Havok Publishing

Submission Guidelines

Havok publishes sharp, memorable short fiction between 300 – 1,000 words. We want stories that hit fast and strike hard––stories that, no matter the genre, can cut through the day’s troubles and grip distracted readers. And there’s no quicker way to get your masterpiece rejected than to ignore our submission guidelines. So read through the following information and be sure to follow it to the letter. Or else…

Your Story

  • Your well-edited story must be between 300 and 1,000 words long.
  • We only accept stories that fit our daily genres (mystery, science fiction, comedy, thriller, fantasy) and Season Themes. Check ’em out. The themes function as story prompts that will help us together craft story collections that readers will love.
  • Tip: Make sure your opening lines have a strong hook! Hook our editors and you’ll have a better chance all around.

WE DO NOT PUBLISH:

  • Previously published flash fiction.
  • Poetry.
  • Fan fiction. All stories must comply with copyright and trademark law.
  • AI-generated text or collaborative work with multiple authors. You must be the sole author of your story.
  • Scenes/excerpts/synopses from novels (however, you can use existing characters from your own novels).
  • Excessive violence, profanity, or erotica in any form. Our readers like to share stories with their families. And the internet is gross enough already. Use a PG-13 movie rating as a guide.
  • Conversely, we don’t want thinly veiled stories that preach from a soapbox of any sort, whether political, religious, or otherwise. Again, the internet is gross enough already.

FLASH FICTION RESOURCE & SAMPLE STORIES: The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction is a great place to learn the fundamentals and intricacies of flash fiction if you’re new to the genre. Also, we encourage you to peruse our story sample, Staff Saturday category, and read the daily free stories on our home page so you can get a feel for the type of flash fiction we typically publish.

Submission Process

  • We only consider submissions within our Accepted Genres (mystery, scifi, comedy, thriller, and fantasy) that fit our Season Themes. If a story that doesn’t fit the theme is submitted, that story will be unceremoniously rejected. Hard. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable; just contact us to withdraw your story if your story is accepted elsewhere.
  • Review our Manuscript & Email Formatting Guidelines carefully for instructions on how to format your story (we provide a downloadable MS Word template to make it easy).
  • Upload your properly formatted story using our SUBMISSION FORM.

IMPORTANT: Add @gohavok.com to your allowed senders list, or our reply may go to your junk/spam email folder.

RESPONSE TIME

Once submissions for a Season Theme are closed, the Daily Flash teams (Mystery Monday, Techno Tuesday, etc) review the submissions for their genre and make their selections. Our editors will start sending out acceptance and rejection emails during the weeks following a submission deadline (rejections may not come until up to a month after the deadline, since we like to offer feedback if we can and it takes time to go through all the submissions). Please check the Themes page before submitting to make sure submissions are still open for your target theme.

What happens if my story is acquired? Is there payment, rewards, fame?

FEES & PAYMENTS

There is never a fee to submit your stories to Havok.

At this time, we do not pay authors whose stories are published on our website unless their story is a season winner selected for inclusion in an anthology.

Havok pays via PayPal for each winning story published in an anthology, and anthology authors also receive one complimentary digital copy of the anthology. Payment varies depending on seasonal fundraisers, but we strive to maintain at least $50 per winning story.

Before You Submit

Double check to make sure you’re fulfilling all guidelines. If you don’t, we won’t read your story until you resend it in the prescribed format. Srsly.

Please see our Season Themes page for the theme schedule, including when submissions open and if the current theme has closed for submissions.

Should we select one of your works for publication, we will notify you via email. If you don’t hear from us within six weeks after the theme deadline for which you submitted, feel free to follow up.

Thank you for your interest in Havok. If you have additional questions, you may email submissions (at) gohavok.com.

Andrew Winch
Editor-in-Chief
Havok Publishing

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