Telling a story

We are working hard behind-the-scenes at Electric Spec on the marvelous May 2022 issue!
Thank you authors for sending your stories!
Thank you editors for reading slush!
I believe we have finished the initial slush reads. This means if we received your story before the submission deadline you have, or will very soon, hear from us. Folks should have gotten a rejection (sorry!) or a hold-for-voting (yay!) email.

I read a lot of stories in the slush pile in which the author told me a story. When we're kids our parents read us bedtime stories. Once upon a time.... We often tell our friends anecdotes of our day. We tell stories around the campfire when we go camping. Blogs often involves a lot of telling.
All of these experiences have led us astray. A good story needs to have some showing. Act out the events of your story! Show us the dialogue. Show us the actions. Show us the physical sensations and sensory details.
There are some markets which let you get away with all telling, but Electric Spec is not really one of them.

Next time, I'll tell you about the production meeting. :)

Behind-the-scenes

To those of you who sent us stories for the marvelous May 2022 issue of Electric Spec, thank you very much!
(To those of you who didn't your stories in on time, don't worry. We're accepting stories for the awesome August 2022 issue!)

We are hard at work behind-the-scenes getting the new issue ready. What does this entail? Well, we have a veritable army of editors reading the submitted stories. Many stories have more than one editor consider them. Thus, the longer it takes to hear back from us, the better it usually is.
However, we never take more than four months to get back to authors. Sometimes, authors don't hear anything back. Unfortunately, that usually means the story got lost somewhere in cyberspace. (No idea why this happens occasionally.)
Anyway, keep any eye on your email for the editor's message. This will initially be a 'No. Thanks.' or a 'Maybe. Stay tuned.' message.

We are currently planning the Production Meeting for the beginning of May. At this meeting each editor presents their rankings of all the 'Maybe' stories from favorite to least favorite. And, then, the debates/games/kerfuffles begin! In recent years, each editor generally gets to successfully advocate for their favorite story and will end up working with that author.
So, at the meeting, we plan out the whole issue, from artwork to stories, to Editor's Corner. I'll tell you more about this later.

I better get back to work on slush!

A Writing Habit

The submission deadline for the marvelous May 2022 issue of Electric Spec is almost upon us. Send us your story by April 15, 2022. We are currently working hard behind-the-scenes. :)

A helpful thing for writers (and editors) is to make a habit of your writing (or editing) tasks. This could mean writing at the same time every day. Or, it could mean writing to pre-set deadlines. Or, it could mean having a friend or relative that holds you accountable. Perhaps you submit stories every Monday or the first Monday of every month. Perhaps you write on your blog every week, or tweet every day at lunchtime. Whatever works for you make a habit of it and stick to it!

Good luck!

Don't wake up

We are working hard behind-the-scenes on the marvelous May 2022 issue of Electric Spec. Notice the submission deadline is coming up soon: April 15, 2022. Get those stories in!

I have been reading a lot of slush. A surprising number of stories begin with the same thing, namely, the protagonist wakes up. I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: do not start your story with the protag waking up. This is because so many submitted stories begin this way. You may be thinking, 'But I haven't read that many published stories that begin that way.' This is because Editors rarely select them, or, if they do, they modify this in rewrites.

I better get back to the slush pile.
Thanks for submitting your story!