you can.

Your acceptance, when it comes, will likely have been the result of a battle over inches of editorial terrain, not a full-court coronation.

Here are the steps you can follow to better play that game:

Submit often.

When you feel your story—or at least the current draft of it—is ready, jump in with both feet. Of course, I can’t advocate enough for engagement with critique group participants before anything is submitted for a proper real-world testing of your story’s potential. Ditto for a mandatory “cooling off” period after a draft is completed, so it can be re-read through non-rose-colored glasses. Once you’re through those hoops, one or two submissions is simply not enough. Most magazines’ rates of acceptance are in the 1% to 2% range. To my experience, almost everything within the top 5 to 10% are strong works that, objectively, are equal contenders as angels go.

Waves of ten (fifteen? twenty?) will get you usable feedback—are all of your rejections “form” emails? Or are some of them “positive”? Meaning they note your story as being enjoyable or include a request to see more of your work?

If you have a higher tiered rejection, this is worthy of celebration. Two or three “positive” rejections is a great leading indicator that an acceptance may be in your future.

Get your stories in the “wine cellar.”

Recently-finished drafts usually glow with the hilarious sheen of “perfection”. It’s really hard to disabuse yourself of this delusion until you get beyatch-slapped by the wider world. Just put some submissions out there, and you’ll be amazed how quickly the scales fall from your eyes. This is another reason to learn-to-stop-worrying-and-love-rejections. After a wave of submissions, use the time spent waiting for responses well by getting those stories into the cellar for proper aging. Store them sideways, cork-out, so the poor things can breathe.

When you think you’re at a sufficient remove, go back to those stories with as much of an open mind as possible. In lieu of the kind of line-by-line deep work you know you still need to do, just keep your mind open enough to allow for story breakthroughs to break through (e.g. “ohhhh, if my protagonist is an octogenarian pipe-fitter-welder instead of an angsty teen Twitch streamer, I think I can crack this thing wide open!”)

When you’re ready, get your second (third, fourth) wave of submissions on.

Send that second wave while some of the “first wave” are still in the works. Keeping your queue of submissions-in-the-works loaded is vital. Getting a rejection when you’re still waiting on another nine decisions insures that a single blow won’t land too hard.

The jury is out on whether you should shoot for the best publications in the early waves. I’ve found that my work continues to improve through tweak after tweak, so you may want to keep your powder dry and submit to your personal favorites as you approach peak story.

If you get an acceptance from a “lesser” publication before you’ve had a chance to go for your fave, well, boo-hoo for you and dry your eyes, cactus flower, those are the kind of problems most of us dream about.

Keep learning about the publications you submit to.

Read as much as you can with your story in mind, so you can find a proper home for it. Every story you read builds your institutional understanding of the magazines you’re targeting. And get this: every story of yours they read is building their institutional understanding of you. With enough near-misses under your belt, some editors may be actively rooting for you. They might be waiting to spread their wings and start flapping above your next opus.

Oh, and one more thing to help you with your on-going magazine-proclivity learning: Subscribe to and read Short Story Shoutout weekly.

Once a week, I “shoutout” a great short story from one upstanding literary publication so that:

· you can get a handle on the kind of work said magazine is accepting

· the writer of the shouted-out story gets some well-deserved publicity (along with the magazine)

· you get some concrete submission guideline details (submission windows, word count constraints, that mag’s editorial sweet spots) for each week’s publication

· I get to wax poetic about what I think makes each story sing

From week to week, Short Story Shoutout will build your understanding of our magazine-partners-in-the making. Oh, and it’s free, always. A win-win-win-win if ever there was one.

Happy hunting.

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