GUIDELINES FOR SHORT FICTION - WEIRD TALES (April 9, 1998)
[These Guidelines may be copied, printed, posted, archived, distributed, handed out, incorporated in other works, or chiseled in granite for any purpose whatever, and we encourage you to do so.]
Weird Tales (R)
(until recently, Worlds of Fantasy & Horror, now WT again
123 Crooked Lane
King of Prussia PA 19406-2570
owlswick@netaxs.com
There are only three Rules for writing; all else is commentary.
RULE ONE: You must seize, then hold, your readers' and your editor's interest and attention, then repay the readers' time and the editor's money by having something to say and sharing it with them.
Rudyard Kipling wrote:
``There are nine and sixty ways
of constructing tribal lays,
and every single one of them is right!''
What follows is commentary, not rules. These suggestions may help, but what's important is the result -- selling an interesting story.
The archetypical plot consists of a Situation (the protagonist meets a problem), a Complication (the problem makes the protagonist do something about it in a series of actions/reactions of rising intensity), a Climax (the protagonist must solve the problem or be broken by it), a Resolution (the problem unwinds, the protagonist succeeds or fails), and an Anticlimax (left-overs are carted off or explained away). Most (not all) stories follow this pattern.
One of those nine and sixty ways to construct your story is based on suggestions from the science-fiction writer and teacher, James Gunn:
Begin with an idea: What would happen if . . . ? and then work out the natural, believable consequences of that one central idea.
Create a background, colorful enough to hold interest, but not one that will overwhelm the story. Remember background is just background; you are writing a story, not a gazetteer.
Select characters who will best dramatize the conflict you've plotted. Observe real people, and model your cast on them. Show them in action from the start; show their characters by what they say and do. You are writing a story, not a set of resumes.
Pick the best viewpoint for telling this story (almost always the most important decision made when writing fiction). Put the reader so firmly into that viewpoint that the reader, as he reads, is that character. Do not pull the reader out of a viewpoint character to describe what he looks like or to present his biography. Get on with the story. If your protagonist's appearance is important to him, he'll stop by a mirror soon enough and thus show the reader that facet of character without your having to tell the reader about it; if it's not important, get on with the story.
Begin your story where and when things become interesting. Homer began the Iliad right in the middle of a war (``I sing of the anger of Achilles . . .'') and Homer sings to us still! Backtrack to explanation or flashback only when it's so relevant to the story that the viewpoint character and the reader, still being that character, remember what happened before this story began. You'll be surprised how few flashbacks you really need!
Write in scenes, dramatizing everything possible. In every scene, put your characters -- and readers -- firmly into the time and place of that scene. Appeal to the senses -- go beyond how things look, go on to the sound and smell and feel of the setting. But don't overdo it; omit everything that doesn't advance the story.
Don't lecture; exposition is all dead matter. Avoid cliches like the plague! Learning to avoid triteness in word and phrase and in ideas, plots, characters, and backgrounds is easily half of becoming a good writer.
Mark Twain wrote, in his famous essay, ``Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses,'' that:
01. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.
02. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it.
03. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.
04. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.
05. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.
06. When the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.
07. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt- edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a Negro minstrel in the end of it.
08. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale.
09. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.
10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.
11. The characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.
12. The author shall say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
13. He shall use the right word, not its second cousin.
14. He shall eschew surplusage.
15. He shall not omit necessary details.
16. He shall avoid slovenliness of form.
17. He shall use good grammar.
18. He shall employ a simple, straightforward style.
Elsewhere, he wrote: ``The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.'' Also: ``Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.''
But all this is commentary, not Rules.
RULE TWO: You must put your story into a format the editor can read, the copy-editor can edit, & the compositor can set into type.
Ursula Le Guin, in her The Language of the Night, writes: ``Your story may begin in longhand on the backs of old shopping lists; but when it goes to an editor, it should be typed, double-spaced, on one side of the paper only, with generous margins -- especially the left-hand one -- and not too many grotty corrections per page.
``Your name and its name and the page number should be on the top [right corner] of every single page; and when you mail it to the editor it should have enclosed with it a stamped, self- addressed envelope.''
Typed (or machine-printed) means just that. If you use ribbons, have a supply of new ones on hand; change to a new ribbon when you start the final draft of a story. The output must be black, not grey. But do not overink; be sure no letter looks like a black blob. The typesetter must follow copy to the letter. To do this, he must be able to read, without guessing, every letter on every page. Although your printer may have no end of fancy fonts, it's best to use a simple font that looks like the output of a typewriter, like 12-point Courier type, which is ideal; the closer to that, the better. Italic, script, or ALL-CAPITAL-LETTER typefaces are Not Acceptable. Never change typefaces within your manuscript; if you want the editor to make such a change, say so in a penciled, marginal note. AVOID typefaces that confuse ``i,'' ``I,'' and ``l,'' or the comma ``,'' with the period ``.''
Double-spaced means leaving a full, blank line after every typed line; it does not mean putting extra space between words! On a typewriter, set the line-feed control to advance the paper two full lines at a time; on a printer, set the line spacing at 24 points. Either should give you three typed lines per vertical inch. Do NOT use the one-&-a-half-line setting some typewriters have; do not reduce the line spacing anywhere in the manuscript.
Indent every paragraph five spaces, including dialog. Leave extra space between paragraphs only where you want to mark a shift in scene or a lapse of time. [The e-mail version of these Guidelines puts an additional blank line between paragraphs only because some e-mail-reading equipment may otherwise lose the paragraph markers.]
On one side of the paper, which should be white, 8.5 by 11 inches, 16 or 20 pound bond. Do NOT use any paper that claims to be erasable.
With generous margins, about an inch, all the way around. It's quite all right to put a small mark on the paper about an inch from the bottom to tell you where to stop typing. Margins much larger than one inch waste paper and postage. If you use a word processor, check its manual, and then turn OFF the right-justification and the hyphenation; do NOT let it suppress ``widows & orphans.'' Do NOT break words at the end of lines. Editors (all editors!) prefer ragged right margins with even spacing between words, and we prefer the same number of lines on every page but the first and the last.
And not too many grotty corrections per page. Neither editors nor compositors are grading for neatness; we don't demand letter-perfect-the-first-time typing. We do object to erasures. If you use a typewriter, XXX-out or line out your deletions, and type or legibly hand-print any corrections above the place each is to be inserted. Lift-off correction tape or white, opaque correction fluid are acceptable but not necessary; cover-up correction tape is NEVER acceptable. If you are using a word-processor and printer, you should make all corrections before you print the submission copy.
Identify your story. Type (or machine-print) your full real name, your social security number, and your address (so we can send you money!) at the upper left-hand corner of the first page, an inch inside the top and left edges of the page. Your story's title (your responsibility; editors don't buy nameless stories) goes about a quarter of the way down the first page, with your name (or your pen name, if you use one) directly under that title. (Two suggestions: Avoid cutesy pen names; your own real name, especially an unusual one, is far better. But if a well-known writer has the same name as yours, change yours in some way, such as spelling out your middle name instead of an initial, or the like.) Use paper clips, NOT staples, to hold manuscripts together.
Pages sometimes do go astray. Therefore, a glance at any page in the manuscript should reveal the story title, its author, and the page number. So: type or print your last name (plus initials if your name is a common one), a word or two from the title, and the page number on the upper right-hand corner of every page, starting with page 2, like this: XmasCarol/Dickens/pg 26, or Cujo/S. King/7. (If you use a separate title page, page numbering starts with the first page of text.)
And when you mail it to the editor, it should have enclosed with it a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Editors much prefer a new, 9-by-12-inch, NON-clasp envelope to carry the story to the editor, with a second envelope of the same size, folded once, paper-clipped to the back of the manuscript. (The Post Office doesn't like clasps, those brass things that stick through holes in envelope flaps; editors don't like clasps; and clasp-envelopes cost more. So, please, use NON-clasp envelopes!) Please do not use envelopes larger than 9 by 12. Address the return envelope to yourself. Both the outgoing and return envelopes should be addressed by typewriter (or machine- printer); if the envelope won't fit in the typewriter, type addresses on labels. Please affix U.S. postage stamps (foreign postage is useless to us, and you do us no favors by sending loose stamps!); do NOT use padded envelopes, binders, or stiffeners; do NOT make the editor stand in line at the post office to sign for registered or certified mail; your only protection against loss is to keep a good copy of anything you send out. Need U.S. postage? See below.
The more standard your format, the less editors are distracted from what is really important: the story itself.
To find out how long the story is, don't actually count the words. Instead, take an average-length, mid-paragraph line. Count the letters and spaces and punctuation in that line. (If you think it would help, count several mid-paragraph lines and take the average of those counts.) Divide by six. Multiply by lines per page. Multiply by pages (correcting for partly blank pages at beginning and end). Put this ``word'' count in the upper right corner of the first page.
Call for italics by underlining; do NOT use an italic typeface in the manuscript itself. Distinguish between the hyphen, as in ``mother-in-law'' and the dash -- typeset like a hyphen as long as the letter "M" is wide -- but in your manuscript it should look like this -- with a space before and a space after.
It's hard for an editor to take seriously an author who keeps mixing up its and it's, or lie and lay and their various tenses (lying, laying, laid, lied, lain, and so on). Other words you should watch out for are there/~their/~they're, through/threw, were/we're, yoke/yolk, and form/~from (we have trouble with that last pair ourselves). Spell-check programs do NOT catch errors like these; you're responsible for poofreadnig your manuscripts.
[The following section is double-line-spaced, just as you would double-line-space in a manuscript.]
We say, ``You must punctuate, paragraph, and indent carefully and correctly.''
``How about in dialog?'' you ask.
``Especially in dialog,'' we say. ``If in doubt, you must look up how to do it properly. Note that when two or more consecutive paragraphs are spoken by the same speaker, all have quote marks at the beginning, but only the last has quote marks at the end.
``Also,'' we suddenly, excitedly expostulate unto thee,
``when you're writing dialog, do not reach for substitute for `say' or `said,' as we did in this paragraph, nor hang unnecessary adverbs on `say.' Doing so will soon get silly; worse, it takes attention away from the story. And please notice how we punctuated and capitalized all through our conversation.''
You look puzzled. ``Can I identify the speaker without using `said' or a synonym for `said'?''
``You just did.'' We smile reassuringly. ``Just don't overdo it. Identify the speaker often enough that the reader always knows who is speaking. Don't let pronouns run wild, as in: `He saw him look at him.' Since `deep blue sea' can mean `deep-blue sea' or `deep, blue sea,' you must uscommas or hyphens to tell the reader which.''
Cover letter? No more than one page long, and only if you really want to; remember that editors don't buy cover letters; they buy stories. Don't distract an editor by telling him how good your story is, or spoil the suspense by giving a synopsis. Do not attach your bibliography or resume; you may cite two or three earlier sales in the body of that one-page letter. Then get out of the way and let the story sell itself.
However, if the editor's seen the story before, a cover letter is necessary, to remind her what she said about the story before and to tell her exactly what you've done about her suggestions. And you need a cover letter to explain anything unusual about the rights offered -- for example, if the story is part of a novel to be published by [insert name] on [insert date]. Put your typed name and address, and your story's title on every cover letter. But if you don't need a cover letter, and you're not sure what to put in one, then it's probably better to omit it.
If it's cheaper for you to send a disposable copy, mark the manuscript ``disposable'' so the editor can throw it away if she doesn't buy it. You must still provide a business-letter-sized return envelope, what stationers call a number 10 envelope (NOT a postcard!), with letter-postage affixed, for the editor's reply.
If you are sending us stories from outside the U.S., remember that only U.S. stamps can be used for return postage. Since international postage is so expensive, we strongly recommend that you send a disposable manuscript (so marked) and a return envelope at least 10 by 22 centimeters in size, for the editor's reply. You can send International Postal Reply Coupons to pay for the return postage; each is worth about US$0.60 to us. To send a one-ounce (28 gram) letter to Canada costs us US$0.52 ; to an overseas address, US$1.00. Reply Coupons cost you a lot, but you can buy U.S. postage by sending a postal money order, payable in U.S. funds, to cover the cost of 10 stamps or more, to Postmaster, Bridgeport PA 19405, U.S.A. (or to the Post master of any other U.S. city). Include your own address. Explain what stamps you want, and how many of each.
When a reply envelope is to be mailed in the U.S. for
delivery to another country, put the name of that country at the
end of the last line of the address.
Dot-matrix printing is acceptable only if one cannot tell at
a glance that the print is dot-matrix. Do not use draft
mode, nor seven- or nine-pin dot-matrix machines.
Submissions to us must be on paper in the format described above, not on disk and not by e-mail. Unless an editor announces otherwise, assume this is so for all publications. An editor who buys your story will want to know if you can supply it on disk -- and if so, which word processor and which kind of computer: PC, Apple, or MacIntosh. Put these data on the manuscript's first page. (We use a PC, XyWrite(R), and Ventura(R).)
Manuscript format is not the place to be innovative; do not divert the editor's attention from the story! What editors buy is your choice of words (including punctuation!) and the order you put them on paper. Manuscript format, therefore, should be as invisible as possible.
RULE THREE: You must put your story before an editor who might buy it.
Parents, siblings, spouses, offspring, teachers, and friends don't count; neither do closets or desk drawers. You simply must send your story to editors (one editor at a time). Remember that editors do not reject people, nor do they predict careers. At worst, editors reject pieces of paper that you typed on; at best, editors send you money. The only opinion that really counts here is that of someone who might buy your story.
We call your attention to the chorus in the opening song of The Music Man: ``But ya gotta know the territory!'' Read your target publications. See what kind of stories they use; note what kinds of stories they do not use. Send for guidelines, always including a return envelope (with postage affixed) for the reply. (You've already done that if you're reading this. Thank you.)
In the short-story market, it is almost always better to send a complete manuscript rather than a ``would you like to see?'' letter. If you fear that a particular market might not be open for submissions, write to the editor and ask if it's open now; and if it's not open, when will it be, with a post card (addressed to you, with postage affixed) for the editor's reply.
How does the ``who might buy it'' part of the Rule apply to Weird Tales? Please keep in mind our magazine's title. We almost never buy a story or a poem which has no fantasy content; we hardly ever buy science fiction which lacks fantasy elements.
But this leaves room for an extraordinary range of fiction -- and poetry: Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian and modern swordplay-&-sorcery were born in Weird Tales(R), and it still continues that tradition. H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, Miskatonic University and all, are welcome to our pages, as are stories set in fantasy-worlds of your own invention. We're looking for the best in fantasy-based horror, heroic fantasy, and exotic mood pieces, plus the occasional ``odd'' story that won't fit anywhere else. We want to please our readers with superior writing and to surprise them with new ideas. To this end, we will occasionally publish a story in which the ominous, eldritch, and/or squamous horrors waiting to pounce turn out to be quite harmless. We almost never use material already published in the U.S.
A 10,000-word story -- which takes up almost a quarter of an issue -- is about the longest we can use. Most of what we buy is shorter than 8,000 words. We do not serialize novels. We have no minimum length. Short-short stories (less than 1,000 words or so) are very hard to write, but they are easy to sell.
WT does use humor, but the humor should touch on fantasy or horror themes. We find that humor works best when structured like other fiction, with high points and low, tension and relief, building to a climax and (usually) a very quick anticlimax or none at all. Beware of trying to make every line screamingly funny.
Remember that printed fantasy stories (and science fiction, for that matter) are usually years -- even decades -- ahead of movie and TV versions of the same themes. Especially beware of building a story (any kind of story) on current newspaper headlines, which may well be forgotten by the time the story could be printed. As an example: spousal and child abuse are real-life problems, yes -- but they're perhaps too familiar to our readers to work as fiction just now.
To know our territory (``. . . ya gotta know the territory!''), look at what we published in Weird Tales(R) in the past and what we publish in WT now. Then try to do even better. (Back issues of Weird Tales (R) and WoF&H are available from the address above: single copies, $5.00 each, including postage; four-issue subscriptions, $16.00 in the U.S. and its possessions; elsewhere, $6.00 and $22.00; all prices in U.S. dollars.)
We respond as fast as we can, and we write an individual letter for almost every rejection. In return, we expect that your submission is not now being seen by any other editor, and we hope you will not get too upset if we tell you why we don't want to use it. Ours is only one opinion, but it is possible for us to be right, and our comments might help you to do better with your next story. Remember that we only reject pieces of paper that have been typed on; we do not and cannot reject you. We pay from 3 to 6 cents per word on acceptance.
Story elements we see too often: We don't object to corpses nor to tragic endings, but protagonists who exist only to wallow in woe and then succumb quietly to an undeserved doom really don't belong in WT. Your protagonists must at least try to cope, and must try to change something, even if the outcome is tragic. Stories whose only point is that the world is a dreadful, dreadful place tell our readers what they already know; people read WT to escape everyday futility, not to be splattered with more.
Mere description of a horror is not as effective as telling a story about people trying to cope with one, successfully or not. Believable, often sympathetic people make horror stories scary, while standard-issue, cardboard villains who come to a (usually predictable) bad end do not.
The pseudo-Medieval never-never land, overrun with generic swords-persons, wizards, and dragons has been sword-played (and ensorcelled) into the ground by now. But your imaginary- world setting, characters, and plot elements can be fresh, and new, and interesting. Look at real histories; get a feel for just how complex the pre-industrial world was. Don't base your characters or your magic on a role-playing game; invent your own.
Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with stories about classical vampires, deals with the Devil, formalities of the Hereafter, or people eating people (and vice versa); but our readers have already seen stories based on these ideas. If you wrap a story around an old, familiar idea, add something new and different! A story never surprises readers if all it does is reveal, as a ``surprise'' ending, that the protagonist is a vampire, or that he finally noticed he's been dead since page 2.
Please remember that WT is a fiction magazine; the Real Inside Truth About The Occult belongs elsewhere, as do real-life ghost sightings and anything about airborne crockery and/or alien abductions.
To sum up:
Most stories rejected by any fiction editor are rejected for one or more of these flaws:
*** Lack of a clear, consistent point of view.
*** Too much exposition and too little narration, especially at the beginning.
*** Failure to establish the characters' identity and setting, in both time and place, early in the story.
*** Characters so uninteresting, unpleasant, or unconvincing that the readers don't care whether or not those characters get eaten alive (or worse) on stage. Characters who don't even try to cope with their problems (your protagonists should protag!).
*** Plots that fail to resolve (tragically, happily, or otherwise) problems or conflicts, but just present them. Plots with neither problems nor conflicts. Plots based on ideas so old and tired that the ending is obvious half-way down page 1. Plots that cheat readers by holding back information for a ``surprise'' ending.
*** Writing so flowery and so filled with sesquipedelian prose that the basic story is lost under too many adjectives, adverbs, and not-quite-right words. Writing which feels as if the author were being paid by the word (well, you are, but don't let the reader know that). Writing too murky or opaque to decypher and decode. Writing so filled with errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar that no editor wants to wade through the mess.
Things for you to read:
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, third edition, published by Macmillan, is widely available from good bookstores in hard covers and soft. Absolutely essential. Get hold of a copy, and you better believe it!
On Writing Science Fiction: The Editors Strike Back! by Scithers, Schweitzer, and Ford -- we wrote it, so of course we recommend it. Also: Science Fiction Writer's Workshop I by Barry B. Longyear. Both discuss fantasy as well as science fiction; you can order them from Owlswick Press, 123 Crooked Lane, King of Prussia PA 19406-2570, for $19.50 and $9.50, respectively, postpaid. (In Pennsylvania, please add 6% sales tax!)
Any good library should have copies of two different books with the same title: The Craft of Fiction, one by Percy Lubbock, the other by William Knott. The chapters on viewpoint in both books are outstanding.
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