When Stephen King started out as a writer, he used his hammer a lot. No, he didn’t use it for gruesome acts to inspire his horror stories. He simply took a nail and drove it into the wall. Each time he got a rejection letter, he hung it on that sorry nail. Before long, the weight of so many pages caused the nail to buckle and paper fell to the floor. He simply got the hammer out again and put another nail in the wall.
Acknowledging the Wall of Rejection
It was the literal wall of rejection.
These days Stephen King may not have to worry so much about rejection letters from publishers but that does not mean he is in the clear. He faces pages of red ink from editors and more than enough criticism from readers. While he has legions of fans (myself included), not everyone likes his books. Some people may not like a given story and others write hateful book reviews because they don’t like his political views or even what he looks like. It’s not always about the writing.
My point is that we all face criticism. Acknowledging you will face a wall of rejection as a writer is the first step to making it in this business. You’d better get ready to wield your own hammer or drill.
Embracing the Wall of Rejection
Each rejection letter is a reminder that you tried. That’s better than most would-be writers!
You won’t find hard and fast facts on how many rejections you will get for every manuscript accepted, but online sources estimate that agents reject as many as 91 to 99 percent of submissions. In that way, you could think of rejection as a numbers game. If you submit query letters to 100 agents, one of them is statistically bound to pick up your work. You are well on your way.
Of course, that is a bit of an oversimplification. A writer sending in work riddled with plot holes and typos may never get an acceptance letter while an author with a solid story and a strong voice could be snatched up right away. You need to put in the work to get the result you want. That means editing, tweaking, and rewriting in response to any constructive feedback you get.
As a writer, your goal should be to get rejected as often as possible! If you work hard, if you put yourself out there, you will face rejection but in time you may win a few acceptances too.
Moving Past the Wall of Rejection
That’s not to say that rejection doesn’t sting. Hell yeah, it does!
When you think about the time and energy you put into developing your story, the blood, sweat, and tears you put into writing, editing, and rewriting, it almost feels as if you’ve been through labor. You’ve given birth to a new creation. Then someone tells you that your baby is ugly. OUCH!
Your words have the power to bring imagination into the real world. Thank goodness your writing is not actually a living, breathing thing though. That would give whole new meaning to William Faulkner’s recommendation to “kill your darlings” when it comes time to edit. You would be the sickest sicko to hurt a baby but you must be a psychopath with your writing, willing to tear it apart piece by piece. The only way to turn those rejections around is to accept change and make your work better.
Few, if any, of us get it right on the first try. Rejection is part of the writing process so it is better to embrace it than fight it. Be like Stephen King. You may not need to use a hammer, a drill, or a nailgun, but you too can face down your own wall of rejection with resilience and grit.