tips from slush

The excitement of the most recent issue of Electric Spec hasn't faded when we already have to start working on the next issue. We, The Editors, have been reading slush. As you may have guessed I have some tips...

• MARKET. Know your market. If you are submitting to Electric Spec, we are your market. And you're in luck: you can read every story we've ever published for free! This will tell you some things about Electric Spec:
  • Your story must have a speculative element.
  • Your story must have a protagonist.
  • Something must happen in your story.
  • We prefer showing rather than telling. (If you don't know what this means, say something in the comments here and I'll do a blog post on it.)
• We do accept flash fiction, but it still has to be complete story and not just the beginning of a story or the outline of a story.
• Don't send us stories we've read a million (okay, a bunch of) times. These include:
  • The protagonist wakes up in the first scene.
  • A man killing his wife/girlfriend/mistress/all-of-the-above/etc.
  • Straight-up regular vampires or werewolves with regular problems. We like vamps and weres but show us something different.
  • Standard quest stories. Again, we like quests, but show us something original.
• We'd love to see
  • Unique epic fantasy.
  • Steampunk.
  • Genre mashups.
  • Your original idea here. :)

Do send us your stories! We appreciate you, authors!

Thank you!