I have been receiving some great stories over the last couple of weeks so thank you to all who have already submitted, but increasingly I have noticed some common errors and formatting issues and decided to set up this topic to help you out.

1. Formatting:

The formatting guidelines may seem a bit didactic or annoying, but allow me to explain. If your story is selected for publication I need to be able to copy and paste it straight out of your document into the magazine, wherein I can format it in the correct way for printing. When I come across stories that have been incorrectly formatted it can take hours to reformat and there is always the risk that I may misinterpret the end of a sentence for the end of a paragraph and accidentally change your story.

So below I have attempted to explain the exact formatting requirements by giving you an example of a correctly formatted piece, if these are still a little confusing then please let me know and I will try and clarify them further.

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2. Writing In The Present Tense:

Unless you are a screenplay writer writing in the present tense is one of the hardest things to do, and produces some of the most disconcerting mistakes.
If your story is written in the present tense, then do yourself, and me, a favour, proof it, proof it, proof it!

Below I have added some common mistakes that writers make when writing in the present tense and below that the correction.

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Here is the corrected version:

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Some of these errors may seem pretty obvious. They are and proof-reading your story before submitting will uncover 90% of them. But be warned, there are some sneaky ones that on first reading seem to make sense. The only way around it is to proof read your stories with a fine tooth comb.

3. Grammar and Spelling

Not enough can be said about this. These are the most fundamental tools of a writer. Without them the most amazing stories are rendered unreadable and crap!

Don't trust your spell checker!
Though immensely useful, spellcheckers aren't perfect.
For starters make sure your spell checker is in UK English and not US English. Word tends to default to American English and it can be infuriating.
Spellchecker will also not spot single letter mistakes or typos that form other words, eg. ad instead of had, or s instead of is.
Always read your work before submitting!
Print it out and read it with a red pen in hand, find those nasty mistakes and typos.

I hope this hasn't come across as condescending or patronising, honestly my sole intention is to help you get your work published.
I have been reading dozens of stories and I seem to be spending most of the time editing mistakes instead of enjoying the stories.

All the best
J

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Phreak wrote on Jun 11^th, 2006, 9:28pm:


right... the way it works is thus:
You send me random samples of your work.
If they are really cool then I contact you and say, "I like you broo, you're cool" and then when I have chosen the stories I will match up artists styles with stories and send an artist the story to read and do some illustrations for me (number of illustrations will depend on length of story - i.e. how many pages it covers).

The average story (2000 words) is about three-four magazine pages and will probably require no more than two pieces of art to go with it.



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The non-fiction articles might also carry art but otherwise no.
Not unless it is a promo piece for the artist - (which is an idea that might be worth looking at)

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No, unless a piece of art is connected to a piece of writing, there will be no specific themes - (other than horror, of course)

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ALL interior art will be B&W - I can't afford to print this in colour....yet

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Writer's deadline is 15 August, so artists deadline will be 15 Sep - but seriosly though, as soon as possible is always good when dealing with print deadlines. Obviously artists can't get anything done until they recieve a story to illustrate so I will be sending out stories as soon as I can. As soon as a story is chosen for print I will contact the artists on file.
Might be interesting to place the specific genre's in a a board and let the artists decide amongst themselves who wants to do what - what you think Phreak?
let me know on that one.

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That's a bloody good question.
I will be more than happy to offer feedback to stories that aren't accepted but only if the writer requests it.
Normal procedure will be a polite rejection letter (that's an oxymoron surely polite rejection?)

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   I will always have exceptionally good reasons for not picking a story. I will never disqualify a story just because I don't like it.
Grammar, Spelling and sentence construction will be my primary reason for not accepting stories, though I may also simply not have space in the issue for them. If the latter is the case then I will contact the author and arrange for the story to be printed in a later issue.

As for your "friend"'s story...tell him not to worry, but I will send him an email shortly telling him myself

Hope this helps.
J

Is the application form not required for the story submissions anymore?

darkan wrote on Jun 15^th, 2006, 9:16am:


Don’t worry about the entry form.

I realised that it was incredibly cumbersome and therefore did away with it.

For the sake of the competition all I really need is your contact details and an acceptance of the terms on the website which by submitting you automatically agree to.

Do please read the Legal Stuff on the Something Wicked site

Joe

Formatting Query:
How are a character's thoughts formatted?

Example -
It's snowing, she thought.

"It's snowing," she thought.

It's snowing, she thought.

Or

'OH MY GAWD IT"S SNOWING!! MY EYES!!? THEY ARE FREEZING' he whispers in a squeaky voice, as he stumbles out of the bar into the freezer.

All up to the writer!

Oh bugger off
I don't know how to spell Gramma, grammer, grammar....
I don't need to, I'm just the editor

My proofers take care of that stuff.
Anyway it's been fixed now - thanks

If mine are rejected then I'd definately appreciate some helpful feedback as to why it was rejected. I think that would definately help writers (or artists too, I suppose) to improve on the work submitted.

By the way, how many pieces are accepted per issue, as a general rule?