Recently I received an acceptance from The Lady Magazine for a short story I’d submitted. Needless to say I was ecstatic, but not simply because the story had pleased the fiction editor. I was also overjoyed because my policy of rework and recycle was paying dividends.
The piece of fiction in question was originally written nearly four years ago. It had done the rounds, and been rejected by every magazine to which it had been submitted. And believe me, I had submitted this (and several other stories) to as many publications as I could think of.
So what had changed over the four-year period? My writing style for one thing. When I read my story I was struck by how good the idea was, and how badly it had been written. The characters were vague, with no physical descriptions or mannerisms to make them come to life, there was little dialogue, and the plot was drawn out over 3,000 words (the rewrite lost a thousand of them).
I was so pleased with the finished piece that I decided to see what else was lurking on the computer in need of a revamp. I found several short stories that I’d previously given up on. Some of them were fit only for the delete button, but others were worthy of a rewrite.
The ones I decided to work on were basically good stories poorly told. After the rewrites an American magazine accepted one of them and another was published by Ireland’s Own. A third finished as a runner-up in the Jacqui Bennett Writers Bureau Competition. All three stories (as with the one accepted by The Lady) had been rejected countless times when I’d first written and submitted them.
As you become more experienced don’t despise your early work, rewrite it and send it out again. Acceptance could be just around the corner.
The same goes for non-fiction. Don’t delete articles or reviews written as assignments for a writing course, or pieces that were written ‘on spec’ but not taken up by the intended market. You can use bits of several different pieces to create an entirely new (and saleable) article. I have had an article accepted in America that was a combination of two filler pieces (one published in the UK and one rejected). Put together they made an interesting article.
Another success was a restaurant review that had been turned down by France’s only English language newspaper on the grounds that restaurants should advertise, and not receive free publicity. As I live in France I thought about deleting the file, there being no other conceivable market for the piece. Or so I thought. I’m glad I kept my finger off the delete button because several months later I spotted a competition for a restaurant review in Freelance Market News. The word count was completely different, so a rewrite was required, but the £50 that I won made the extra work worthwhile.
But rewriting rejected pieces should be only part of your strategy. You should also be recycling fiction and articles that have already been accepted for publication. Everything that I write, I rewrite for the American market, and vice versa.
I have had four articles published by France Today in America, all of which were originally written for the UK market. This week I emailed my first commissioned piece to France Today, immediately afterwards I rewrote it and submitted it to a UK magazine.
Apart from rewriting and recycling, give yourself every possible opportunity to rejoice by investing in yourself as a writer. Buying handbooks and taking out annual subscriptions to top quality writing resources greatly enhance your chances of success.
For the British market, The Magazine Writer’s Handbook and The Writer’s Handbook are essential reading (but don’t forget to study several copies of the magazines you intend to target before submitting any material). Use the information in Freelance Market News on magazine requirements and guidelines, details of prose and poetry competitions and markets for fillers. Always search for new ways of using existing material.
For information on American magazines, a subscription to The Writer’s Market at www.writersmarket.com is invaluable. Up to date online information on every aspect of writing and publishing is available at the click of the mouse. Payment category, publication topics, types of article, fiction genre, submission method, or a combination of all or any of the above, makes searching for the right market a piece of cake (or American apple pie). For most entries there is also a section giving details of how to obtain back copies, thereby enabling the prospective contributor to carry out a thorough market analysis.
So what are you waiting for? Dig out all those old pieces of work, and look at them objectively. Ask yourself (honestly now) if you would bother to read them, had someone else written them. If the answer is in the negative, what can be done to improve each piece? Look again at your published works, and rewrite them for the US market.
Remember, if you continually rewrite and recycle, you’ll soon have plenty of reasons to rejoice.
© Lorraine Mace 2004
