‘When you find the thing that you feel you’re born to do,

you don’t let it go in a hurry.’

-Malorie Blackman

Whether querying, on submission, receiving reviews and critiques, or just dealing with insurmountable difficulties while trying to draft/edit, rejection is inevitable in any writer’s journey.

We’re told not to be too quick in equating rejection with poor writing ability because it’s often based on personal preference and the state of the current (or near future) market. But hearing ‘the publishing industry is ever-changing and subjective’ is like trying to put a bandage on a bruise; it’s not going to do much, and it still hurts when prodded.

To get through the hurt, I started researching the rejection stories of authors I admire, which quickly spiralled into a fascination with the prevalence of rejection in a writer’s life. And let me tell you, it is prevalent. 

Welcome to part TWO of the Rejection Series, where I share famous authors' experiences with rejection as a reminder to just keep going. (Read part ONE here)

Read on...

Brandon Sanderson

13 rejected books and applications to MFA programs didn’t stop Sanderson in his quest to becoming the now iconic fantasy writer he is, who is so beloved by readers that his Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign became the most successful campaign ever. Despite publishers telling him that his books were too long, that he should try being darker or “more like George R.R. Martin,” he persevered with not only his own writing, but his own vision, too.

“No one wanted to read what I wanted to write. But when I tried to write what they wanted to read, I got even worse. I was like, what am I doing?” he said in a 2020 interview with The Guardian. “It was stressful. A part of you has to wonder, after you’ve written a dozen novels and they’re all getting rejected, maybe this isn’t right for you? Maybe that’s what people are trying to tell you, but you’re not understanding. Everyone collects rejection letters, but not everyone is so stubborn as to keep doing it after that many.”

Louisa May Alcott

The Little Women author received feedback which I think is harsher than 100+ form rejections (a bold statement, I know, but get ready for this...) When publisher James T. Fields rejected her work, he told her, “Stick to your teaching, Miss Alcott. You can’t write.”

Imagine being the person who told Louisa May Alcott that she couldn’t write. And what if she’d quit? What if she’d been so crushed by this rejection that she'd believed it and never wrote again? This, to me, proves that resiliency and belief in our own voice are vital components in a writers toolkit (almost as important as delusion and an unhealthy obsession with em-dashes).

Kathryn Stockett

Kathryn Stockett, author of the immensely successful book The Help, received 60 rejection letters over 3 and a half years. When reminiscing on her rejections, Stockett once wrote:

'"Maybe the next book will be the one,” a friend said. Next book? I wasn’t about to move on to the next one just because of a few stupid letters

I wanted to write this book.

A year and a half later, I opened my 40th rejection: “There is no market for this kind of tiring writing.” That one finally made me cry. “You have so much resolve, Kathryn,” a friend said to me. “How do you keep yourself from feeling like this has been just a huge waste of your time?”

That was a hard weekend. I spent it in pajamas, slothing around that racetrack of self-pity—you know the one, from sofa to chair to bed to refrigerator, starting over again on the sofa. But I couldn’t let go of The Help. Call it tenacity, call it resolve or call it what my husband calls it: stubbornness.

After rejection number 40, I started lying to my friends about what I did on the weekends. They were amazed by how many times a person could repaint her apartment. The truth was, I was embarrassed for my friends and family to know I was still working on the same story, the one nobody apparently wanted to read.'

Letter number 61 would finally be the YES Stockett was waiting for, and The Help would go on to be on the New York Times bestseller list for over 100 weeks, sell over seven million copies and become a massive movie. Mic. Drop.

William Golding

Lord of the Flies (yes, the iconic piece of literature that's been a part of many educational curriculums for decades) was rejected by 9 different publishers before it was sent to Faber and Faber. There, one of the publisher’s professional readers gave a written verdict with a circled R for ‘reject.’ It was dismissed as an "absurd and uninteresting fantasy” and labelled "Rubbish and dull. Pointless." However, Charles Monteith, a junior editor who had only been working at the publishing house for a few months, saw the potential in the story and rescued it from the depths of the reject pile.

It takes one yes, people. Just one.

Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss wrote his first children’s book in 1937, called A Story No One Can Beat which was later retitled And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. Though the exact amount of rejections he received on this book is hard to find (with most sources stating it was somewhere between 20 – 40) it was enough that one day, as he was walking home to burn his manuscript, he ran into an old acquaintance from school who happened to work in the publishing industry. Firstly, the acquaintance convinced him not to burn the manuscript and then insisted on reading it for himself. The rest, as they say, is history…

(Personally, I can’t imagine a childhood without Cat in the Hat...how dull the world could have been!)

And lastly…

The Diary of Anne Frank (originally titled as Het Achterhuis Dagboekbrieven 14 Juni 1942 – 1 Augustus 1944) was rejected by 16 publishers, with one publisher even stating, ‘the girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the ‘curiosity’ level.’

If you're sitting slack-jawed after reading that one...me too, babe. Me too.

The rejections will come, sometimes accompanied by crushing criticisms, but the writer cannot be deterred if they wholeheartedly believe that their purpose is to write.

In short...

If you believe in your story, keep going.