Submission Guidelines — F For Fiction
What we publish and how to submit your story
Welcome to F For Fiction, the place where your imagination takes wings.
If you want to be published in the publication, you have come to the right place. We are on the lookout for new writers with powerful voices who don’t hesitate to write their hearts out. Whether it is a short story, flash fiction, micro fiction, or poetry — we are open to accepting them all.
Enjoy reading, and hope to hear from you soon.
What We Publish
Short stories, microfiction and flash fiction of all genres is welcome here. We also accept poetry (both in form and free verse).
What we don’t publish
If your article is non-fiction or a listicle with advice on how to have a better life, we are sorry, but F For Fiction is not the right place for you. However, there are several other publications on Medium explicitly dedicated to non-fiction and listicles.
What It Means to be Published on FFF
You are the author, and you will retain all rights to the story. If you wish to republish it on your own website or blog, you are free to do that. Keep in mind, however, that if you choose to publish with FFF, it is to remain here. Removing an already-published piece from the publication is not encouraged.
When your story is published with FFF, it will be shared with the community of writers and readers on this platform.
In addition, the owner has a Quora Space with 50,000+ followers. All the stories published on FFF will be shared on Quora with the added advantage of being shared with such an extensive network of readers and writers.
Before Submitting Your Story
Here are some guidelines to help you make sure your story is best fitted for the publication.
Your Medium profile
Set up your Medium profile with a headshot of yours as the profile picture and a crisp bio that lets us know who you are and what you write about. Feel free to add any external links to your website or book in your bio.
Formatting
Follow Medium’s curation guidelines to ensure that your story is formatted in the proper manner. Don’t keep massive chunks of texts as they significantly lower readability.
- Choose a title that generates some curiosity and makes the reader want to click on your story.
- Type the title in Title Case, i.e. with all the major words capitalised. You can use the Title Case Converter if you have any doubts as to how to write your titles. For the subtitle, use sentence case without any punctuation marks at the end.
- Use a relevant (high-resolution and duty-free) featured image and credit the owner or creator of the photograph. You can use Unsplash for good quality images that fit with the theme of your story.
The language
Make sure your story has no grammar errors. If English is not your first language, you can use the free Grammarly Chrome extension to have a quick look through your story before submitting. The best news is: it works on Medium.
If the editors find some errors in your story, we will either correct them or leave you a note saying how you can filter them out.
Word limit
We are looking for stories that entertain and provide an escape to the reader. The ideal word count can be anywhere between 500 to 1200 words. If you feel your point can be conveyed in fewer words than 500, you are welcome to submit, but make sure it is complete in itself. We do not encourage stories submitted in parts (if each part is not complete in itself).
Use proper tags
Medium allows you to use 5 tags for each story. Choose them according to the genre you think your story fits in. Since you are aiming for FFF, we prefer two of the tags should be Fiction or Short Story.
No CTAs
If you wish to include a Call to Action (CTA) at the bottom of your story, make sure it fits in one sentence and is not too aggressive. Refer to Best Practices for Calls to Action in Partner Posts for more details.
NOTE: We give preference to unpublished drafts. However, we are also open to publishing older articles if an editor of FFF has especially requested your article by leaving a private note.
How to Submit
If you are not already a writer for FFF, comment on this piece with a short introduction of yourself and what kind of stories or poems you wish to share with this publication.
We will clap 10 times on your comment and leave a private note to let you know when you have been added. Please allow us five days to add you as a writer.
Once you are a writer and your story is ready, click on the three dots at the top right of your story and select “Add to publication”.
From the list that pops up, select “F For Fiction” and click on “Save”.
The final step is to select the green button that says “Submit” right next to the three dots. When you click on this, a page will prop up where you can add five relevant tags and choose whether or not you wish to put your story behind Medium’s paywall.
FFF prefers if you make your story eligible to earn money and allow curators to recommend it to interested readers in the topics.
We will process all submitted stories within three business days. If we reject your story, we will leave a note explaining why. If we think it would do better with some edits, we will let you know our thoughts. Under no circumstances will we edit any part of your story (except grammatical errors) without your consent.
If you need further help, you can read this post to clear your doubts.
If you have just joined the publication, we at FFF welcome you warmly and look forward to reading your stories.
That is all from our side.
We will keep updating this piece as and when we make changes to the guidelines.
Till then, keep writing, keep reading, and keep spreading the joy of fiction.
Love,