Whenever I submit to literary magazines, I often wonder what happens behind the scenes. How many people read my submission? Does it go through multiple rounds of reading? Who makes the final decision on whether to accept it or not? Could I have changed the piece slightly to increase its chances of acceptance? Are there different kinds of rejection letters based on how many rounds of reading your piece got through before being rejected? Were there other factors at play that contributed to the decision of my piece? Why specifically was it accepted/rejected?
Almost all of these questions remain unanswered for the various magazines I have submitted to. However, as the founder of my own magazine, I thought it would be a good idea to answer these questions for those of you who submit to our publication. I hope these convince you to submit in the future!
List of Questions:
What is the initial reading process like?
Currently our magazine consists of three editors — Bri, Ava, and I. We have a common spreadsheet where all the pieces and genre are added, and there are separate categories for each of us. We read each piece, write a short paragraph of feedback and our initial thoughts of the piece, score it based on a pre-decided rubric, and make our personal decision. If there are notes we want to make on the piece for the other two editors to see, we add that in a separate column. We each read at our own pace and whatever order we’d like to. There’s one overall deadline (usually one or two days after submissions close) by when we must all individually finish reviewing all the pieces.
What is the rubric?
Each of us provide scores out of 5 for the following five categories:
Originality & Innovation
Writing/Art
Storytelling
Adherence to Theme
Appeal
Thus each piece gets a final score out of 75.
Originality & Innovation: Let’s take our ‘kindle the flame’ theme for example. We got many submissions that spoke about a literal flame. Some described it, some wrote stories of bonfires and arson, and some made the flame evil. These pieces weren’t bad at all — many were published in the issue - but the ideas weren’t out-of-the-box. There was only one submission that interpreted the theme as something we’d work tirelessly for, something that kindles our flame, and wrote a poem about a chef who craves validation. This submission was made even better by the author’s explanation of how their mother owns a bakery and it inspired the piece. You can read the piece “How to Cook up Success” by Nai in issue iii: kindle the flame. Our themes are usually quite broad and we want to see unique and creative interpretations of it. That isn’t to say that literal interpretations are bad, but they usually don’t score high on this particular category. So if you want to catch our attention, think of different ways you can interpret our theme and bring your authenticity to light! Another way to be original is through the structure of your piece. In “Aflame” by Caroline Chou (issue iii: kindle the flame), the author depicted the poem as a hand holding a flame. This was not only original but also eye-catching! It’s all about thinking outside of the box and exploring the limits of what you can do with your imagination and technology :)
Writing/Art: This rubric basically covers our opinions of your skill. For art, we look at how detailed the art is and how you’ve utilized the art medium. For writing, we look for an engaging and persuasive writing style. Good vocabulary is appreciated but I personally believe that good writing doesn’t equate to fancy verbs. We also prefer good grammar and no typos (one or two is fine but if there’s more then it shows a lack of interest to proofread your work) and a lack of these tend to score lower on this category. We also look for how hooked we are in the piece, i.e. whether the author is able to keep the readers engaged throughout. Some pieces tend to be bogged down by flowery language and unrelated ideas which can detract from the focus of the story.
Storytelling: This category explores how the author or artist has chosen to tell their story. For art pieces, we look at the theme of their piece, the message they’re trying to convey, and how they do so through the piece itself and the artist statement. ‘Underwater City’ by Joy Qu published in issue v: jabberwocky, for example, addressed the theme of rising seawater levels. Although it isn’t immediately evident from the art alone, the combination of the artist statement and the details of the piece bring out the idea extremely well. The process is more or less the same for written pieces. We look at the theme of the piece and whether it shines out through the writing. We highly encourage submitters to utilize the “tell us more about this piece” optional question, because it adds context and background to the piece. If the theme isn’t clear to us from a couple of reads, the responses to this question are used to clarify the theme. So if you leave that question blank, it just leaves us wondering what you were attempting to do with the piece.
Adherence to Theme: This category is pretty self-explanatory. All of our issues and features and special submission periods are themed. When we declare a theme, we want pieces that revolve around that theme. How you interpret the theme is up to you, and as mentioned before, we love unique interpretations! We do not, however, want pieces that aren’t connected to the theme in any way at all. Pieces that score less than 3 on this category usually aren’t accepted, despite their scores on other categories. We’ve often rejected excellent pieces simply because they didn’t fit with our magazine and our issue. If you’re not sure whether your piece’s connection to the theme will be understood, feel free to elaborate in the “tell us more about this piece” section! It’s there for a reason :)
Appeal: This is a final “overall” category. As a reader and writer, we consider whether the piece appealed to us. Can we see it in this particular issue of our magazine? Did we personally relate to it? Maybe the piece isn’t inherently original, but we still enjoyed it tremendously nonetheless. The piece might get an Originality score of 3 but an Appeal score of 5. Appeal is quite subjective and varies from editor to editor, piece to piece. However, the higher the average Appeal score, the more likely the piece will be received well by readers of our issues and thus the more likely the piece is to be accepted.
When is a decision on my submission made?
I firmly believe in making final decisions on submissions only after we have read through all the submissions. That is why we send out our decision emails all at once a week after the deadline, instead of rolling decisions as and when you submit. Only after seeing everything, we get a feel for what the issue is going to be like, and can thus choose which pieces fit and which don’t.
Immediately after we read the piece, however, we each make individual decisions. “A” for accept, “M” for maybe, “R” for reject. At the end when deciding which pieces to accept, I look at the individual decisions. Three “A”’s will most likely be accepted, while three “R”’s will result in a rejection. With everything in the middle, it gets a little more complicated. Now is when we order the pieces in descending order of their total score, and give decisions accordingly. Rather than blindly choosing the top 20 submissions, however, we also consider the final decisions. Since art is so subjective, we prefer not to choose simply based on an arbitrary number alone. A piece with two “A”’s and one “R” and a low total score is more likely to be accepted than a piece with three “M”’s and a higher total score.
As mentioned earlier, we make decisions on all submissions at once. I, the editor-in-chief, first assign final decisions based on individual decisions. I then consult with Bri and Ava about their thoughts of the chosen submissions. After all of us have reviewed the sheet and have accepted the chosen submissions, we finalize them.
Could I change my piece slightly to increase chances of acceptance?
As writers ourselves, we can see potential in a piece and can tell whether a few tweaks would make it a good fit. If we feel like an edited version of your piece would fit in our magazine, we will specifically email to let you know and ask whether you would be open to editing. So you don’t need to worry about whether minute changes in your piece would’ve guaranteed acceptance!
Does my piece go through multiple rounds of reading?
Some big publications tend to have multiple rounds of reading, i.e. an initial round where submission readers select pieces followed by the editor-in-chief reading through the selected pieces and finalizing pieces from those. As a small volunteer-run publication, however, we neither have enough people to make that happen nor the time. There is a single round of reading and that round is the one elaborated above. This is why first impressions matter so much, because they are also your last impressions! Sometimes for pieces marked “maybe”, we may read through them again and change our decisions — but these are rare cases and most of the time we trust our gut instincts.
Are there different kinds or versions of rejection and acceptance letters based on my piece’s score?
For the most part, our decision letters tend to be standard. Sometimes however, the letter may be altered. This happens when we feel like your piece could fit as a blog post (usually for creative non-fiction pieces), in another issue or feature, or we know another magazine with a theme where that piece would fit. Apart from these cases though, it’s unlikely your rejection letter will be modified.
Why was I specifically accepted or rejected?
We provide feedback to every single submitter who asks for it! For those who don’t, we specify in the email that it is available on request. With personalized feedback from each of our editors, we ensure that we highlight our favorite aspects of your piece and/or suggestions for improvement or why we chose to decline the piece. If it is unclear from the decision letter, however, feel free to reply to our email asking why we made a particular decision on your piece. We’ll be happy to respond!
What happens if I’m accepted?
Congratulations! In your decision letter, we will ask whether the piece is still available for publication. If we feel as though edits are required, we will specify it in the email and ask you to reply with an edited version by a deadline. We also ask for confirmation of the bio you submitted in the form to be published alongside your piece. Once our designers have finished designing the issue, we send it out to the contributors to verify there aren’t any typos or issues with displaying their piece. After confirmation, we publish the issue!
The issue is typically released during an issue release party. Prior to the party, we inquire with each of our contributors whether they would be interested in reading or displaying their work at the party. Those who want to do so during the party, and others simply come watch! For the issue release party we welcome anyone and everyone, and usually also include literary games and discussions.
Post the issue-release, we publish a feature piece on our blog with the stories behind the inspiration of each of the pieces in that issue. Stay tuned for issue v: jabberwocky’s feature ;)
Were there other factors at play that contributed to the decision of my piece?
As a magazine with a diverse masthead from volunteers of a wide age range and countries around the world, we strive to be as welcoming and accepting as possible. Answers to optional questions like pronouns, country, age, etc are not on the spreadsheet that the editors use while reviewing submissions. We try to read submissions name-blind, which is why we highly request that authors not include their names on the document of the pieces themselves. We hope that until now and henceforth, we have fostered an atmosphere that encourages writers of all backgrounds and identities to submit to our magazine. If you think we can improve our functioning in any way, please let us know!
This is an exhaustible list of questions, and we would be happy to answer any other questions that you have! Feel free to reach out to us on any of our social media platforms, submit a message through the contact form on our website, or email us! We may take some time to reply to you , but rest assured we will get back to you as soon as possible! As mentioned earlier, if you have any grievances with our magazine, do not hesitate to reach out to us. While we have published several issues, we are constantly exploring and learning how to be a better literary magazine and would appreciate any insights you have to give us. Our feedback form is permanently linked through our Instagram bio, and you have the option to submit anonymous responses. We look forward to hearing from you, and are grateful for your continual support of our little venture!
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