Trunk Story
Quick answer: A trunk story is a finished manuscript a writer has set aside, unsold or unloved, for possible revival later. Learn when to trunk a story and when to reopen the trunk.
A trunk story is a manuscript its author has stopped submitting and put away, either because markets kept rejecting it or because the writer lost faith in it. In other words, it is a story in storage rather than in circulation. The name survives from the era when unsold manuscripts literally went into a trunk or a desk drawer; today the trunk is a folder on a hard drive, but the gesture is identical.
The term belongs to the working life of a writer rather than to craft itself. You will hear it wherever writers discuss submission strategy, in workshop circles and market forums, usually in one of two tones: rueful, for the stories that never sold, or delighted, for the trunk story that finally found its moment years later.
The most famous rescue from the trunk
The best known trunked manuscript in modern letters is John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces. Toole could not sell it in his lifetime, and after his death in 1969 the manuscript sat untouched until his mother pressed a smudged carbon copy on the novelist Walker Percy, who reluctantly read it, championed it, and got it published in 1980. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year.
Short fiction has quieter versions of the same arc. Writers routinely report selling a story on its twentieth or thirtieth submission, sometimes to a better market than any that rejected it, and sometimes after years in the trunk followed by one decisive revision. The lesson is not that every trunked piece is a hidden masterpiece. It is that rejection measures fit as much as quality, and fit changes as editors, fashions and markets change.
Why stories get trunked
Some stories exhaust their markets: after fifteen or twenty rejections there may simply be nowhere suitable left to send a piece. Others get trunked because the writer outgrew them; what felt polished two years ago now reads as apprentice work, and the writer would rather be judged by newer material. A third group are casualties of timing, stories on themes that flooded the market or tied to moments that passed.
Trunking is also a sanity mechanism. Endlessly revising one stubborn story teaches you less than writing three new ones. Putting a piece away, deliberately and without drama, frees attention for work that is moving. Most professional writers regard a well-stocked trunk not as a graveyard but as an archive of material at various stages of readiness.
When to reopen the trunk
Reread a trunked story after at least six months. You are looking for one of three verdicts. First, the story is better than you remembered and merely ran out of markets, in which case research newer venues and resubmit. Second, the story has one identifiable flaw you can now see and fix, in which case revise once, thoroughly, and send it out again. Third, the story is apprentice work, in which case mine it for images, characters or premises and leave the rest.
Themed calls and contests are classic trunk-openers, because a story that fit nothing suddenly fits something. A monthly contest with a fresh theme, like Writory's, gives an old story a concrete reason to be reread and rebuilt. The trap is resubmitting unchanged work out of impatience; if a story earned twenty rejections, send it back into the world only after you can name what is different about it now.
Keeping a trunk that works for you
A useful trunk is organised, not heaped. Give every retired story a note recording why it was trunked: markets exhausted, flaw unsolved, voice outgrown. Future you will make better revival decisions with that one line than with memory alone. Keep the final submitted version and the submission log together, so a revived piece does not accidentally return to a market that already declined it.
Some writers also keep a spare-parts file beside the trunk, a document of salvaged openings, characters and images from stories that will never fly whole. Between the trunk and the parts file, nothing you finish is ever wasted; it is either resting or being reused.
Neighbours and opposites
A trunk story is not a first draft: it is usually finished, revised and previously submitted work. It differs from a withdrawn submission, which is a piece pulled from one specific market while remaining in circulation elsewhere. And it is the opposite of a live submission, a story actively under consideration. The nearest cousin is the trunk novel, the full-length manuscript most published novelists admit to keeping, usually their first or second book, which taught them to write and will never leave the drawer.
What poets can take from this
- Log every story's submission history so you can tell a trunked piece from a resting one.
- Set a rejection threshold, say fifteen markets, before you allow yourself to trunk a story.
- Reread trunked work every six to twelve months with a fresh market list open.
- Before reviving a trunk story, name the specific change that makes it stronger now.
- Harvest freely: a dead story's best image or character can power a living one.
Try it yourself
Open your oldest abandoned story and read only its final page. Write a brand new story that begins where that one ended, using the same characters five years later, and see whether the trunked material was an ending or a beginning in disguise.
Questions
How many rejections should a story get before I trunk it?
There is no fixed number, but many writers use fifteen to twenty suitable markets as a working threshold. If strong venues remain untried, keep submitting; stories frequently sell after dozens of rejections.
Is trunking a story the same as giving up on it?
No. Trunking is a pause, not a verdict. The trunk exists precisely so you can return with fresh eyes, revise with skills you did not have before, or wait for a market where the story finally fits.
Should I mention a story's rejection history when submitting it?
Never. Editors judge the story in front of them, and its past has no bearing on their read. A cover letter should stay short and professional regardless of how travelled the manuscript is.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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