I've just had A Sting in the Tail returned by Writers' Forum - I'd entered it for their monthly short story competition. I thought their grid assessment might interest members thinking of submitting their own stories - it makes it very clear what they're looking for. Here's the link:

http://www.writewords.org.uk/archive/946.asp

Forgot to mention that I've reproduced it in full in a comments box!

Thanks Nell,
It's very generous of you to share that.
Elspeth

Nell

yes. Thank you. Fascinating. And I thought...useful tool? And I thought...how would I know?

But thank you. I'll think about it and try not to get depressed.

best
John

John,

From what I've seen of your writing you've nothing whatever to be depressed about. It's very special. I think the thing about these various competitions and magazines is to read the stories they publish and select the one your own stories would fit best into. The only other alternative is to write one especially for that particular mag. or whatever - an interesting disipline but not one that I'm very tempted to try.

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Have you tried Pulp Fiction? Their site is very edgy, modern and professional looking.

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Maybe 'The Celebrant & the Celebrated' rewritten slightly to be set in London?

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http://www.pulp.net/

Nell,

thanks for the steer and the +ve stroke. I think I am in purdah with Pulp.net for a while. They published one of my stories in their September edition, a story called "Brown Sugar" which was the only "London Piece" I had in the files. They seem to have a 12 month rule on publishing work by the same author which, given they only publish 3 slots an month seems fair. It was good to get in print though. They seem like good people.

regards
John

If interested:
http://www.pulp.net/fiction/stories/06/brown-sugar.html

John, you are a dark horse! That should be on your profile. What other successes are you keeping secret? A delicious story, something to tide me over until the next chapter of Memory of Water. Thanks for that.