Joe Hiland, the editor of the Indiana Review, wrote a note to potential contributors about what sort of submissions are almost instantly rejected. He describes three different types of cliche-ridden stories that are eliminated "simply because I read the first three or four pages and say to myself, 'I’ve read this story before.'" Behold one of these categories, what Hiland labels "Scholars Misbehaving" stories:
These stories follow a) precarious graduate students or b) disillusioned professors as they indulge in various intoxicants and engage in ill-advised affairs with a) precarious undergraduates or b) precarious graduate students, respectively. The prevalence of “Scholars Misbehaving” stories is perhaps an inevitable side effect of the number of contemporary writers who have been through the academy (and can’t seem to keep their pants on), but these stories tend to suffer from two major shortcomings. First, they’re often packed with dense, sometimes esoteric, passages about the main character’s academic pursuits. Reading Chaucer can make for a pleasant evening. Reading about a character who’s reading (and hyper-analyzing) Chaucer…not so much. Second, these stories frequently start with depression and go downhill from there. Too often, the protagonists in “Scholars Misbehaving” stories simply aren’t sympathetic. They’re characterized by little more than their status as misbehaving scholars, and so much of the space that could be devoted to what might make these characters unique and interesting is devoted instead to the aforementioned academic passages that clog up the story and slow down the narrative.
Relatedly, you can peruse rejection letters from a wide array of literary journals at RejectionWiki.
(Hat tip: The Paris Review)
The Dish 