007,1287147914661064119606890704 Contributing to The Quatermass Experiment
So ya wanna write somethin' for us? No, not if we use revolting phonetic slang like that. But seriously, it is possible that, after reading in the electronic pages of this diskzine the several attempts which with varying degrees of success aspire to the category of good science fiction, you wish to try your own hand at it. Well go ahead. After all, that is what this whole production is about: getting YOUR stories broadcast to the public. The fact that it is also highly readable is a secondary matter.
If you have an idea which you think might make an enjoyable story, our advice to you is: write that story now. It may be that when you finish writing it you decide it isn't really good enough to be worth sending it to us, but remember that you will almost certainly have gained something from the experience and your next one will probably be that little bit better. No-one learns to write overnight; the art of creating good prose requires a lot of hard work to master. However, "It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish," as a wise hobbit once said, and if you never write your first story then you'll never get anywhere.
Even if you do think that your story isn't very good, send it to us anyway. The harshest critic is often the creator himself (Tchaikovsky didn't like The Nutcracker Suite, if you can believe that), and our policy is that a story with any one of the important literary elements in place (good plot, style, ideas, characters or dialogue) deserves inclusion as long as the other areas aren't atrocious. We do have some responsibility to our readers but as they theoretically aren't having to pay for The Quatermass Experiment, we do not feel that they can complain too much about sub-publishable standard works. DO NOT hold on to your story because you feel it is let down by poor English. Language skills are important in the real world of literature but in a publication like this they are less important than what you have to say. Of course, if you can do a good all-round story then so much the better.
We do accept contributions in all shapes and sizes. However, the preferred format is as an ASCII text file (if you don't know what that is, it's the way that Notepad, Ed and most PD word processors save their files; also all commercial word processors should have a "Text Only" or "ASCII" save option). We are prepared to type in handwritten or printed stories but only if they are particularly good. If the word processor you use is KindWords, Pen Pal, Scribble! or WordPerfect then it is possible for us to convert their documents to ASCII format ourselves; please remember, however, that ALL text formatting commands will be LOST, including italics, bold, underlining, centring (just use spaces to position text), justifying and even tabs. Please don't put carriage returns at the end of each line of text, as we just have to remove all of them again. If your WP always saves ASCII files with carriage returns included, at least make sure that the line length is 73 characters exactly, to save us some work. And if it inserts spaces to fully justify the text, please save it as left justified, so it looks the same as all the other articles in TQE.
What you want to do is put your masterpiece on a blank disk and send it to us. You may (or may not) have noticed our practice of using the title of the article as the name of the file: what this means is that the title can be no more than 25 characters long. If you need more than that you will need to supply us with two titles, one short one to be used in the menu and the title bar and one long one to actually head the article. For a nominal fee (i.e. nothing) we provide a spell-checking service for those of our contributors without access to a spell-checker themselves. Simply indicate after the end of your article if you wish us to perform this operation. The end of your text file, or in a separate Readme file, is the place where you should put your name, address, telephone number and any comments you wish to make about your submission or the diskzine, but all of these things are optional. Anonymous articles are considered just like any others. Do remember that if we are contacted by someone interested in your story we are unable to put them in touch with you if you don't leave either your address or your telephone number.
The Rules
1 - Please do not submit someone else's work under your own name. Of course we cannot verify authorship so we have to trust you. Please do not abuse this trust or we may stop (or be forced to stop) producing The Quatermass Experiment.
2 - We do reserve the right to choose which submissions are used in the diskzine and to edit articles as we see fit. We do promise to edit only when absolutely necessary, and then sparingly.
3 - Anyone can contribute. Foreigners, PC owners, females (ouch, sorry feminists), Stuart N. Hardy: nobody will be subjected to any form of discrimination whatsoever (well, maybe just a little in Stuart's case). We accept submissions on PC/ST disks as long as the text is ASCII. We also accept multiple submissions on one disk, so club together with some friends to save postage.
4 - All copyright remains with the author of the story, under the freeware principle. That just means that although the author holds the copyright for his/her work, (s)he has given permission for it to be copied as long as the copier makes no profit from it. Neither should the story (or any other piece of writing for that matter) be separated from the rest of the diskzine, unless the author has sanctioned such action. You don't have to ask us, though. Under no circumstances should any article, in whole or in part, be copied for use in a profit-making venture unless the author has first given his/her consent.
The Bad News
1 - You don't get paid. Because neither do we. The point of The Quatermass Experiment is that for people who aspire to the standard necessary to get stories published there is a place where they can see their work in print while they are practising and improving.
2 - We cannot return disks. Under any circumstances. At all. It's just a big no-no. Whether your article is accepted or not, the disk stays with us. But we do reply to every letter we receive. Anyway, perhaps the article will be included in a later issue.
Anyone who does not accept these terms needn't bother submitting anything. And if we find that anyone is stealing stories from us we shall be very cross indeed. As indeed we will if we discover that a story we accepted in good faith was not given with the author's consent and we get sued for breach of copyright.
The address for almost all submissions to the diskzine is:
The Quatermass Experiment
15 Whinfield Drive
Kinross
KY13 7UB
If, however, you have written a non-SF short story, please send it to our new assistant deputy sub-editor:
Andrew Campbell
The Quatermass Experiment
4 Alloe Field Place
Illingworth
Halifax
HX2 9ES
The other address should be used for anything which is not actually meant for publication; this includes queries, criticism or just general correspondence. Here it is:
Professor Quatermass [Go on, give the postman a laugh]
The Quatermass Experiment
"Tarndale"
Dean Street
Galashiels
TD1 1LY
If you aren't sure whether or not to send us something, send it. Of course, it isn't just stories we need; you can send us game reviews, book reviews, Comments, factual stuff for Miscellaneous, trivia quizzes, or music (SoundTracker format only). Whatever you send, under no circumstances will we make fun of it or you. Good luck, writers, and may the force be with you.
