[Writer's guidelines for Worlds of Fantasy and Horror magazine. Reproduced with permission.] Most of us here either write or deal with the produce of those who do. Some unlucky souls do both. One of the more difficult things for an editor is to give good advice (takes thought and time), one of the more difficult things for a writer is to find it. What follow are the guidelines of Worlds of Fantasy and Horror. Before you flame me for spamming the newsletter, read them. They were written by George Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer; George was the man picked by Isaac Asimov to found Asimov's, and Darrell joined him shortly thereafter. Together they worked at Amazing, then relaunched Weird Tales (now WOFH). George has won 4 Hugoes and a World Fantasy Award for editing, and as you read these guidelines you'll see why. They give some of the best advice I've come a cross (certainly the most condensed), and guideline junkies have written to tell us they think so too. Though a few of the points raised pertain to fantasy/horror, most of the advice applies to all fantastic litterature, and much to mainstream besides. So, hoping that people find it useful, here goes: *Worlds of FANTASY & HORROR* (formerly *Weird Tales*(R)) 123 Crooked Lane King of Prussia PA 19406-2570 phone: (USA-610) 275-4463 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 -- 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 the nine and sixty ways to construct your story is based on suggestions from the science-fiction teacher and writer, 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 -- 2,000 years later -- Homer sings to us still! Backtrack to explanation or flashback only when it's so relevant to the story that the viewpoint character remembers (and the reader, still *being* that character, re-lives) what happened before the action started. 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 dead matter. Avoid cliches like the plague; don't even touch them with a ten-foot pole! Learning to avoid triteness in word and phrase *and* in ideas, plots, characters, and backgrounds is easily half the task of becoming a good writer. Mark Twain, in his famous essay, ``Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses,'' tells us that: 1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. 2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it. 3. 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. 4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. 5. 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. 6. When the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description. 7. 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. 8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale. 9. 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. Mark Twain also wrote: ``The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.'' Elsewhere, he wrote: ``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 compositorcan set into type. Ursula Le Guin, in her book *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 printed, 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.'' Printed means just that, and the copy should be crisp and black. The compositor must follow copy to the letter. To do this, he must be able to read, without guessing, every letter on every page. A fifty-year-old office typewriter, in good repair and with a fresh ribbon, can turn out better copy than an electronic whatsis in need of adjustment. Script, ALL-CAPITAL-LETTER, or *italic* typefaces are Not Acceptable, nor are typefaces with more than 12 characters-&-spaces per horizontal inch. Ten-pitch (that is, 10-characters-&-spaces per inch) Courier type is ideal; the closer to that, the better. AVOID typefaces that confuse ``i,'' ``I,'' and ``l,'' or the period with the comma. Double-spaced has nothing to do with the space bar; it means you must leave a full, blank line after every typed line. On an ordinary typewriter, set the line-feed control to advance the paper two full lines at a time; this should give you three typed lines per vertical inch. Do NOT use the one-&-a-half-line setting; and do *not* reduce the linespacing *any* where in the manuscript. Advance the paper by four lines (that is, leave an *extra* pair of blank lines) only when you want the compositor to leave a blank line in the typeset copy, as to show a shift in scene or time within the story. A story is not a business letter: you MUST indent EVERY paragraph five spaces; do NOT leave extra space between paragraphs *except* to show a shift in scene or time. DO paragraph, punctuate, capitalize, and indent your dialog properly. ``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, or which has ``erase'' in its name, such as Fleeterase, Corrasable, or Ezerace. NEVER use any paper so thin or transparent that one can read a typed line through another sheet of that paper. ``With generous margins,'' at least an inch, all the way around. Margins of more than an inch and a half waste paper and postage. With a word processor, set the right margin about an inch from the right edge of the paper, then explictly turn OFF the right-justification *and* the hyphenation. NEVER, EVER break a word in two at the end of a typed line. Editors prefer ragged right margins; we need to know if a word should still be hyphenated if appears in the middle of a line after typesetting. ``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; we want you to XXXX-out or line out your deletions, and type or hand-print your corrections above the place each is to be inserted. (If you hand-print, do it legibly, distinguishing between capital and lower-case letters.) Lift-off correction tape and white, opaque correction fluid are both acceptable but not necessary; cover-up correction tape is NEVER acceptable, because it flakes off the paper. If you have more than about five errors per page, consider going back and re-printing the worst pages, especially the first page. ``Identify your story.'' Type (or machine-print) your full real name, your social security number, and your address (so we can send you money!) on the upper left-hand corner of the first page. Your story's title goes about a quarter of the way down the first page, centered between right and left margins, 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 paperclips, NOT staples, to hold manuscripts together. Pages sometimes do go astray. Therefore, a glance at ANY page in the manuscript should reveal the page number, the story's title, and who wrote it. To accomplish this, type or print your last name, a few words of the story's title, and the page number on the upper *right*-hand corner of every page, starting with page 2, like this: Whispers/Koontz/pg 26 --or-- CUJO/S. KING/7 ``And when you mail it to the editor, it should have enclosed with it a stamped, selfaddressed envelope.'' The standard is 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. Please address the return envelope to yourself; please *affix* the stamps (you do us no favors by sending loose stamps!); do NOT use padded envelopes, binders, or stiffeners; do NOT use registered or certified mail: your *only* protection against loss is to keep a good copy of anything you send out. If you cannot get U.S. postage, include enough International Postal Reply coupons (two as a minimum) to pay for return postage. The more standard your format, the sooner editors get to what really counts: *the story itself.* Here are a few helpful hints: 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. Divide by six. Multiply by lines per page. Multiply by pages (correcting for partly blank pages at beginning and end). Put this number in the upper right corner of the first page. Or, use your word-processor's word-counter, and round up (to the nearest 10 for short-shorts, to the nearest 100 for anything else). Call for *italics* by underlining; do NOT use an italic typeface in the manuscript itself. Distinguish between the dash, typed, with a space before and after, like this: -- and single hyphens, as in mother-in-law. Manuscripts that confuse *its* with *it's,* or *lie* with *lay* and their various tenses make a bad impression; *you're* responsible for proofreading *your* manuscripts. Spell-check programs do NOT catch errors like these, nor will they catch typographical errors like *from* for *form*. Punctuate, paragraph, and indent carefully and correctly, especially in dialog. While it's quite all right for your characters to speak ungrammatically within quote marks, do NOT overdo it, because it makes the story hard to follow, and because it distracts from the all-important story goes a long way. Cover letter? Only if you must. Don't distract an editor from the *story*! Don't spoil that story by providing a synopsis!! But 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 it. 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. Modern technology really doesn't change much of what we've written above. Xerox(R) copiers and similar machines often make it cheaper for you to send out a disposable copy and keep the original. If so, mark the manuscript ``disposable'' so the editor can throw it away if she doesn't buy it. You must still provide a business-letter-size return envelope, with letter-postage affixed, for the editor's reply. Dot-matrix printing is acceptable only if one cannot tell at a glance that the print *is* dot-matrix. Draft-mode printing and seven- or nine-pin dot-matrix machines are Not Acceptable. On the other hand, we'd really perfer that you NOT justify right margins and that you NOT use italics in manuscript. For good, practical reasons, editors want you to get as close as you can get to 10-pitch Courier typeface, underlining to tell the typesetter where to put *italics* in final, typeset copy, with ragged right margins and consistent spacing between words and between letters. A few word-processing programs space erratically between letters unless you *explicitly* turn off the microjustification; your program's documentation tells you how to do this. Submissions must be on paper in the format described above, not on disk. But if we buy your story, we 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. Tell us with a note on the manuscript's first page. (We use an MS-DOS(R) computer, XyWrite III+(R), and Ventura(R).) RULE THREE: You must put your story before an editor who might buy it. Parents, spouses, teachers, friends, and offspring don't count; neither do closets or desk drawers. You simply *must* send your story to editors (one editor at a time). At worst, some pieces of paper that have been typed on might be rejected; at best, one of those editors might send you money. What about the ``who might buy it'' part of the Rule? Please keep in mind that *WoF&H* is a fantasy & horror magazine. We rarely use a story that is neither fantasy nor horror; we seldom use science fiction without horror or fantasy elements. But this leaves room for an extraordinary range of fiction: Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian and modern swordplay-&-sorcery were born in *Weird Tales(R)*, and *WoF&H* will continue 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 horrific 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 ominious, eldrich, and/or squamous horrors waiting to pounce turn out to be quite innocous. We almost never use stories previously 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. We do not serialize longer works. Most stories we buy are shorter than 8,000 words. We set no minimum length. Short-short stories (less than 1,000 words or so) are hard to write, but if done *right,* they are easy to sell. *WoF&H* 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 written fantasy and horror (and science fiction, for that matter) is usually years˙20-- even decades -- ahread 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. Listen to the Traveling Salesman's Advice (in chorus, in the opening scene of *The Music Man*): ``But ya gotta know the territory.'' Look at what we published in *Weird Tales*(R) in the past and what we publish now in *WoF&H* -- then try to do even better. (Back issues of *Weird Tales(R)* and *WoF&H* are available from the address above: single copies at $5.00 each (including postage), four-issue subscriptions in the U.S. and its possessions for $16.00; elsewhere, $22.00 (all prices are in U.S. dollars). We respond rapidly, and we try to write an individual (but necessarily short) letter for almost every rejection. In return, we expect that your submission is not now being seen by any other editor, was not previously published in the U.S., and that you will not get *too* upset if we tell you why *we* cannot use it. Remember we can only reject pieces of paper that have been typed on; we do not (in fact, cannot) reject *you.* (We do, however, get a bit grumpy with stories that repeat the weaknesses of pervious stories by that author.) Remember that ours is only one opinion; but there *is* the possibility that we might be right and that our comments might help when you write your next story. We pay 3 cents per word (sometimes more) on acceptance. We do use poetry, including haiku and limericks, but always with some connection with our basic themes, fantasy & horror. We almost never use poetry longer than fifty lines or so. Artists should send us a few samples of their work; we much prefer samples that we do not have to return, so that we can file those samples for future assignments. In no case should an artist send the only copy of a work. Xerox(R) copies or, for color samples, 35mm slides are quite acceptable; tear sheets of perviously published work is also acceptable. Story elements we see too often: 1. We don't object to corpses nor to tragic endings, but protagonists who exist only to wallow in woe and then succumb quietly to being eaten (or worse) don't belong in *WoF&H.* Protagonists must at least *try* to protag, and to try hard enough to bring about *some* change, even if it's a tragic one. Stories whose only point is that the world is a dreadful, dreadful place are telling our readers what they already know; people read *WoF&H* to escape everyday futility, not to experience more of it. 2. 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. 3. The generic-fantasy, knights-&-castles never-never land is not as interesting as the *real* -- and very complex -- post-Roman, pre-Renaissance period. You cannot get good historical backgrounds from other writers' fantasy stories; study real histories and then write something *different* and *better* than what other storytellers have told. 4. There's nothing inherently wrong with stories about classical vampires, deals with the Devil, formalities of the Hereafter, or people eating one another; but our readers are already familiar with these ideas. If you write a story about one (or more) of them, add something new and different! A story will seldom surprise us or our readers if its only point is the revelation, at the very end, that a major character is a vampire, is a new-born baby, is about to eat (or be eaten by) another member of the cast, or has been dead for several pages but has just now noticed. (Besides, stories whose only point is a ``surprise,'' end-of story-revelation of ANY kind seldom work.) 5. Please remember that *WoF&H* is a *fiction* magazine; the Real Inside Truth About The Occult belongs elsewhere, as do real-life ghost sightings and almost *any*thing about airborne crockery. To sum up: Most stories rejected by *any* fiction editor are rejected for one or more of these flaws: 1. Lack of a clear, consistent point of view. 2. Too much exposition and too little narration, especially at the beginning. 3. Characters so uninteresting, unpleasant, or unconvincing that the reader simply doesn't *care* what happens to them. 4. Plots that fail to resolve (tragically, happily, or otherwise) their problems or conflicts, but merely present them. Protagonists who never protag, who don't even try to cope (sucessfully or not) with their problems. Plots with neither problems nor conflicts. Plots based on old, tired ideas or situations. Plots with ``surprise'' endings that aren't surprising, or which depend on cheating the reader. Required reading: *The Elements of Style* by Strunk and White, third edition, published by Macmillan, is widely available from good bookstores in hard covers and soft. Get hold of a copy, and you better believe it! Recommended reading: *On Writing Science Fiction: The Editors Strike Back!* by Scithers, Schweitzer, and Ford -- we wrote it, so of course we recommend it. We also recommend *Science Fiction Writer's Workshop I* by Barry B. Longyear. Both cover fantasy and horror as well as science fiction; both are available from Owlswick Press, 123 Crooked Lane, King of Prussia PA 19406-2570, for $19.50 and $9.50, respectively, postpaid. (In Pennsylvania, please add the 6% sales tax!) Any good college or public 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. Read the chapters on viewpoint in both books. The End