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How to Know When a Short Story Is Ready to Submit

We’re in the middle of an open call for After Happy Hour, which means I’ve been reading a lot of submissions lately. The variety of stories that get submitted to us always makes it an adventure to read the slush, and it’s usually one I enjoy. For the most part, the stories people send us are fun to read. A lot of the things we reject are good stories at their core that either just don’t fit the aesthetic of the journal—or, more often, that are a draft or two shy of being completely finished.

I think every writer has sent out stories too early at some point. I’ve definitely been guilty of it—I’ll finish a round of edits, think the story’s finally done, and send it off. Then I reread the story after the rejections come in and realize I’m glad those editors said no, because the piece definitely isn’t as good as it could be.

I had a very productive fall and winter for writing new short stories, so I have a lot of things that are either being submitted or that are almost ready to submit. I also have a good number that aren’t there yet and need at least one more deep editing pass before I can start sending them out. I’m trying to learn from my past mistakes and not submit things before they’re really ready—but without veering too far in the other direction, where I tinker endlessly with minute details long after the story was actually ready to go (which I have also been guilty of, on occasion).

I figured I’m probably not the only writer who struggles to find this balance. While I certainly don’t have all the answers, I do feel like I’ve been getting better at knowing when a story’s read to send—or, maybe more important, discerning when it’s still not quite there. Here are some strategies I’ve found helpful.

#1: Let other writers tell you.

I’m lucky in that I have a long-running workshop group that serves as beta readers for most of what I write. They’re also open to reading the same story multiple times (within reason), so when I can’t tell whether a story is finished or not I’ll often send it to them for a second opinion, even if it’s something they’ve workshopped at an earlier stage.

You can kind of infer this from the type of feedback you get from beta readers or workshoppers, too, even if you don’t ask the specific question “Is this ready to send out?” If you’re getting a lot of comments about big-picture elements—things like plot holes, consistency issues, missing or extraneous scenes, or underdeveloped characters or settings—then the story likely still needs significant edits. If people are bringing up things like where you put your commas, or similar small sentence-level issues, they’re digging deep to find things to critique. That’s a good indication the story is very close to ready—just do one last line-level editing pass to fix those sentence issues the group pointed out, and you’ll likely be good to go to submit it. 

If you don’t have beta readers or a workshop group to turn to, there are a variety of online communities where you can get feedback for stories. The depth and quality of the feedback you’ll get from these sites will vary, but you can generally use that same guideline. If everybody’s response is praise or minor sentence-level critiques, the story is likely just a proofreading draft away from submission-ready.

#2: Let it rest a few days after the “final” edit.

Ideally, I’ll put the story away for at least a week. Sometimes, I’ll be coming up against a submission deadline for a theme or anthology or whatnot, in which case I might need to speed this up a bit—but, at minimum, you should let the story sit overnight.

Once it’s rested, open the file again and give it a good read. I like to do an out loud read at this point—I find doing that forces me to slow down and really dig into the language, catching any points that could trip a reader up. If I’m able to just read straight through for the most part, then I’ll start looking for places to submit. If I find myself stopping a lot to make edits, or if I discover any issues that require more in-depth fixes than just rewording a couple lines, then I’ll give the story another complete pass, let it sit, and do it again.

#3: Give it a “reader’s read”.

I’ll sometimes do this instead of (or in addition to) an out loud read after letting the story sit. The goal in a “reader’s read” is not to stop and make any changes—you just read straight through, marking the spots that stuck out to you for the wrong reasons. 

If you have access to a printer, this could be a good time to print a copy of the story and use a highlighter to mark the spots that still need attention. Otherwise, you can use the highlighter function in Word, Google Docs, or a similar word processor. Along with things like awkward sentences, info dumps, wooden dialogue, cliches, and other common issues, highlight spots where:

Read the story straight through, start to finish, without stopping. Once you’re done, ask yourself: was that story satisfying to read? Most importantly: was the conflict, tension, or problem introduced at the beginning of the story resolved by the end?

A “no” to either question means you’ve still got work to do. If the answer is “yes” to both, look back over the places you’ve highlighted. If there are just a few (or none), you can make those quick tweaks then start sending the story out—it’s as close to done as you’re able to make it in the moment. If there’s a lot of highlighter, the story’s not ready yet.

#4: Put the story through a program like Grammarly, Hemingway App, or ProWritingAid.

These programs aren’t perfect, especially for fiction. The suggestions they make won’t always be the best choice for your voice, and they’re not going to tell you if you have deep issues like plot holes or flat characters (at least not in their current free iteration). 

That said, these are useful tools for a writer, especially in later editing stages. One way I like to use Hemingway App is to gauge the consistency of the voice. It highlights complex sentences, instances of passive voice, and adverbs. Not all of these are going to be things you need to change, but by highlighting them, you can see how they’re distributed through your story, and if you use them more in some places than others. For instance, if the first half of the story is relatively free of highlighter but there are big chunks marked as difficult sentences in the second half, that indicates your sentence structures shifted and it could make the voice read inconsistent. That’s at least something to look into deeper before submitting the story.

These tools can be helpful for making line-level corrections, too. It’s at least worthwhile to carefully read any sentences they flag. I often find that passages with a lot of difficult sentences also have other problems—that I was overwriting to cover up some deeper issue. Using an app can help you spot and fix these before you send the story off to publishers. 

#5: Analyze the feedback (or lack thereof) you get with rejections.

In the “better late than never” category, while the ideal is to have a story completely ready to go before you start submitting it, that doesn’t always happen. How editors respond to the story can help you identify whether you were right to send the story out, or if you should give it another edit before the next round. 

To start with the obvious: if you get an acceptance, the story was ready. Even if you open it back up and want to tweak a word or two—doesn’t matter; it was in good enough shape the editor wants it, and you can work with them on any last cleaning tweaks.

Rejections, on the other hand, often require a bit more parsing before they’ll yield any insights. Some editors will provide feedback with rejections, especially if the story was very close to an acceptance. Just like any feedback you get, you don’t need to make any specific changes they suggest if you don’t agree with them. That said, getting comments on things like the character development, plot movement, voice, and other storytelling details does likely mean it’s worth doing another editing pass.

If you’re only getting form rejections, consider how quickly you’re getting them. Bear in mind, every market will have its own typical response time. You can use a platform like Duotrope, Chill Subs, or Submission Grinder to find out how long responses usually take. If most of your rejections are coming faster than average for the markets, it’s probably smart to open the story back up and edit again before submitting it more.

On the other side, some rejections are signs that your story is strong and just hasn’t found the right market, like:

If you’re getting a lot of responses that fall into these categories, you likely have a story that someone will want to publish—you just need to find that someone. Sometimes, it can help to switch up the types of markets you’re sending to. If it’s striking out with online independent journals, maybe try some print university journals and see if they bite. If it’s a story on the boundary between genres or styles, try veering to one side or the other—sending that magical realism story to some literary markets instead of the fantasy markets you’ve been trying, for instance. But the point is, the story probably isn’t the problem.

 

I will say that I always open stories up again and re-read them before I start a submission round. Normally, I’ll make at least one or two little changes every time I do this. Maybe this means I’m still sending things out too early, but I don’t think so. I think it’s a natural impulse writers have to always be tweaking their stories, and you could do it infinitely if you let yourself.

That’s, I suppose, my ultimate sign that a story is ready: when I’ve reached what I call “moving commas mode”. When I read the piece, I only find myself making tiny little tweaks for rhythm or language purposes and otherwise feel like the story is being told the way I want it to be. That’s an annoyingly intangible answer to such an important question, but I suppose, as long as it keeps me sending my work out and getting it published, that it works well enough.

 

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