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Wrote this up a bit ago, posting since a couple of people said it would be interesting to read. I've only ever read slush for Ideomancer, but based on that and my experience with submitting stories and reading other writers' anecdotes of submitting stories, these are all pretty general. Proportions of form/personal rejections vary with market, of course; a site like Duotrope can give you an idea of that ratio.
Rejectomancy is very tempting as a writer. "What did they mean?" and "did they like it?" and "did they hate it?" "do they hate me?"
1. "Not right for us" has approximately fifty meanings. No one can tell which one is applicable except the person sending the letter.
2. Getting a response either more quickly or more slowly than the estimated time online...well, mostly means nothing. Except "I need time later in the week for this other stuff" or "ohgod finals slush will have to wait" or "I traded a piece of slush with someone, and theirs came in later but I'm doing slush now so I may as well get it done" or something else unrelated to the submitted piece in question.
(2a. Exception: if it's over the stated response time, you may query.)
3. A personalized rejection and a rewrite request can be structured and worded similarly, but they are not the same thing.
(3a. Usually, if a personalized rejection letter lists one downside of a story, that is not the only reason that they aren't taking it. That just happens to be the most obvious reason they aren't taking it. If that was the only reason, they'd ask you to rewrite and resubmit.)
(3b. If I read and responded to the same story twice, say in two different months, I would
i) give it the same class of response (pass up, rewrite, rejection) and
ii) if rejecting it, probably give a different reason each time, depending on what was jumping out at me that day/week/month.)
4. Each story really is considered on its own merits.
4a. Names do sometimes ring bells--probably not for bigger markets that have huge slush piles, but at Ideomancer sometimes they do--sometimes I happen to get several stories from the same person. But it dissociates from their prior stories, it's just "oh, that name looks familiar". Maaaaybe "oh, I remember her last submission was really close". I used to get all flinchy about submitting, 'what if they don't like it and then they hate me'--that doesn't happen. (Possibly I'll frown at your con badge because your name is familiar and I can't remember why.)
4b. Publishing credits in a cover letter don't do much for me as a slush reader. It's nice, sometimes, but the story is what we're considering. I have loved stories with bare-bones cover letters, and been meh about stories that came in with impressive publishing credits in the cover letter.
5. Personal preference can never completely be avoided, but slush readers do try to get their brains out of the way of the story.
These transfer to not freaking out when I submit stories, and have partially but not entirely transferred to not freaking out about submitting a novel query to agents. There's stuff to be learned from slush-reading about the actual work with words of writing, too, but most of that doesn't fit neatly into lists.
Rejectomancy is very tempting as a writer. "What did they mean?" and "did they like it?" and "did they hate it?" "do they hate me?"
1. "Not right for us" has approximately fifty meanings. No one can tell which one is applicable except the person sending the letter.
2. Getting a response either more quickly or more slowly than the estimated time online...well, mostly means nothing. Except "I need time later in the week for this other stuff" or "ohgod finals slush will have to wait" or "I traded a piece of slush with someone, and theirs came in later but I'm doing slush now so I may as well get it done" or something else unrelated to the submitted piece in question.
(2a. Exception: if it's over the stated response time, you may query.)
3. A personalized rejection and a rewrite request can be structured and worded similarly, but they are not the same thing.
(3a. Usually, if a personalized rejection letter lists one downside of a story, that is not the only reason that they aren't taking it. That just happens to be the most obvious reason they aren't taking it. If that was the only reason, they'd ask you to rewrite and resubmit.)
(3b. If I read and responded to the same story twice, say in two different months, I would
i) give it the same class of response (pass up, rewrite, rejection) and
ii) if rejecting it, probably give a different reason each time, depending on what was jumping out at me that day/week/month.)
4. Each story really is considered on its own merits.
4a. Names do sometimes ring bells--probably not for bigger markets that have huge slush piles, but at Ideomancer sometimes they do--sometimes I happen to get several stories from the same person. But it dissociates from their prior stories, it's just "oh, that name looks familiar". Maaaaybe "oh, I remember her last submission was really close". I used to get all flinchy about submitting, 'what if they don't like it and then they hate me'--that doesn't happen. (Possibly I'll frown at your con badge because your name is familiar and I can't remember why.)
4b. Publishing credits in a cover letter don't do much for me as a slush reader. It's nice, sometimes, but the story is what we're considering. I have loved stories with bare-bones cover letters, and been meh about stories that came in with impressive publishing credits in the cover letter.
5. Personal preference can never completely be avoided, but slush readers do try to get their brains out of the way of the story.
These transfer to not freaking out when I submit stories, and have partially but not entirely transferred to not freaking out about submitting a novel query to agents. There's stuff to be learned from slush-reading about the actual work with words of writing, too, but most of that doesn't fit neatly into lists.
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