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Sword & Sorcery
Flashing Swords
Pitch Black Books
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Flashing Swords Guidelines
Sharpen your pens and ungum your keyboards! We're opening for submissions on December 15th!
Flashing Swords is a new quarterly E-zine dedicated to publishing the finest heroic fantasy, sword and sorcery, sword and planet, and swashbuckling historicals we can lay hands on. We're very specific with our definitions--look below to find out exactly what we mean by the terms Sword and Sorcery or Sword and Planet, or peruse the articles about Sword and Sorcery.
Payment
2k-6k preferred, 1-2 cents a word. Exclusive rights to publish story are granted to Flashing Swords E-zine for 12 months and then rights revert to authors, although we prefer the story to remain archived at the Flashing Swords E-zine website.
FLASH-FICTION
Now actively seeking flash fiction. Fantasy fiction up to 1k. Payment $10.00 USD maximum. Send all flash-fiction submissions to Joseph A. McCullough, Flash-Fiction Editor at:
REPRINTS ARE WELCOME
Query first, but Flashing Swords welcomes reprints, although at this time we cannot pay for them. We will actively promote the authors and works we believe in, and reprints will receive equal billing with fresh fiction.
Format
Submit your story as body text within an e-mail to Daniel E. Blackston at:
Please don't send your story as an attachment; the magazine editors can't afford the chance of a virus anymore than you can.
Please include a paragraph or two about yourself and your publishing history.
Response time: 4 to 6 weeks.
We Want:
Fantasy-fiction. Stories are selected on the basis of marketability and quality writing. We encourage the submission of short fantasy fiction in a wide range of subcategories including, but not limited to: sword and sorcery, high fantasy, dark fantasy, sword and planet, historical fantasy, stories about magic and sorcery, Eastern fantasy, RPG-inspired fantasy, as well as fantasy fiction that is hard-to-categorize.
We're Not Seeking:
Urban fantasy, slipstream/literary fantasy, science-fiction or horror. We’re disinterested in stories of negation, or experimental techniques that obfuscate (or obliterates) the authors capacity to tell a great story. We prioritize commercial fiction because it is our business to give readers what they want.
HOW TO SUBMIT
Please send your complete manuscript along with a cover letter which contains the following information: postal address, phone number, email address, one paragraph bio, and a short paragraph detailing your publishing credits. If you are an unpublished author please state this in place of your publishing history.
Special Note for Pitch-Black Customers:
Experience has taught us that writers who are familiar with the titles we publish stand a far greater chance of submitting material we may want to purchase. If you’ve purchased and read one or more of our heroic fantasy anthologies or are a subscriber to Prism Quarterly, please add "Pitch-Black Supporter" in your email subject-title when you submit your work. Mention when and where you purchased the antho or when/where you purchased your PQ subscription in your cover letter. Mail to:
Tips:
- Know the genre before you submit.
- Unless I know your work, you probably shouldn't send me a long piece.
- Use fresh settings. I'm tired of stock D&D settings and generic medieval Europe. If you must write of knights or barbarians, you absolutely must bring something new in the work.
- I'm not very interested in humourous sendups. There are other markets for that. That said, don't be afraid to use humor in your writing and moments of humor in your fiction--Conan is usually depicted scowling grimly, but he laughed now and again.
- No x-rated stories. Any private-eye stories about dwarves, elves, or the like will be immolated.
- No fan fiction or pastiche--the world and characters must be yours.
- Send your best work; the space in each issue will be small!
What Is Sword and Sorcery?
Some people use “sword and sorcery” to mean any kind of fantasy fiction. While sword and sorcery is certainly a type of fantasy fiction (as a sports car is a type of automobile), the label "sword and sorcery" was proposed by award-winning speculative fiction author Fritz Leiber to distinguish the genre from other fantasy.
What makes sword and sorcery different from other fantasy?
The environment, the protagonists, the obstacles, and story structure.
- The Environment: Sword and sorcery is fiction set in a land different from our own, where technology is relatively primitive, allowing the protagonists to overcome their martial obstacles face-to-face. Magic works, but seldom at the behest of the genre's heroes. More often sorcery is just one more obstacle used against them and is usually wielded by villains or monsters. The landscape is exotic; either a different world, or far corners of our own.
- The Protagonists: The heroes live by their cunning or brawn, frequently both. They are strangers or outcasts, rebels imposing their own justice on the wilds or the strange and decadent civilizations which they encounter. They are usually commoners or barbarians; should they hail from the higher ranks of society then they are discredited, disinherited, or come from the lower ranks of nobility (the lowest of the high).
- Obstacles: Sword and sorcery’s protagonists must best fantastic dangers, monstrous horrors, and dark sorcery to earn riches, astonishing treasure, the love of dazzling members of the opposite sex, or the right to live another day.
- Structure: Sword and sorcery is crafted with traditional structure, meaning that it isn't stream of consciousness, slice of life, or any sort of experimental flavor--it has a beginning, middle, and end; a problem and solution; a climax and resolution. Most important of all, sword and sorcery moves at a headlong pace and overflows with action and thrilling adventure.
The structure of sword and planet is absolutely identical to the structure of sword and sorcery; the other elements are very similar. In place of magic, sword and planet has telepathy and scarce technological leftovers from a remote, absent, dead, or dying race of advanced beings—so advanced that their technology might as well be magic. The protagonists of sword and planet, like those of sword and sorcery, are outcasts and foreigners, dropped in to strange lands (often by accident). They might be explorers from advanced civilizations, but all they are likely to carry are a beam weapon with a few shots and a handful of survival gismos. More often a sword and planet protagonist has to make do with his wits and the sword he wrested from the planet’s primitive culture. He or she faces obstacles very similar to those faced by sword and sorcery heroes.
Swashbuckling Historicals
Swashbuckling historicals are similar in tone to both Sword and Sorcery and Sword and Planet; swashbuckling historicals are historical adventure or alternate history rooted in the past of planet Earth. The preceding comments about protagonists and structure are identical for swashbuckling historicals, and obstacles and setting are similar. Think The Three Musketeers or Captain Blood. A supernatural element is NOT required (though it is welcome), but action and excitement is a must.
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