1000words
is looking for previously unpublished flash fiction of up to 1000
words in length. The stories may be in any genre, but must have been
written in response to one of the images from our Pinterest Boards.
Read the complete guidelines here.
(Ceased publication)
(Ceased publication)
SQF: Why did you start this
magazine?
Natalie Bowers:
It was early 2012, and I’d just completed an online writing course
with flash fiction aficionado Calum Kerr. He’d mentioned that he
was trying to get the first ever National Flash-Fiction Day off the
ground and was looking for people to organize events and projects,
offline and on. Over the course of the course, I’d fallen in love
with flash fiction, and I’d always had a secret desire to run my
own magazine, so I put the two together with my enthusiasm for
photography and came up with the idea for 1000words.
We published our first stories in the run-up to NFFD 2012.
SQF: What are the top three things
you look for in a submission and why?
NB:
I don’t dilly-dally when it comes to deciding if a story is right
for 1000words.
If it grabs me, it goes on the site, and the major factor in
determining whether a story grabs me or not seems to be its narrative
voice. I need a narrative voice I can trust. It doesn’t have to be
confident, but it does have to be consistent. I have to believe in
the narrator to believe in the story.
The second thing I look for is a spark
of something special. It might be an unusual turn of phrase, a
particularly poignant observation, a subverted cliché, a surprising
simile, or it might be that the story itself is old, but that it’s
being told in a new way … or vice
versa. It’s hard to
define, but I know it when I see it.
The third thing I look for is subtly of
exposition. I believe there’s a place for ‘telling’ as well as
‘showing’ in flash fiction, but I do like to have to read between
the lines. I don’t want to be told what to think; I want to be told
a story that makes me think.
I also like stories that work
synergistically with the pictures that inspired them, but that’s a
fourth thing!
SQF: What most often turns you off
to a submission (besides the converse of your responses to question
1)?
The biggest turn off for me is an
apparent lack of proofreading. We all make a mistake here and there,
so I’m more than happy to drop in an extra comma or apostrophe if
needed, but if I’m faced with consistently inaccurate grammar and
punctuation that doesn’t serve the story, then I’ll most likely
give up on the piece.
The other thing that turns me off is
when authors toss their stories at me without so much as a ‘Hello’!
My name is on our website, but even a ‘Dear Editor’ would be
polite.
SQF: In your FAQ, you state, "we
believe that the shorter the story, the sharper the bite.” Is there
such a thing as too short?
NB:
Not for us. I think the shortest piece we’ve published is 75 words
long, but if Hemingway (or whoever really wrote it) had sent me his
six-word story, I’d definitely have published it!
SQF: Based on your experience as an
editor, what have you learned about writing?
NB:
Where should I start? The most important thing I’ve learned from
being an editor is that I need to persevere with my own writing.
Every time I publish a story at 1000words,
I’m inspired to open up my laptop and start typing again. The
stories we publish always push me to up my game as well. As an
editor, I ask myself what I like and what I don’t like about each
submission, and this has helped me enormously when rewriting and
editing my own stories. I’ve also developed a thicker skin when it
comes to dealing with rejection. It’s nothing personal when I
decline to publish a story—it’s often just a matter of taste—so
when I receive a ‘no’ from a publisher, I simply dust of the
rejected story and send it somewhere else.
SQF: What one question on this topic
do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?
NB:
The question I wish you’d asked is: “Are there any topics or
themes you don’t want to read about?” As someone who’s suffered
from depression and anxiety, I don’t like submissions that deal
with mental illness in a superficial or stereotypical way–I’ve
got too much first-hand experience to believe in them. I also have a
particular aversion to stories about suicide, mostly because the
one’s I’ve been sent have been about people simply feeling sorry
for themselves. I have published one or two on the site, but these
have been something special, something different, like Cathy Lennon’s
A Useful Facility in theNorth, which is one of my very favourite 1000words
stories.
Well, that was a cheery note on which
to finish!
Thank
you, Natalie. We all appreciate you taking time from your busy
schedule to participate in this project.
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POST: 10/3--Six Questions for Annabelle Edwards, Editor, Control Lit
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