Submission Guidelines
By: Stevie Adler
Tags: Submission Guidelines, Writing, Microfiction, Creativity, Admin

The above, hopefully, is ALL the guidance required for sending in a submission, but any questions please post in comments below.

Elaboration

Guidelines have been summarised to a minimum so you can get at the essential information quickly. In this ever increasing paced world we all try to pack more into less time. One of the attractions of Microfiction. Below is additional advice and general chit-chat.

Length

There are many given lengths for Microfiction, we choose to define it as “300 words, or less, not including title.” For this round of submissions there is also a minimum limit of 50-words. [definitive count is in Medium editor on my PC]

Story and Microfiction

What constitutes a “Story” :

Has a beginning, middle and end.

Has Conflict.

Has Character(s).

Has a change in the Main Character (character arc).

Packing all this into 300 words takes time and effort. When done well the story can last longer than the couple of minutes it takes to read. That’s one of the reasons why I like reading Microfiction — you get so much more than the words on the page.

There are many techniques that can be utilised to pack more into less! One often neglected area is choosing the Title. Choosing the right title is a skill like any other, with it you can set the scene or set the mood and entice the reader in before using any of the precious 300-words. (see Create A Stand Out Title)

A Question of Style

What are we looking for? Most Journals have a “House Style” and the best way to discover that style is to read the already published stories (Microfiction tab at the top). Every so often I re-read one or two of them, and they still resonate.

It would be fair to say that I don’t understand stories with a lot of symbols or metaphor. I know I’m missing out, but I just don’t get it. Four examples are in the 81st edition of Microfiction Monday Magazine(81st edition). I’m told that each of them has something to commend it. I know I’m in a minority, but I just don’t get them, so it’s unlikely any stories like these will be published in Adlers Writing (sorry).

One story that deserves to be read more and is a perfect fit for Adlers Writing is The Techtard (to be fair, it’s a good fit for many journals).

We have given examples of what we like and what we don’t like, have you got a story you think is a good fit for Adlers Writing?

Acceptance / Rejection

Apparently only 6% of submissions are accepted to be published in any journal!

We expect more than that to be accepted at Adlers Writing, as the standard of writing on Medium is so much better, and you know what a “story” is and you know what we don’t like.

The aim is to get an answer back to you, one way or the other, within a week. If it’s longer please query (email).

The Submission Window is long enough (3 months) so you don’t have to rush your writing.

Unpublished

The story has to be unpublished, and remain unpublished during the submission process, until a decision is made. If we then accept the story for publication in Adlers Writing we will provide instructions for our publication process.

Number of Submissions

Maximum of two submissions per author. We prefer separate submissions as they are easier to track and control. Each submission can be ANY day in the submission window.

Member Partner Program

We can’t pay for publishing a story, but, it can be IN or OUT of the Member Partner Program, your choice. No need to say on submission -this won’t influence a decision in any way.

Rights

We only publish in Adlers Writing on Medium, nowhere else.

If you hadn’t already realised it, you can “Remove story from publication” at ANY time, so in any Medium publication you have control of your story. But, if do you wish to remove a story from Adlers Writing, can you let us know in advance in case we need to change the layout.

Adlers Writing

Adlers Writing was originally created as a personal publication (Stevie Adler) to keep my fiction separate from non-fiction articles. To display and order the stories more effectively. Keep those pesky responses away! Remember when they were all mixed in together?

Then I wanted to raise the profile of Microfiction on Medium, so more is written and read, and decided to showcase selected Microfiction in one central place. But the pool of stories I select from dried up. I can’t read many stories behind the paywall. Hence this submissions window.

For 2018 we put forward five stories for consideration of Best Small Fictions (the judges are still deliberating). I want to do the same for 2019, but I need some good stories to choose from. Hopefully there will also be a 2020 edition of Best Microfiction of 2019 to submit to as well.

General Note about Publishing on Medium

There are some dedicated editors that have increased both the quality and quantity of fiction published on Medium over the past 18 months or so, thank you!

If you like to read fiction you should at least be aware of all the other Medium: Fiction Publications —a list of some 70 active publications, ordered by number of followers. This list is updated regularly.