Dead Reckoning Writer's Guidelines
We welcome unsolicited submissions that meet our needs.
A short story submission must include:
Your name (and pen name, if applicable)
Your email address and phone number
The title of your story
A brief description of your story
Note: We do not accept poetry or non-fiction for Dead Reckoning magazine.
File type: We prefer standard PDF files. We will accept .doc, .odt and .rtf
Word length: 600 words minimum, 2,500 words maximum. Basically, we want flash fiction.
------Original vs. previously published in Dead Reckoning magazine-----
We prefer original, unpublished work.
However, we will accept previously published (2nd printing) if you specify where and when
the publication first appeared, and it does not conflict with our needs.
Note: Articles published in popular fiction magazines will not be accepted. If the article appeared in any national
publication within the last five years, we are not interested in publishing it.
If you want to submit a previously published article, change the characters' names, the location, and the plot.
In other words, rewrite it so it appears new to readers and to us.
If you signed away All Rights rather than First Serial Rights, we cannot use it. For faster results, send us a copy of your agreement.
-----Make your story understandable-----
If the reader needs to be a nuclear scientist or a real police detective to understand the story, don’t bother sending it to us.
If we don’t understand it, neither will our readers.
If your story is full of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, but it's a good story, we will probably correct it and publish it anyway.
-----AI generated-----
If it was obviously generated by AI and you didn’t rewrite it, don’t bother sending it to us.
If you used AI to do your research and editing, that’s fine with us.
If you had AI write it and you rewrote it to make it better and sound more human, we don’t object.
Basically, if we can’t tell the difference, then we don’t care. We just want well written stories.
Warning though: Most of the AI work we’ve seen is pretty bad.
Please don’t waste our time with AI slop, so we don’t have to put your name in our “Do not consider” list.
-------What we don’t like:------
Explicitly stating a character's emotions or a story's moral theme instead of revealing them through action.
Cliche Language: Relying heavily on overused phrases, flowery metaphors, and predictable descriptions.
Tidy Resolutions: Wrapping up every plot neatly and chronologically, and ending with an unnatural, forced epilogue or moral lesson.
Flat Cadence: Using repetitive sentence structures and a uniform tone that lacks a genuine human voice or distinct perspective.
Dead Reckoning magazine pays $25 per story, regardless of length. Sorry, we are new and really poor.