One Page Stories Submissions (or What To Do, What To Write And How to Submit).
02/11/2004 . Source: Geoff 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 to make everything count and tell a good story. As
there are few places and 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 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. The
Rules:- 1. 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. 2. The
story can be single-lined but must not extend beyond the length of an A4 page
with 11/2 inch left margin, 1 inch right margin. 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. In case
you need to know, it's roughly 600 words but that depends on the length of your
words. Just remember an A4 page. 3. 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? 4.
Apply standard text format. All paragraphs start with two spaces and there is
no need to drop a line between paragraphs. 5. Check out the
guidelines as run on the website submissions to see what other foibles I normally
like to see, especially regarding speech marks. 6. Be original!!!
Any plagiarism or borrowing of copyrighted characters from elsewhere is grounds
for instant return. 7. 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. 8. 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’. 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. E-mail to me at (and
read the email address and remove the words that are used to purge spam to the
abyss): gfwillmettsWORDSDONTBELONGHERE@hotmail.com 
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