Can stories be "revived"?

Question

Has it happened to you that "you're in love" with an idea of yours? Like a core idea that you won't let go no matter what?I heard that people usually write, check and recheck the story they write, putting much effort into polishing. But once it fails due to some reason, they move to another one. If I speak of a story as the current assembly of elements that the story have, then maybe the story it's dead there. But If I talk about the core idea that drives the story, not the way it is told, wouldn't it be different?Can a story that was once presented to an editor, and rejected, be perfected in order to be presented to another editor?

Answer 1

Yes, some can! Dr. Suess had his first story rejected over two dozen times before finding a press that agreed to publish it. Sometimes a story needs to be set aside awhile in order for the writer to get a fresh perspective. In 1973 Fred Pohl finished and published a collaborative work he'd begun with Cyril M. Kornbluth twenty years earlier.