If you have read the submission guidelines for Swords & Sorcery Magazine, you know that I am looking for what I might call “pre-industrial fantasy”, stories set in worlds where technology has not yet progressed to steam engines, electric telegraphs, or repeating firearms. Anything that fits that description is fair game and will get a reading, but some stories are more likely to interest me than others. As you might guess from its title, Swords & Sorcery welcomes sword and sorcery stories but, however you define sword and sorcery, many of the stories I publish do not fit in that genre. I have been pleased to publish (and read) a variety of fantasy tales, and I’m sure I will continue to do so in the future. There are, however, certain elements in a story that make it less likely to catch my interest. I must note that I have published examples of all of these things in the past, and likely will do so again, but for a story with one or more of these elements to excite me it must be exceptional in other ways. I list them below, in no particular order.
- Retold myths or fairy tales. I tend to find these trite and predictable. Often they are retold from the (usually) heroine’s point of view and give her more agency and power than she had in the original tale. That is a good thing, but the story would interest me more if the names were changed, the setting altered slightly, and the serial numbers filed off. The best stories in this category, in my opinion, are the ones that tell tales I haven’t heard before—more obscure fairy tales or stories from mythologies that are less well known.
- Stories in the present tense. The present tense usually seems forced and unnatural to me in most of the stories I have read that are written in it, including widely acclaimed stories in anthologies and best of collections. This is especially true if the story is set in an imagined past, as many sword and sorcery stories are. The exception is when the story is told from the point of view of a character who naturally relates past events in the present tense.
- Stock fantasy races. By this I mean elves, dwarves, goblins, etc. Vampires and werewolves fall into this category for me too. So do talking animals, especially if they walk on two legs. If the non-human characters would fit easily into a standard Dungeons and Dragons campaign, they probably won’t help your story in my estimation. More unique takes on non-human characters are a plus. That being said, some writers use these tropes very well and I have been happy to publish their work, or rejected it for other reasons. This includes some stories that really did originate in someone’s D&D campaign.
- Barbarians. For some people barbarian stories are sword and sorcery. Not for me. Many of my favorite sword and sorcery heroes aren’t barbarians and I like to see characters from a variety of backgrounds in sword and sorcery tales. Muscle bound barbarian heroes are the cliché of sword and sorcery and an overabundance of “clonans” was part of why the genre went into decline in the 1980s. Give me a barbarian with a twist, however, or pair one with another character from a contrasting background, and you just might have me hooked.
- Overly rich vocabulary. You are a writer. You love language. You have a larger than average vocabulary. Feel free to use all the words you know, when the situation calls for them. Using unusual words can add precision and depth of meaning to your writing. It can also improve the rhythm of your sentences, making your tone more poetic. Use your impressive vocabulary judiciously, however. Resist the temptation to use all of it at once. You can easily overdue the rich vocabulary and tip your writing from poetic to pedantic. Also, please remember that the dictionary is your friend. If you aren’t absolutely certain of the meaning of a word, look it up. Accidental malapropisms don’t improve your writing at all.
On a final note, please make sure your stories are as well edited as you can make them. Put them aside for a few days and give them another pass before you submit them and/or get a friend to read them over first. I don’t publish stories that come to me with too many misspellings or grammar mistakes. On occasion, I have invited writers to give their story another pass and submit it again, then published it once they did.
As always, if you enjoy Swords & Sorcery Magazine, please consider joining my Patreon. Any proceeds from it will go to keep S&SM going and make it even better than it is now.
Best,
Curtis Ellett
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