How to Write & Submit Stories to Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazines

By Sara Bellum On September 23, 2014 In Obscuria, On Writing No Comments



Speculative Fiction Short Story Submissions

Speculative Fiction, short story submissions

Submit Speculative Fiction Stories

Whether you’re a reader or an author here at Buzzy Mag, you’ve probably wondered what it takes to get a story into a magazine like ours. The process isn’t too difficult if you put your mind to it. Just follow these tips and you’ll have your science fiction stories published in no time.

Be Creative

This may seem like a given, but you’d be surprised at the number of times science-fiction publishers see the same stories over and over again. If your story seems familiar to an editor, it’s likely to be rejected. Stay away from clichés like your life depends on it!

The editors at Strange Horizons, an online science fiction and fantasy magazine, have actually gone through the trouble of making a list of “Stories We’ve Seen Too Often” and tacking it onto their submission guidelines. It provides subjects such as “Someone dies and then wanders around as a ghost,” “Scientist uses himself or herself as test subject,” and “Evil people hook the protagonist on an addictive substance and then start raising the price, ruining the protagonist’s life.”

Granted, there are some popular and successful sci-fi stories that rely on tropes like these (Patrick Swayze’s character in the movie Ghost, The Hulk, and Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly, respectively). It goes to show that a skilled writer can turn even a cliché into a good story. If you’ve got passion for a plot line that seems familiar, by all means still write it, but add your own style to it and give it something that sets it apart.

Be Bold

So many great stories never get published because the author thinks the story isn’t good enough and won’t submit it in the first place. You can’t get published if you don’t submit! This includes stories that have already been rejected. Many authors who are household names today, such as J.K. Rowling and Dr. Seuss, started out by receiving repeated rejections. There is always another publisher, or the chance to write another draft or another story, so you have no excuses not to submit.

Know Your Publishers

When you’re seeking an opportunity to publish, you have to know where to look. A Google search can only get you so far. Most likely you’ll be limited to finding the more popular sci-fi magazines with more competitive submission pools.

One place to find listings of magazines currently accepting submissions is on Facebook. There is a group on Facebook called Open Call: Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Pulp Markets. Users in the group make regular postings about new submission opportunities. With such a wealth of submission opportunities, you’ll have no excuses to let your stories sit around collecting dust.

The other part of knowing publishers is understanding what they publish. Reading the submission guidelines isn’t always enough. If you get the chance, pick up a current issue of the magazine and read the stories that made it. Always familiarize yourself with a magazine’s background and history. The submission guidelines for Analog Science Fiction & Fact don’t mention anything about hard sci-fi, but reading the “About Analog” section of their website provides a hint that they’re more likely to accept stories that are plausible and based on real science.

Start your submission quest right here at Buzzy Mag. Read a few stories and peruse submission guidelines before deciding if this is where you want your story to live. We can’t wait to see what you’ve got for us!

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Sara Bellum

Sara Bellum

Editor at Buzzy Multimedia Publishing
The name's Sara Bellum, and I'm the editor-at-large here at BuzzyMag - the hostess with the mostess, if you will. I like to think that my first calling is fighting crime and delivering a heaping dose of sweet, sweet justice to all manner of thugs, miscreants, hoodlums, ruffians, and ne'er-do-wells, but unfortunately, violent vigilantism doesn't exactly pay big bucks these days.

Times are tough, my friends, and I've got bills to pay, so I decided to put my encyclopedic knowledge of all things sci-fi & fantasy-related to use to help me land a day job. To tell you the truth, it's kind of a nice change of pace. My manicures have been lasting a bit longer lately.

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