Yesterday I prematurely launched a short story towards an ezine and promptly cancelled my submission today explaining I wanted to try again with a better text. This aspect of short story writing is very frustrating to me. Time and again I pounded out stories only to detect after I sent them out typos, poor story pacing, and other flaws which resulted in rejection slips. I really put all my heart into my latest effort and want it published so bad I can taste it. But no matter how hard I try, I keep finding something to fix. Just how long do you have to proofread a short story before it is done?
I agree with Trilby. But sooner or later you have to bite the bullet and just send it, or you'll be editing forever. I'd suggest that, after you've sent it off, reading it through again is a mistake.
I can't answer that question, but one thing I find helpful that I'd recommend if you don't do it already - read it out loud. This helps for two reasons - grammatically bad English becomes apparent quickly (though this isn't full-proof, as sometimes the brain just substitutes in the right thing without noticing what's wrong), and aesthetically bad English might become a little more obvious.
Set aside the story for a while...then come back and reread it. Read it out loud to yourself. Have someone else read it, before sending off to publishers. In the big scheme of things, waiting a few weeks before sending a story isn't a big deal. You only get one shot with each publisher with each story.
One shot at publishing So you get one chance at publishing even if you cancel your inital submission?
Everyone has their own process. I suck at both spelling and grammar, so I give myself three drafts to check for that on my own, then I find someone who I know is good at both to take a look at it for me. On the other hand, my actual story telling I feel is adequate and I typically don't change much of that after the story has been finished.... Granted I have never been published... I plan on jumping into that pond shortly so we'll see if the process evolves or not.
No, I expect if you cancelled your own submission, the market in question would look at a revised version.
...or not! some editors might, but i wouldn't count on it... 'twould be best to follow all the good advice given above, so you don't have to 'cancel' anything...
I would say that if you keep sending and cancelling stuff, it's going to look pretty bad on you. Don't make yourself a nuisance to them or else they'll stick your email in the junk folder. Remember, you need them - they don't need you. Once is OK, but don't make it a habit.
