Twenty common reasons why a short story failed to get published.
- Well-worn theme – the magazine may already have a glut of the same type of stories. Study your market and try a topic that’s a little different.
- Too dull.
- Too melodramatic.
- The wrong central character.
- Slow beginning.
- Uninteresting characters.
- Change of view point. Whose story is it?
- Time span too long. A short story cannot cope with a War and Peace epic.
- Plot too contrived. The ending has to be logical.
- Trivial (another word for boring).
- Over-blown descriptions.
- Muddled or confusing.
- No shape – have a clear structure with a beginning, middle & end.
- Lack of conflict (boring again!).
- Too little dialogue.
- Unbelievable dialogue.
- Goes off on a tangent. Stick to the point.
- Bad writing.
- Bad spelling and punctuation.
- Unsatisfactory ending. It doesn’t need to be a Hollywood-swell-the-music ending but the reader feel it was worth taking the time to read it.