In the face of so much slush, I must admit, I do have some advice for folks...
In the interests of being positive, I'm calling it
Do's & Do's:
- Do send us your short stories, rather than your novels. We don't publish novels.
- Do include your story as an rtf attachment.
- Do send us spec fiction. This includes science fiction, fantasy, horror and any combination thereof. In fact, I'd love to see more SF/Fantasy and/or horror combos. :)
- Do send us one story at a time.
- Do send us a unique original story. The following plots will be a tough sell:
- Aliens land on earth.
- Aliens land on earth and attack humans.
- Aliens land on earth and have sex with humans.
- A person is changed into a vampire.
- A person is killed by a vampire.
- A person has sex with a vampire.
- A robot is built.
- A robot attacks one or more people.
- A robot has sex with one or more people.
Actually, this robot stuff reminds me of a really funny story I saw in The Onion: Roomba Violates All Three Laws Of Roombotics. You know I'm an Asimov fan, right? :) - Aliens land on earth.
- Do use correct grammar and spelling.
- Do note MSWord Spell Autocheck (or whatever it's called) is not always your friend, e.g. from/form, etc.
- Do use first-person pov OR third-person pov consistently (2nd-person is a tough sell).
- Do use past tense (present tense might be okay).
- Do note MSWord Spell Autocheck (or whatever it's called) is not always your friend, e.g. from/form, etc.
- Do have your critique group critique your story. You know I'm a big advocate of critique groups, right? In the absence of a critique group, do have your buddy/mom/spouse/alien?/vampire?/robot? read over your story and make sure there are no glaring errors.
- Do include a cover letter with your name, pen name, email address, story title, story word count, previous pub credits. You can tell us about your hobbies, your kids, your insert-whatever-here, but we don't really care about that stuff.
- If you feel you MUST reply to our rejection/hold-for-voting email, do be polite and professional.
- When your story is accepted do be professional with your editor. :)
Thanks!
4 comments:
I "do" think these are excellent points, Lesley. I hope potential Electric Spec authors "do" read our blog so they can be in the inside track. I wonder we should give faithful blog readers some sort of priority in a review process.
Interesting idea, Editor Dave. Any suggestions on how to implement this? :)
That sounds like a good project for Dave! :D
i'm a faithful reader with BOTH of your sites linked :D
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