• Video - Award-Winning Author Premee Mohamed breaks down the ingredients of a good start to your story
• Markets and contests with submissions open or opening soon.
• JANUARY 31 - Mastering Structure And Plot: The Blueprint Of A Story led by award-winning author Lavie Tidhar. Discount code!
• Care to drabble with us? Each week our drabble community writes 100 words (or they don't—their call) to a single-word prompt.
• This Week's Prompt. An interesting item from the news to provide you with fodder for your creativity. This week, advanced alien civilizations could be communicating 'like fireflies' in plain sight, researchers suggest.

What’s A Good Start To Your Story?

Markets and Contests

• 📝 Splinter Journal is open to submissions of short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. They have no hard word count limits for prose writing; for poetry, send up to four poems. This call closes on January 19th. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
• 🎀 Pink Hydra Books is open to novellas and novellettes on the theme “Written in the stars”. Send them work between 10,000 and 50,000 words before January 18th. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
• 📖 Pan Macmillan Australia is open to direct submissions of full-length novels and nonfiction work, including MG and YA fiction. Pan Macmillan is considered a “Big Five” publisher. Although this call comes from their Aussie branch, there doesn’t seem to be any restriction on who can submit. Send them a completed query form with a synopsis and the first 50 pages. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
• 📕 Arsenal Pulp is open to submissions of literary fiction novels and nonfiction work by LGBTQ and BIPOC authors, with a focus on those from Canada. Send them a query letter, synopsis, and full manuscript. For nonfiction, also include a detailed chapter outline. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
• 📗 Parlyaree Press is open to submissions of full-length novels, memoirs, and poetry collections and pamphlets. Send them a query letter, synopsis, and sample of 10 to 15 pages. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
• 📘 Clash Books is open to submissions of full-length literary fiction and transgressive horror novels, as well as culturally influenced creative nonfiction and poetry collections. Send them a synopsis and full manuscript. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
• 📙 At Bay Press is open to submissions of full-length novels and nonfiction work. They’re “only” interested in literary fiction, but also mysteries, sci-fi and fantasy, graphic novels, and poetry (🤨). Send them a query letter, synopsis, and full manuscript. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
• 🐈‍⬛ Short Beasts is open to submissions of flash fiction of up to 1,000 words, with a particular interest in microfiction of up to 50 words. No submissions fee!
• 🥪 Toasted Cheese Literary Journal is open to submissions of short stories, personal essays, poems, and book reviews. Send them up to 5,000 words of short fiction or creative nonfiction, five poems, or reviews of up to 750 words. No submissions fee!
• 🎭 Finborough Theatre is open to submissions of full-length “artistically ambitious” dramatic work to produce on stage. Send them a full manuscript, cover letter, and synopsis. No submissions fee!
• 📇 Type! is open to submissions of flash fiction, poetry, and dramatic writing. Send them stories of up to 1,000 words, poems of up to 200 words, or stage and screen plays of up to two pages. No submissions fee!
• 🕌 Blink Ink is open to submissions of 50-word microfiction on the theme of “Lost Civilizations” until January 15th. No submissions fee!
• ⚡️ 10 By 10 Flash is open to submissions of flash fiction of up to 500 words. No submissions fee!

Mastering Structure And Plot: The Blueprint Of A Story

• Paragraphs as the smallest building blocks of fiction: action, dialogue, description
• The Rule of Three
• The who, what, why, where and how of fiction
• The difference between short, novelette, novella and novel and how it affects the writing of each
• Characters and their goals
• Names and their significance
• The role of the narrator
• Writing the perfect shape short story
• Time and its relation to narrative

Care To Drabble With Us?

This Week's Prompt