Withdrawing a Submission
Quick answer: Withdrawing a submission means formally telling an editor your story is no longer available, usually after another market accepts it. Here is how to do it right.
Withdrawing a submission is the act of formally telling a magazine, anthology or contest that your story is no longer available for their consideration. In other words, you are taking the manuscript off their desk before they decide on it. The commonest reason is happy: another market accepted the story first. Other reasons include discovering a serious flaw you want to fix, or losing confidence in the venue itself.
The term belongs to submission etiquette, the unwritten but firmly enforced code that governs how writers and editors deal with each other. Withdrawal only becomes second nature once you submit simultaneously, sending one story to several markets at once, because simultaneous submission runs entirely on the promise that you will withdraw everywhere else the moment someone says yes.
How the mechanics work
Most magazines use submission portals with a withdraw button, and pressing it is the whole procedure: the system notifies the editors and closes the file. Where no button exists, send a short, courteous message to the submissions address: story title, date submitted, and one line saying you are withdrawing it because it has been accepted elsewhere. Editors genuinely like receiving these notes. An acceptance elsewhere tells them their slush pile contains writers other markets want.
For a partial situation, some venues let you withdraw one piece from a multi-piece submission, common with flash fiction, and portals often call this a partial withdrawal. If the platform cannot express it, the polite note does the job: name exactly which piece is gone and confirm the others remain available.
Why prompt withdrawal matters
Editing time is the scarcest resource in the short fiction world. Most magazines are run by tiny teams reading thousands of submissions for no pay, and every hour spent on a story that was quietly sold elsewhere is an hour stolen from live submissions. Failing to withdraw is therefore not a small lapse; it is the fastest way to earn a private reputation as unprofessional at a venue you may want to submit to for years.
The nightmare scenario is real and recurring: an editor accepts a story, begins scheduling it, and only then learns it sold months earlier to someone else. Some magazines respond by refusing future submissions from that writer. Prompt withdrawal costs you two minutes and protects every future story you will ever send them.
When withdrawal is the wrong tool
Do not withdraw a story just to revise a typo or a sentence; editors expect manuscripts to be imperfect, and a swap request or a simple note is often possible. Do not withdraw out of nerves after a week of silence, since response times of three to six months are ordinary. And do not withdraw from a contest expecting a refunded entry fee; fees are almost never returned, because they fund the reading that has already begun. Writory, for instance, publishes a clear monthly cycle, entries open on the 1st and close on the 25th, and as with most contests an entry is a commitment for that cycle.
The legitimate non-acceptance reasons are few: the story has a structural flaw you must fix, the venue has behaved badly in public, or the rights on offer changed. In each case, withdraw cleanly and without explanation beyond a courteous line.
What the note should say
The complete withdrawal message is three sentences and no more. State the story's title and the date you submitted it. Say you are withdrawing it because it has been accepted elsewhere, without naming the other venue unless asked. Thank them for their time and, if it is true, say you look forward to sending new work.
Use a clear subject line, something like Withdrawal: Story Title, so the message can be actioned without being fully read. Resist the urge to apologise at length or to soften the news with paragraphs of gratitude; editors process dozens of these, and brevity is the courtesy. The same shape works for contests and anthologies, adjusted to the entry details their system needs.
Neighbours and opposites
Withdrawal differs from rejection, which is the editor declining you rather than you declining them. It differs from trunking a story, which removes a piece from circulation everywhere rather than from one desk. And it is the counterpart of simultaneous submission: markets that allow the second require the first. A related courtesy is the status query, a polite note asking after a long-overdue submission, which is a request for news, not a withdrawal, though it sometimes precedes one.
What poets can take from this
- Withdraw from every other market within a day of accepting an offer for the story.
- Use the portal's withdraw button where one exists; otherwise send a two-line courteous note.
- Never explain at length; the acceptance elsewhere is explanation enough.
- Keep a live submission tracker so no market is forgotten in the excitement.
- Do not withdraw for minor revisions; editors read manuscripts, not final proofs.
Try it yourself
Write a scene in which a struggling editor discovers, on layout day, that the issue's best story was sold to a rival magazine months ago. Let the story turn on the message the editor sends the writer, and what it costs both of them.
Questions
How do I withdraw a story after it is accepted elsewhere?
Use the withdraw function in each market's submission portal, or send a brief message naming the story and saying it has been accepted elsewhere. Do it within a day or two of accepting the offer.
Will withdrawing a submission annoy editors?
Not if it is prompt and polite. Editors expect withdrawals in a simultaneous submission world and read them as a sign of professionalism. What annoys them is learning too late that a story was never really available.
Can I withdraw a story from a contest and get my fee back?
You can usually withdraw the entry, but fees are almost never refunded because they pay for reading and administration already under way. Check the contest's terms before entering rather than after.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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