In response to a blog rant about rejection, Randall Brown suggested I post a series of interviews that list “in excruciating detail, all that each editor desires in his/her stories.” Wow. What a great idea. Thus began my Six Questions For. . . blog.

The first post went live in December 2009, and I reached a milestone near the end of May when I received my 100th set of responses (not all have appeared online yet). This post is the first in an occasional series where I attempt to draw some conclusions based on the editors’ answers. For this analysis, I chose eighty-eight sets of responses to gather data (not every editor was asked the same questions).

Two questions, in particular, provided some enlightening answers. “What are the top three reasons a story is rejected?” and “What common mistakes do you encounter that turn you off to a story?” A number of responses appeared multiple times: “It’s not a story.” “The prose didn’t match the magazine’s style.” “It didn’t fit our current needs.” Many editors expressed the idea that rejections weren’t personal. It was often a matter of numbers. Editors simply couldn’t accept every story/poem they received; and, as one editor put it, with so many submissions, he looked for any reason to reject a story.

Two items stood out as author responsibilities that many writers appear to ignore, or don’t feel are important.

Twenty-five editors mentioned not reading the publication guidelines as a reason submissions were rejected. Editors who receive 200-300 submissions a month don’t have time to reformat stories sent using strange fonts or that are double-spaced with paragraphs indented, when the guidelines specify Times Roman, single-spaced, and no indents. Nor does it help an author to send stories inappropriate for the content of the publication (e.g., sending a literary story to a magazine that publishes fantasy and science fiction). I know one editor who returns e-mail submissions without reading them if the subject heading does not follow the guidelines.

Failure to read the guidelines came in a distant second to a surprising category. Over half of the editors (fifty-two) mentioned poor grammar as a reason a story was rejected. Many said they could overlook a few mistakes. One editor put the limit at three. Others weren’t as kind. For many, poor grammar was the sign of a sloppy, unprofessional writer. As one editor put it, “Grammar counts.”

In my brief time as an editor, I have yet to reject a story for not following the guidelines (although I came close). I have turned away stories with poor grammar. One, in particular, I liked; but I decided I didn’t want to spend the amount time it would’ve taken to get the story ready for publication. This problem isn’t limited to new writers. I received a story from an author with a number of quality publications, yet rejected her work because of poor grammar and other editing errors. I felt insulted that someone with that amount of experience thought so little of me as an editor that she felt sending a poorly crafted story was acceptable–and I told her so in my e-mail response.

Getting stories published is tough. There are hundreds (thousands?) of excellent stories submitted every week. Those stories submitted by authors who don’t act in a professional manner by reading and following a publication’s guidelines and showing respect for the editor by sending clear, error free copy are the most likely to be found in an editor’s “rejected” pile–regardless of the quality of the story.

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Flash fiction bewitched Jim Harrington in early in 2007, and he’s read, written, studied, and agonized over the form since. He writes about his personal writing journey at Quotes on Writing . His Six Questions For blog provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.” In his spare time, her serves as the flash fiction editor for Apollo’s Lyre .