Writing Dos And Don’ts

Fiction Ed, Lucy, runs through some dos and don’ts around submitting fiction to ‘The People’s Friend’.

Submitting

Do – use a pen name, if you prefer.

Don’t – forget to include your real name and your pen name on your submission.

Do – give your narrator a name.

Don’t – forget to let us know if your narrator is male or female, if it’s unclear.

Do – submit by email, either to your assigned editor, for established authors, or to friendfiction.co.uk if you’re not a published ‘Friend’ author.

Don’t – submit by post. We no longer accept postal submissions.

Writing

Do – use a legible font, at least 11pt, with double line spacing please.

Don’t – use formatting, or repeat information such as byline or story title.

Do – follow our guidelines and stick to our word counts.

Don’t – send stories of under 1000, or over 4000, words, unless it’s a Long Read (maximum 8500 words).

Do – include word count on your cover sheet. If your story has a historical setting, please make the date or era clear. A ‘log line’ is helpful – one line which sums up your story.

Don’t – forget to include contact details on each submission – name, address, email and a contact phone number.

Prepping

Do – read the magazine regularly before submitting, to check the tone and content is suitable for our readers.

Don’t – send sci-fi, or anything involving unpleasantness, violence, swearing or intimacy.

Do – remember that as well as being a strong stand-alone story, your story needs to fit into a ‘mix’ of stories in an issue .

Don’t – rewrite a story without being asked. Please check with your assigned editor first. Your editor will be happy to help with writing queries.

Do – remember that we look for stories with contemporary and historical settings.

Don’t – forget that we need six contemporary stories for every one historical, in the weekly.