Don’t worry, rejection doesn’t mean we hate you. So far, for every story we select, we reject around 100. Apart from questions of quality, there is a limit to how many stories we can print. What is more, each story is sent to the readers with no author details attached, so every story has to stand entirely on its own merits. There are all sorts of reasons a story might be rejected, ranging from the fact that the author does not know how to write basic English, through to “this is great, but we’ve already GOT a shapeshifting transvestite elf story in this issue”.
If we do reject your story, take a look at the reader comments, take them on board and then apply them to your next piece of work. Learning from your mistakes means that the next time you submit a story to us, it’ll be better!