Write for SFcrowsnest

One Page Stories Or Flash Fiction Submissions

What To Do, What To Write And How to Submit
instructions by GF Willmetts

This is an experiment on the website for all of you writers and neo-writers out there. One of the criticisms that I raise when working my way through our slush pile is that writers need to learn how to tell a story with a limited word count, like short stories, to make everything count and tell a good story. You can't get much shorter than a one page or flash fiction story. As there are few places and hardcopy magazines around to give a chance, we're going to run this here and see how it goes. If you can get the mechanics of storycraft sorted out at this level, it will make bigger pieces easier to write.

To this end, we're offering space to print one page or flash fiction stories. Anything that falls outside of the rules below will be rejected with minimal explanation just in case I'm getting too many at a time but it will indicate where any weaknesses lie and what you need to focus on to sort it out for future stories. If longer, try submitting them as short stories instead where you'll have a little more space.

The Rules:-

1. You can send a flash fiction story as part of your email to me. Your story should NOT be sent as an attachment but pasted into the normal reply box. Ensure you keep a copy of your story at your end with a simple introduction of who you are. SFCrowsnest take no responsibility for lost stories. In the subject box, type 'One Page Story'.
2. Story must have a title and author name as well as your email and terrestrial address - these will be omitted, unless asked otherwise, should the story be accepted.
3. Although not necessarily hardcopied, think of the layout. The story can be single-lined but must not extend beyond the length of an A4 page with borders 2cm (1inch) except left hand side which is 3cm (1 1/2inch) or a maximum of 650 words. I don't care if it's a word or a sentence beyond this length, this has to be obeyed. Part of the objective lesson of this exercise is to keep the word count down and tight to fit A4 size.
4. Read the rules of grammar and get them as perfect as possible. Set your Word Processor for English (United Kingdom). It can be tagged to one particular story and you can go back to whatever you use in your own country with other documents. Treat this as part of the exercise cos you do do this when submitting to other countries, don't you?
5. Apply standard text format. All paragraphs start with two spaces and there is no need to drop a line between paragraphs.
6. Check out the guidelines as run on the website submissions to see what other foibles I normally like to see, especially regarding speech marks. LINK: The Problems I See Most When Looking At Samples
7. Be original!!! Any plagiarism or borrowing of copyrighted characters from elsewhere is grounds for instant return.
8. Minimal editing correction will be at editor's discretion and shown to writer before being released on the website. All copyright remains with the writer and it can act as part of your writer's CV.
9. Editor's decision is final.

Easy to follow instructions. There are two stories that can be read already in different styles. It's up to you as a writer to decide how you will treat your own ideas when converting them into a story. There is already some flash fiction on the website but treat as examples rather than techniques to copy.

E-mail to me at (and read the email address and remove the words that are used to purge spam to the abyss): gfwillmetts@hotmailspamremover.com

GF Willmetts
submissions editor: SFCrowsnest.co.uk
July 2005