Bewildering Stories Editorial

by Don Webb

Writing for Bewildering Stories

Ian’s on-line game in “Writ on Water” sounds like Scrabble taken literally. Does it qualify as an “extreme” board game? Or could it be it an extended visual metaphor for the creative process? I suspect the latter.

Considering the response to the Story Contest, Ian has very generously offered to help with editing and formatting texts for the contest and for the regular issues. All I can say is ohthankyouthankyouthankyou! We have a few novellas coming up that I’ve been looking forward to but dread to format. Ian’s help has already proved invaluable and is greatly appreciated.

Then it occurred to me: most of our contributors really have no idea what happens to what they send, even after my guided tour of the “sausage factory” in issue 127. I sometimes receive files that look really nice on screen and, probably, on paper: colors, boldface, fancy fonts, centering, indented paragraphs... pleasing scents...

You want to know what happens to the prettifications? Ye Copy Editor cranks up his bulldozer and pushes them all off the page. That’s right: the only thing left is text. The result looks pretty bare, but it’s ready for mark-up in Bewildering Stories’ style.

Finally, it occurs to me that contributors may ask, “Hey, what about my subtle emphases, my creative punctuation...?” Fair enough. Our style manual has been extensively revised and now starts with a contributors’ checklist. You may even find the page entertaining at odd moments: you’ll want to heed the woeful fate of the Chaotic Punctuator!

You can take a peek it now. It’ll open in a new window, so you won’t lose your place:

Style Manual