Your story must spur discussions. It must require the reader to expand their mind and involve ethical questions.
Rule of Thumb: If you know the right answer, but don't do it because you lack courage, that's probably a HARD CHOICE. If you don't actually even know what the right answer is, that's an ETHICAL CHOICE (and what we publish). Ethical Question Quiz
Our editor has made this video, explaining what we are looking for. In short, your writing can be any genre and from any perspective, as long as it stimulates ethical and philosophical discussions.
If you need an example, read “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by the amazing Ursula K. Le Guin. Another way to think of it is this, we are looking for The Trolley Problem in short story form. A great example of something we have published is “The Waiting Room.” “As You Wish” is a good example of the type of children’s story we publish.
If you think more in movies, think Ex Machina, Her, Blade Runner, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Looper. For TV, think The Good Place, Westworld, and Star Trek: TNG.
Better yet, listen to our podcast!
The point is, we don’t care if it’s sci-fi, fantasy, romance, contemporary women’s fiction, historical fiction, western, or whatever, but the short story should have a deeper point for a longer discussion. 90% of what we turn down is not because of the quality of the writing, but because it’s simply not the kind of thing we publish.
If you just want the hard stats, our acceptance rate is around 3%, and stories in the 2500-4000-word range seem to do better with our readers.
We do not accept novels, poems, or artwork.
Are there ethical question stories you are not looking for?
There are a few common topic submissions. We aren’t saying we won’t accept more (we will), but they would have to have a special twist. All things being equal, we are more apt to take a new idea over a “yet another…” idea we have seen before. Submissions we see weekly include:
Going back in time to warn or change the past, or yourself.
Harvesting body parts from animals, clones, the poor/etc to save others.
Anything related to having the right to commit suicide.
Erasing people’s memory in any way related to crime, or your own memory, to minimize the past trauma.
A straight trolley car problem, just in a different setting.
Medical decisions/treatments/testing that hurts some, but helps others.
A car driven by AI that has to decide what to do.
Straight Utilitarianism decisions.
Ethical cannibalism.
What length are you looking for?
- Children’s Stories: under 1,500 words
- Young Adult: under 3,500 words
- Adult: 1,500-7,000** words
More information and submission portal here.
Accepted short stories from unsolicited submissions pay $75.
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