Image: white flag of surrender
Every editor has different taste, and every publication has a different "flavor." So does every publishing house, from the small operations that put out a single book a year in hand letterpress to the biggies that put out thousands of mass market books annually.
Here's my experience with a piece that I first drafted more than 20 years ago.
For the first few years, I sent it out religiously and always got it back, sometimes with a nice note but usually with just a form rejection. I stuck it in a virtual drawer for a decade, though I still believed in it and tinkered occasionally.
Six years ago, I sent it out again and was offered publication! The editor told me that she went back and forth on the piece for a while due to length, but she eventually decided it was "too emotionally powerful not to take." And it was nominated for a major literary award that year (though not a winner).
I'm not ranking myself anywhere near the writing greats we all know. Nor do I believe perseverance is enough. But consistent rejection can make us better writers, better readers, and better editors of our own work if we allow it to do its work in us.
I had to decide whether I was wrong about this piece. Was I too close to it? Was it precious to me alone and no one else? Was I blind to its flaws? Was it really unpublishable? Etc.
And I continually came to the same conclusion: no, its time just hasn't yet come.
I learned to believe in myself and in my writing and my judgment of its merits. And frankly, the decade of tinkering made it much better than it had been to begin with!
So, in a sense, we were ALL right about it.