Submission Guidelines
Please read all guidelines before submitting. We receive 300+ submissions per issue.
The Three-lobed Burning Eye is a magazine of speculative fiction published online two or three times per year since 1999. At the end of each year, we publish an annual anthology in trade paperback. We feature six stories per issue. Payment to writers is $13, paid on publication, plus one contributor's copy of the annual. Terms are one-time electronic rights, with non-exclusive archival rights, and one-time print rights.
Editor: Andrew S. Fuller
Our Needs
Seeking quality speculative fiction. We tend toward horror and dark fantasy, and what you might call magical realism or "slipstream" or "cross-genre". We might consider an occasional science fiction, suspense or even western, though the story must contain some speculative element. We want stories that expand genre by placing value on originality in character, narrative and plot. We want only your best fiction, distinct and remarkable tales that the reader cannot forget. Also, we encourage multi-cultural points of view.
Fiction only.
Flash fiction: 500 – 1,000 words
Short stories: 1,000 – 7,000 words
What we do NOT publish: serial stories, novel excerpts, derivative works or fan fiction (e.g. Star Trek, Buffy, D&D), erotica, sword & sorcery, space opera, non-fiction (reviews, interviews, etc.), or poetry.
For legal reasons, writers must be 18 years of age.
(Yes, 3LBE does take its name from a line in an H.P. Lovecraft story, but it is not an anthology of Cthulhu mythos tributes.)
We are not considering artwork. We do not show advertisements.
How to Submit
We only accept electronic submissions. Please use the online submission form (linked below) — no email submissions. If after 90 days you do not hear from us, feel free to query.
No simultaneous submissions or multiple submissions.
We do not publish reprints, including any piece appearing on a website.
Proper spelling, grammar and punctuation are assumed characteristics of a professional manuscript.
If you receive a rejection, please wait two weeks before submitting again. We encourage you to send us your best first.
Formatting: Please turn off smart curly quotation marks ” “ and replace them with straight quotes " " in your word processing software before cutting and pasting into our online form. This includes single quote marks and apostrophes. Also replace em-dashes(—) with double hyphens(--). Tabs will be preserved, extra paragraph spaces are unnecessary.
Submissions not following these guidelines will be deleted unread.
If the story appears later in another venue, please source 3LBE as a first publication.
Advice
Read some issues of 3LBE to understand what we publish. Write something as good, or better. Be original, I cannot be more clear than this. We want only your best fiction.
Read and know good fiction of our field before your write it. Be aware of the clichés, the hackneyed plots and language, the cheap thrills. There is nothing inherently wrong with genre mainstays like vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, serial killers, faeries, and aliens; but 3LBE is only interested in new explorations of these ideas.
Know what is gratuitous, and do not write so with topics such as sex, violence, gore, racism, sexism. Extremity belongs in a story only if it is relevant to the narrative.
Beware cleverness. Writers such as O. Henry, Richard Matheson and Robert Bloch were masters of the twist ending. Such structures are difficult to do well, and we are not interested in instant gratification stories of 1,000 words whose brief and empty narrative serves as a ramp to a final trick. We are not interested in glaring devices. We are looking for depth, texture, and imagination.
We don't have our own list of 10 plot clichés, but if you're curious as to what kinds of stories too many people are writing, take a read of these:
Horrible Clichés to Avoid
The Horror of It All - Writing Tips by Tim Wagonner at HWA
The Grand List of Overused SF Clichés
The Standard Deviations of Writing by Roger MacBride Allen at SFWA
Stories and Horror Stories We've Seen Too Often at Strange Horizons
We expect professional behavior from our contributors. This includes following submission guidelines.
Please feel free to report our response times to Duotrope's Digest or Critter's Black Hole tracker.
Recommended Reading
American Fantastic Tales ed. Peter Straub
The Book of Fantasy ed. Jorge Luis Borges
Borderlands ed. Thomas F. Monteleone
Dangerous Visions ed. Harlan Ellison
Mammoth Book of Best New Horror ed. Stephen Jones
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror ed. Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling et al.
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
You have read the guidelines and wish to:
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