Daniel Lefferts: On How Rejection Can Be Affirming

Daniel Lefferts was born in upstate New York. He holds an MFA from Columbia University and has taught writing at Columbia and Rutgers. Follow him on X (Twitter) and Instagram.

Daniel Lefferts

Photo by Nina Subin

In this post, Daniel discusses how he took a short story idea and wrote it into his debut literary novel, Ways and Means, how rejection from agents was surprisingly heartening, and more!

Name: Daniel Lefferts
Literary agent: Chris Clemans
Book title: Ways and Means
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Release date: February 6, 2024
Genre/category: Literary Fiction
Elevator pitch: Set in New York against the backdrop of the 2016 election, Ways and Means centers on a gay finance student who goes to work for an enigmatic billionaire and becomes embroiled in a scheme beyond his darkest imagining. The book also follows Alistair’s lovers, an older couple with financial and moral predicaments of their own, as it investigates class, ambition, sex, art, and politics in 21st-century America.

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What prompted you to write this book?

This book first came to life as a half-finished short story, and it began with the central character, Alistair. I was transfixed by the idea of a bright, confident, yet deeply troubled finance student who, in his quest to lift himself out of poverty, gets in way over his head.

I think Alistair captivated me because he’s different from me in 100 ways but similar to me in a few important ones. I didn’t study finance, and I haven’t worked for nefarious billionaire (yet), but Alistair and I come from the same impoverished city in upstate New York, and I understand his overbearing class anxiety. Writing about him allowed me to imagine other, more dangerous, and more entertaining paths down which that anxiety might lead someone.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I began writing the book in earnest in 2017 and am publishing it almost seven years later. Along the way there have been fallow periods, waiting games, revisions, and yes, many changes. The plot structure transformed radically several times, but the book’s central questions, character dynamics, and tone have always remained largely the same—which gave me faith that there was something about my initial vision worth pursuing.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

I was surprised by how heartening a “no” from an agent or editor can be. Some of the rejection letters I received contained words of affirmation and recognition that I still think about to this day and take encouragement from.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

I was surprised by how many drastic changes a book can undergo while still preserving its essence. Every time I embarked on a large-scale revision, I worried I was entering into a Ship of Theseus situation: If I change my book this much, will it still remain “my book” as I know it? To my amazement and my relief, it always did.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

As a writer I care first and foremost about style, so more than any theme, thesis, or emotional experience I hope readers will take away a vocabulary and a rhythm through which to experience the world anew: a sensibility that will sharpen their own. To me that’s the mark of a successful book. When I begin noticing, listening, and thinking like an author—when I find my thoughts following the grooves their consciousness—I know I’ve encountered some degree of greatness.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

I used to roll my eyes whenever I heard writers or instructors rhapsodize about writing “process.” Write every day, write 500 words a day … to me the fixation on process seemed fetishistic and beside the point. If you’re writing something valuable and of genuine interest to you, I thought, you don’t need to concern yourself with habits and tricks.

But after years of flailing and stalling out I finally admitted defeat and instituted a process, and only then did my writing really get off the ground. My process? I write every day, and I write 500 words a day. My former self is rolling his eyes again, but he was wrong!

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