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Word of the week: Paracosm: a detailed imaginary world, particularly one created by a child.
Hi readers! It’s Holley again, rounding up news and fiction from Horror Tree and around the web that you shouldn’t miss. This week we have articles on building a platform, writing proposals, when and what to quit, successful outlining, and more.
Horror Tree Update:
You may remember that earlier this year we were listed as one of the Top 101 Best Websites for authors on Writer's Digest! While this was in the May/June 2021 issue, it is now being shown online as well! Feel free to head over and comment how awesome it is that we're featured ;) (Or not, we're just still stoked about it!)
I won't have these graphics take up room for too much longer but if you've been wanting to find a way to link to Horror Tree for being featured on the site (either as a publisher, a guest post, or in Trembling With Fear) here is the way to go!
Trembling With Fear update:
No big news here quite yet. I'm hoping that we'll have something fun to announce rather soon! Do recall, we're open for our Halloween Edition of TWF as well and you can read the details right here.
Here are the latest articles on writing from around the web. I’ve continued sorting these by category, so you can find articles of importance to whatever stage you are at in your writing journey.
On the business of writing:
LitReactor: Dispatch from the Querying Trenches
Jane Friedman: Start Here: How to Self-Publish Your Book
On writing in general:
Writer’s Digest: How to Tie a Collection of Short Stories Together in a Cohesive Book
On craft:
Jane Friedman: Starting Your Novel with Theme: 3 Strengths and 3 Challenges
Free Fiction Roundup:
This week’s Free Fiction Roundup contains stories from Speculative City, The Crow’s Quill Magazine, Typehouse Literary Magazine, and Reckon Review. New for me this week was the discovery of The Crow’s Quill Magazine, with the work listed below being a story from their inaugural issue. Additionally, Reckon Review was a new-to-me publication. These were my favorites this week:
“The Potato and the Wax” by Chelsea Sutton. Speculative City.
“Little Black Death” by Rebecca Jones-Howe. The Crow’s Quill Magazine (pp. 11 – 15).
“Valley Eld” by Ian O’Leary. Typehouse Literary Magazine. (pp. 90 – 101).
“The Screech Owl” by Chris McGinley. Reckon Review.
If you post any writing content during the week and think it would be a good fit for us to feature, do reach out and let us know at contact@horrortree.com
Thank you Patreons! As always, the site's lifeblood is in your hands and we truly appreciate your support.
Looking To Help Horror Tree?
Here are the main things we're looking for:
- Advertising and either Site or Contest sponsorships!
- Someone to help create videos for social media (we have tools, but not time!)
- Article writers (articles, interviews, reviews, crowdsource compilations, etc.)
- Sharing guest posts with us or reaching out for us to be a blog tour host.
- The obvious one here is also to become one of our Patreons!
If you're interested in contributing and think you have something that would help out PLEASE don't shy away from contacting us! (contact@horrortree.com)
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Excerpts:
Deadline: January 1st, 2022 Payment: $25 Theme: True Love Never Dies We are presently accepting original work for our October 2021 and February 2022 issues. Short Stories up to 5,000 words Flash and Micro Fiction up to 1,500 words Poetry Author Compensation: $25.00 (USD) per piece Rights: We request first worldwide and digital rights for four months following publication. Thereafter all rights revert to the author. All copyright remains with the author. Feb 22 Theme: True Love Never Dies Publication: Digital Formats Deadline: January 1, 2022 Guidelines For all open calls, submit your work by email to submissions@wearethequietones.com with the subject line formatted as such: “[Zine Publication Month/Year] [Story title] [Author name] [Age Range]” (ex.“October 2021 – The Sinkhole – David Fey – Adult”). Please submit your work as an email attachment in .doc/.docx format. Authors may submit up to three pieces per issue. We request that each piece be submitted via its own individual email. You are welcomed to interpret each issue’s theme however you like. Ensure your document contains your story title, your name (or pen name), and an approximate word count. In the event that your story is selected for publication, we will need your legal name for the contract. Please include a header on each page of your document with your surname, title and page number. Your document should be formatted in Times New Roman, 12pt., with double line spacing and indented paragraphs. We do NOT accept simultaneous submissions. In case of acceptance, please also include a brief biography in the third person of approximately 75 words, a high-resolution headshot (optional), and any personal social media links (such as a Twitter or personal website) that you’d like to share. For a more detailed look at classic manuscript formatting, please refer to this article by WILLIAM SHUNN. Via: We Are The...
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The Ultimate Guide for Beginners: How to Start Writing Horror Stories Horror is a creative writing or storytelling genre that seeks to tap into the reader’s emotions and instill fear in them. Although horror stories are often classed with the broad category of thrillers, not all horror stories are thrillers or have a thriller structure. Classic horror fiction stories – expressed as a film, short story, novel, or novella – that tap into topics known to frighten most people. Some of these topics are ghosts, vampires, werewolves, serial killers, zombies, murderers, and reliably “fear of the unknown.” Horror stories have become very popular over the years, which has become a downside for this niche. There are now several horror movies and books that recycle old content and do it in uncreative manners. However, when horror stories are correctly executed, they can thrill the audience, and they also make commentary on human conditions. Components of an excellent horror story There are four major components of an exciting horror story: Fear: this is an obvious one. If it doesn’t have an element of fear, then it cannot be a horror story. However, it may be more challenging than you think it is to create a story that’s genuinely terrifying for adults to read. Doing this rests on the ability of the writer to create tension. Although we all have our different fears, to create a genuinely terrifying horror story, you must be able to create fear from something that your audience would never expect or suspect to create that kind of emotion. That’s the secret to a successful horror story. Revulsion: another attribute of an excellent horror story is its ability to make readers feel disgusted. There are examples of successful horror story franchises such as Saw that have...
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Submission Window: September 1st-30th, 2021 Payment: $5 Theme: Original feminist tales, feminist retellings of traditional tales, and personal essays related to traditional tales. Thanks for your interest in our journal! Corvid Queen will be open for submissions from September 1-31, 2021. We’re excited to introduce our first-ever guest reader for this submission period! Wen-yi Lee is a writer of speculative fiction hailing from Singapore. Her work has been published by Strange Horizons, Speculative City, Luna Station Quarterly, and Sword & Kettle Press. She can be found on Twitter at @wenyilee_. GENERAL GUIDELINES We’re looking for original feminist tales, feminist retellings of traditional tales, and personal essays related to traditional tales. Although we started as a magazine of fairy tales, we’re now open to pieces based on or related to fairy tales, folklore, myths, legends, and pop culture. We accept fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and pieces that are in-between. For prose, we accept stories of up to 5,000 words. Please note that you do not need to be female or femme to submit a piece; writers of any gender identity and expression are welcome. (We’re listed on Duotrope & Submission Grinder – Fiction, Poetry.) PROCESS How to Submit: To submit a piece, please fill out our Airtable submission form [link active when subs are open]. You may submit one piece per reading period. Our submission form is unfortunately not able to send an automatic response or a copy of your submission; if you aren’t sure if your submission has gone through, please email swordandkettlepress@gmail.com. We’re always happy to check! Payment: We offer an honorarium of $5 for each accepted piece. Acceptance: If your piece is accepted, you’ll receive an email with a publication date & a contract to digitally sign. We’ll follow up a week or two before your publication date with payment...
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Payment: $0.02 for every unique story view, Theme: SF, fantasy and speculative fiction Simily is a new platform for both published and unpublished authors to self-publish short stories in various genres, including SF, fantasy and speculative fiction. We believe in the power of a good story and our goal is to help writers reach new readers, hone their craft, and receive payment in the process. While our platform is in its early stages, we compensate authors $0.02 for every unique story view, including views from free accounts. Once we are up and running, writers will receive a portion of the subscription of paying readers (similar to Medium). Authors retain all copyright to their work and are able to remove their work from Simily at any time. We do not require exclusivity. You are free to publish or republish your work wherever you see fit. By submitting to Simily, you acknowledge that the work is your own and you have the right to publish it. See our Terms of Service for more information. All stories must use proper English grammar, structure and syntax. You will be notified within 2-3 weeks if your story has been selected for publishing. You can find out more at https://simily.co and https://simily.co/how-it-works/
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Deadline: November 15th, 2021 Prizes: (1st prize, $75) which can come from any category and then a $50 “prompt prize” for each of these three categories. Theme: Stories to help keep Christmas weird! (prompts below) The unbearable heat of August reminds me that it’s time to announce the FOURTH ANNUAL WEIRD CHRISTMAS FLASH FICTION CONTEST! I want your stories to help keep Christmas weird! We’re in our fourth year of the contest. Last year’s results are here. The thing keeps growing every year, and each year we ramp up the weird and the creepy and the funny by at least three exponential elves. I expect the bottled up anxiety and rage of a covid year should make this contest’s stories even more upsetting. Perfect for Christmas cheer! New for this year!!! I’m making three “Prompt Categories.” This is just to shake things up, so I’m giving you three ways to enter this year. This is probably overly complicated, but what the hell. You’ve got three ways to submit a story and four ways to win a prize: “Stocking Stuffer” – In this category, just write whatever the hell you want. Anything goes as long as it fits the rules and general guidelines down below. “There was a man dwelt by a churchyard” – The king of Christmas ghost stories, M.R. James, wrote a story with that as a title because in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, someone starts a ghost story with that line but never gets further. I’m sure you guys can do better than M.R. James, a master storyteller who set the standards for all ghost stories to come. It’s a low bar. You can do it! Just write a story with that as the first line, and fame and fortune will be yours. (And, yes, those 8 words count for your total.) Thanks to Benito Cereno (@benito_cereno on Twitter)...
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Deadline: October 31st, 2021 Payment: $0.02 per word and 3 contributor’s copy Theme: An anthology where unabashedly queer villains, anti-heroes, and outlaws reign supreme. Note: This anthology is open to all writers who identify as LGBTQ+ I’m of the opinion that all the best ideas are born by chance. Something you perceive might strike you and, akin to the feeling of deja vu, you double-take and it haunts you. That is how The Book of Queer Saints was conceived: A Twitter conversation between myself, Sam Richard of WeirdPunkBooks, and Eric Raglin of Cursed Morsels, about queer representation in horror lit and how public opinion shapes (or tries to shape) how we write our queer characters. Most in the horror community are aware of the practice of review bombing, and have witnessed it occurring as a reaction to what folks have marked “trauma porn” in queer horror stories. While most of these review bombers seem to be outsiders to the horror community, the effect it has on the queer writer can be disheartening, discouraging, and alienating. Assumptions made about the sexual and gender identity of the writer and unfair ratings based on hearsay are pervasive. The Book of Queer Saints is a reaction to this discourse, a statement about the complexity and nuance of queer folks and their stories. It is an anthology where unabashedly queer villains, anti-heroes, and outlaws reign supreme. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: This anthology is open to all writers who identify as LGBTQ+ No simultaneous submissions. Only one submission per person. Submission period: August 2, 2021 – October 31, 2021 Word count requirements: 2,000 – 6,000 words Accepted submissions will be announced on December 1, 2021 Anthology will be published in print and e-book format in February 2022. PAYMENT: Writers with accepted stories will be paid $0.02 per word and receive 3 contributor copies in print...
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HOW TO DESCRIBE SURROUNDINGS IN YOUR HORROR STORY As a storyteller, your first job, while seemingly simple, is also exceedingly crucial: to get your readers on board so they want to read on. As any experienced writer will tell you, that first job rarely has anything to do with the plot of the story, or even the characters. It has everything to do with your descriptions. This is as true in the horror story genre as it is anywhere else. Remember that you don’t have the luxury of using jump scares like a screenwriter. Yours is a subtler trade, engaging the reader’s senses and imagination to instill gripping fear. To succeed in this, you should be able to make your fictional world seem convincingly real and intense, perhaps even more than the real world itself. Vivid descriptions are necessary to achieve this effect. The locations, buildings, materials, trees, weather, rooms, and everything else that makes up the environment should not only be believable, but emphatic and engaging components of the overall mood. The real challenge, then, is to know how to do this. You can read about this on various essay writing websites that offer horror story samples to get an idea. It boils down to understanding a few key principles and then practicing. Over time, as you write more, you will become a master at writing compelling descriptions for horror story environments. Your readers won’t be able to put your books down! Start your descriptions early Because descriptions are important to setting the mood, they should ideally come first. This might sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many essay writers start scenes with little or no useful descriptions, only to begin adding details later. Usually, it’s too late by then, as they have already lost the precious reader....
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Deadline: September 1st, 2021 Payment: $130.00 and two contributor’s copies for fiction over 2,000 words., $65.00 and two contributor’s copies for fiction under 2,000 words., $50.00 and two contributor’s copies for literary essays. Theme: Gritty urban fiction, Crime/Mystery Fiction, Ghosts. The Supernatural, and Literary Essays We are open to submissions until September 1, 2021. Gritty urban fiction. Jim Gavin’s Middle Men, Mary Miller’s Always Happy Hour, or Becky Mandelbaum’s Bad Kansas are good examples of what we mean by this. If you’ve written a compelling short story, though, no need to worry too much about “gritty” or “urban.” You may submit the story. Crime/Mystery Fiction. Genre fiction is a fit at Vautrin. But if you’ve written a good short story with crime fiction elements that doesn’t necessarily seem like genre fiction, it could still be a fit. Ghosts. The Supernatural. Balzac wrote The Wild Ass’s Skin, after all. If old Honore tried it, so can we. And Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of our favorites. A crime fiction story with supernatural elements might hit the mark. Or any mix of the above. Literary Essays. We’re interested in essays that talk about contemporary crime fiction, or essays that walk the path between, say, 19th century fiction and fiction in the here and now. We like symbolic inquiry. If you’ve written something interesting and would like to publish it in Vautrin, you may submit it. If you’d like an inside track on the type of fiction we tend to publish, the most recent issue of the magazine is available here: Fiction should be no longer than 6,000 words. Essays should be no longer than 5,000 words. No flash fiction. No reprints. Limit one short story or essay submission per writer. $130.00 and two contributor’s copies for fiction over 2,000 words. $65.00 and two contributor’s copies for fiction...
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Deadline: October 31, 2021. Payment: $5 USD per 1000 words Theme: Megastructures Note: This is below what I’d usually want to list pay-wise but I personally know 2 people with stories that would fit this that have been collecting dust so wanted to share it. Ringworlds, Dyson spheres, arcologies, planet cities, space elevators, skyscrapers with populations of entire countries; we’re looking for your speculative stories set in or about megastructures, gigastructures, TERASTRUCTURES! NOTE: We are currently only accepting short stories for the anthologies and cannot accept full-length novel manuscripts at this time. ** Please put the anthology you’re submitting to in the subject line of the email!** Payment for stories will be $5 USD per 1000 words for all current anthologies (excepting contests). We’re looking for speculative fiction across all anthologies (unless otherwise specified). That includes everything from high fantasy to hard scifi and anything in between. We do accept reprints, simultaneous submissions, and multiple submissions, though these will slow down our response time. Story lengths should be anywhere from flash-length to about 15k words, but we have at times made exceptions. We know a story is complete when it’s complete, and arbitrary word count requirements are not always helpful. If you have an amazing story that exceeds 15k words, let us know. We may be able to make special accommodations. 🙂 With regard to copyright, we request the non-exclusive right to publish your story in the anthology to which it was accepted. You retain the rights to your individual story to do with as you wish. Please let us know if you have any questions. Note: We do have long lead times with our anthologies, because we want to ensure quality work gets included. Thanks for your understanding on this. Check here for open calls for stories. FORMATTING INFORMATION...
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An Unreal Publisher: Daniel White Scott from Longshot Press Part One By Angelique Fawns There’s the way everyone else does things, and then there’s Longshot Press. The founder, Daniel White Scott, is forging his own path in the publishing world as “a very independent publisher” seeking work that pushes traditional boundaries. His Unfit and Unreal magazines pay an unprecedented industry high of 25 cents per word for speculative short stories. His imprint also features Longshot Island, a pulp fiction magazine featuring psychological short stories, and Mythaxis Review, presenting articles and interviews looking at books, movies, music, and anything else in the world of art and artists. (I write interviews and articles for Mythaxis Review.) Scott has championed writers, artists, and musicians for over 35 years, supporting some exceptional talent along the way such as music legend Bob Dylan, and American scientist/author David Brin whose novel The Postman was adapted into the 1997 film starring Kevin Costner. After several years of trying, I finally managed to convince this enigmatic and elusive publisher to grant me an interview. There were so many good things to talk about, I’ve divided it into two parts. Our first installment focuses on Scott’s path to publishing, musical meanderings, and adventures in Alaska. Then stay-tuned for the second installment which takes us to other side of the world in Taiwan, and provides hints and advice for speculative writers. AF: I’m so happy to finally sit down with you. You’ve helped me immeasurably in my career as a freelance writer, and I’m very interested in hearing about your journey. Where did it all begin? DWS: I started writing short stories when I was a kid. My mother was into it. She introduced me to the idea of how story submissions worked. I don’t think she published...
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Deadline: October 15th, 2021 Payment: $100 and a 1-year subscription to the magazine Theme: Science fiction, science fantasy or fantasy tales where at least one scene takes place in outer space or another planet. Sexy Fantastic Magazine features the absolute highest quality of fiction, comics, book and movie reviews, articles, photos of sexy fantastic heroines, and other cultural delights by top professionals and award-winning authors and artists. CURRENT ISSUE GUIDELINES We are currently accepting stories for Issue 5: Interplanetary. Science fiction, science fantasy or fantasy tales where at least one scene takes place in outer space or another planet. What We Want The absolute best literature possible in the field of fantastic stories. The greatest emphasis of this magazine is the quality of writing. Whether an orthodox narrative tale, a dreamlike vignette, or a poetical prose scene, a story should be comprehensible on some level, stay truthful to the literary world that the author has created, and be pleasing or satisfying. Any type of story with fantastic elements is acceptable, such as a metaphysical or surreal modern tale, magic realism, a dark fantasy thriller, science fiction satire, historical legend, an imaginary world fantasy adventure, etc. The fantastic element may be blatant or only perceived or hinted at. We are simply looking for great literature. We have published stories that would be considered mainstream science fiction or fantasy, but also at least one story that would be considered literary with no “fantastic” element. We do favor stories that are either fantastic or deal with eroticism or romantic relationships. In terms of quality and style, some examples would be stories by Jorge Luis Borges, Fritz Leiber, Catherine Lucille Moore, Gore Vidal, Lawrence Durrell, John Fowles, Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Michael Moorcock, Jody Scott, Robert Heinlein, Carlos Fuentes, Anne Rice, Robert Aickman, Jack...
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Deadline: December 15th, 2021 Payment: 15GBP Theme: Superheroes If you think you’ve got what it takes to terrify, scar and haunt our audience of 10,000 daily listeners, then we want your stories! If accepted, we’ll get our fantastic narration team to lend their voices, our editor will sprinkle some magic pixie dust on the track, and you could have your story heard by thousands of listeners each week. (Vol 76.) Superheroes II; deadline 15th December 2021 !!!NEW SUBMISSION PROCESS!!! SUBMIT YOUR STORIES USING THIS FORM If, this form isn’t working, then please email your submission to keztheeditor@gmail.com as a last resort. But please let us know why as we’re hoping to use the form going forward. Title your email with the following syntax: SUBMISSION | STORY TITLE | THEME | WORDCOUNT (e.g. SUBMISSION | THE MARTIAN | SPACE | 1,982) It is important that your story complies with our Submission Guidelines. Any stories found not to be in compliance will be immediately discarded. Click HERE for details If you think you’ve got what it takes to terrify, scar and haunt our audience of 10,000 daily listeners, then we want your stories! If accepted, we’ll get our fantastic narration team to lend their voices, our editor will sprinkle some magic pixie dust on the track, and you could have your story heard by thousands of listeners each week. HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO DO: • Stories must be 2,000 (10% tolerance +/-) • Save stories in a Word document – Times New Roman font, size 12 • Include a 1-2 sentence log line for your story at the end of the document • Ensure that your name and an email address are somewhere on the document • Stories must fit an upcoming theme • By submitting your story to us, you...
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7 Tips for Writing Your Horror Story Suspenseful Not that many things exist now, that have been a part of human history as long as the horror genre has. Its inception takes place back in ancient times, when the tales about witches and spirits got people terrified. With time going by, horror stories have ingrained in national folklore of the majority of modern countries, with a slight difference connected with the specific culture of each nationality. Oral horror gave the start to written and cinematic ones, which have made horror one of the most popular genres. Even considering their prevalence, horror stories are far from being easy to write. It needs a true talent and good skills to compose a terrific story, which intimidates a reader by its plot rather than disgusting details as the abundance of blood and guts. This explains why horror stories may appear a hard thing for beginner writers, who, however, may ask academic writers for help on the special platforms. They do not necessarily compose the whole story themselves, but they may create a reference and guide them in the right direction in order to help them write better. The majority of traditional horrific images have become clichés now, which is why it is harder and harder to write good quality pieces in this genre with time passing. However, there are some tips and tricks, which will make your story better for your readers. READ MORE When attempting in any new sphere, it is vitally important to know who are your colleagues and what products they have. Horror literature is no exception! There is a vast range of different subgenera, which allows you to choose any book you feel appealed to. Develop your oversight, learn the styles, notice the way the author describes the events...
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