It’s tough sometimes but listening can help. Twice I got feedback, “don’t like the ending” and fought it because I loved the ending but after getting the comment twice I took it out and came up with a new ending, which when I looked it I was like “that is so much better” and sure enough the next place took it.
I've had all these over my career, but lately it's a lot of The One That Wasn’t About Quality. These are the toughest for me because they're the ones I feel I have the least amount of control over. All the others indicate to varying degrees that something is wrong and therefore fixable with the story, but these final-round, close-but-no-cigar, not-quite-the-right-fit rejections often come down to timing and/or the subjective taste of the editor. Nothing to do there but fire the story out again.
It’s tough sometimes but listening can help. Twice I got feedback, “don’t like the ending” and fought it because I loved the ending but after getting the comment twice I took it out and came up with a new ending, which when I looked it I was like “that is so much better” and sure enough the next place took it.
GREAT article.
I've had all these over my career, but lately it's a lot of The One That Wasn’t About Quality. These are the toughest for me because they're the ones I feel I have the least amount of control over. All the others indicate to varying degrees that something is wrong and therefore fixable with the story, but these final-round, close-but-no-cigar, not-quite-the-right-fit rejections often come down to timing and/or the subjective taste of the editor. Nothing to do there but fire the story out again.
True that!