The Centropic Oracle publishes flash fiction of 200-1,500 words and fiction from 1,500 to 6,500 words. They are looking for science fiction and fantasy stories that make you think and feel.
Presenting and promoting both authors and narrators is a critical part of their ethos. Creative projects like theirs depends on collaboration, the centropic energy of a group engaging in a cooperative venture. So they take pride in the fact that they pay their contributors equally for their hard work and skill.
In their opinion, good fiction – particularly SF and Fantasy – should challenge us to examine our own lives and beliefs. It should force us to reflect on how we fit into the world and what it takes to make the world a better place by our being in it. Read the complete guidelines here.
SQF: Why did you start this magazine?
Charly Thompson: In 2016 we began fleshing out an idea for how we could blend our skills in a way that would be rewarding and give back to a community that had helped shape us as individuals. Audiobook production seemed like a natural fit for our talents and short stories were the obvious place to begin. Since my co-founder is a voice actor, we decided to put a lot of our focus on promoting both sides of an audio publication - the writer and the narrator, which contributed to the overall design of our website.
SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a submission and why?
CT: First and foremost is emotional connection to the main character. Without that there’s no reason for us to care enough to keep reading to the end. Emotional connection comes through when we, as readers (or listeners in our case), understand what drives the character to react to situations the way they do. It can come through in fragments of backstory, physical responses to action, or insight into what choices the character makes in response to a plot point.
Secondly, though barely, we look for solid integration of backstory and setting. We don’t like to see big chunks of info-dumping, we feel information should be woven into the narrative with character actions and dialogue tags.
Of next importance to us is the quality of the prose. We find bland prose to be boring and are attracted to prose that makes good, judicious use of metaphors and lyricism without being overwritten.
SQF: What most often turns you off to a submission?
CT: Plot driven stories that give us little emotional connection to a character through weak characterization. A plot is important to a story, obviously, but if I don’t care about a character I have no reason to care about what they do. I also find characters who behave inconsistently or unbelievably because that’s what the plot requires are especially irritating.
Repetition of passive information gets annoying quickly. Repetition can be fun in a literary device but being given the same information - even with new examples of the behaviour - that doesn’t do anything to move the plot or character arc forward are just a waste of word count, and thus a listener’s time.
SQF: What do you look for in the opening paragraph(s)/stanza(s) of a submission?
CT: Character interaction with their environment or other characters, either through dialogue or action in an opening paragraph is critical. Stories that begin with setting description or backstory rarely get read past the third page.
SQF: Many editors list erotica, or sex for sex sake, as hard sells. What are hard sells for your publication?
CT: We’re pretty much on the same page there. We don’t enjoy violence for the sake of it, or sex, and we have a zero tolerance on strong swearing. Mainstream monster tropes that Hollywood has done a million times are a no-go for us, too. Whether it’s vampires, werewolves, zombies, or angels, it’s all done so frequently that we need a break from it. First person conversational is a turn-off usually. Sometimes it works, but it usually doesn’t. I want to feel like I’m getting a glimpse into someone else’s experience rather than experiencing the situation myself. As a result I usually lose connection to the character’s emotional state and the focus becomes my own.
SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?
CT: What are some challenges that are unique to an audio production of a story as opposed to a printed one?
Dialogue that becomes too narrative in style, especially if the piece is written in the 1st person. It comes across as stilted and fake when spoken aloud, whereas it can work if written because the reader has the visual cues of formatting between dialogue and narrative.
Work that requires visual formatting cues such as parentheticals are especially difficult. Again, it’s easy to do in written work, but difficult to do for more than a couple of words in audio.
Thank you, Charly. We all appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.
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