2009
Notice regarding contracts and shares. All of the TWISTED TAILS ANTHOLOGIES are released through a standard Double Dragon Publishing contract and all contributors are given equal shares of the royalties from sales
based on their input. These books are not a way to make a lot of money, but they are a wonderful promotional
plume to adorn your writer's cap.
Important news. All TWISTED TAILS books are to be released in the future with an LSI agreement included in the contract and that is important to all writers. LSI is
a full distribution paperback release and it means all TWISTED TAILS books will be unleashed onto the general, open book market through major retailers, libraries, etc.
Also be aware that the LSI agreement is subject to change depending on the
publisher's needs as opposed to LSI's demands. Broader exposure brings more sales and general recognition for your works. Come, celebrate with us by writing something that can be accepted for publication as a twisted tale. But be ye aware that very few manuscripts pass muster here. Quality and a twisted perspective are the things we are after.
I've also been recently informed that the series contract may also include
audio books. That is a thriller...!
Straightening out a bit of confusion. I am not a publisher. I am
not an agent. I don't want to be a publisher or an agent. Please, I have enough headaches of my own. I am only creating a series of anthologies for Double Dragon Publishing. That is the publisher
and we have no agent. I only want stories directly relating to TWISTED TAILS VI:
The Alien Connection at this time. I have received a number of general submissions and agent queries. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.
I am not nor have I ever been an agent. There, that should be better.
Notice regarding reprints. No reprints will be accepted for TWISTED TAILS
VI. All stories are to be "new" material, published in no venue before
unless we have made prior arrangements. This includes personal pages in authors' web sites. You may have released your work for critique in a writer's group, as long as material for that group has not, is not and will not be available for public view.
You may also have released it for an editor or editors to polish the work. Again, I stress that works for TWISTED TAILS
VI are not to have been open to public view in the past, present or future. No reprints, period,
except as noted. Not even
if they were previous Double Dragon Publishing releases.
This invitation is not made solely to current DDP writers, but is open to all who can pass muster, after which you will be a DDP author. Yay! It is an honor to be in the DDP stable. As a smallish publisher of ebooks and some paperbacks through LSI
and a few using Lulu.com,
plus some audio versions through "Audible", you can't find a better company to work through. Personal opinion, to be sure, but I think you'll find that opinion is shared widely, and not just among those who currently write for DDP.
The TWISTED TAILS series of books are intentionally a bit on the eclectic side. That is to say, there is no specific genre in the strictest sense of the word. What holds them together are their twisted endings. TWISTED TAILS II - Volumes 1 and 2 are, so far, the most genre specific of the collection since they dealt with the theme of time travel,
but how time travel was approached by the individual author was left wide open.
To make the point here, one of the stories had nothing to do with actual zinging
around in the time line and only used the idea of it to psychologically hoodwink
the poor fool who was the antagonist.
So, what do I mean by twisted endings? Well, they are stories that end unexpectedly. Better, perhaps, to say that they have an ending that is not easily predicted by the reader.
Don't kid yourself. This is not an easy thing to accomplish. The end must rip the rug out from under the feet of the reader, but it must also be a plausible, logical outcome of the story as a whole. No it was all a dream or he/she thought it was a dream but it wasn't or everybody who was anybody dies types. Those have all been done to death several times over and found their way into the trite heap long before even I was born. I also do not want to see any deux ex machina junk, either. That went out with Homer. It would be wise of you to read any of the books in the series before you submit anything to me. No...this is not a ploy to sell books -- just a piece of advice.
Now, let's get down to the nitty gritty of the project at hand, TWISTED TAILS VI:
The Alien Connection. This is a free-for-all in the sense that there is no word limit. If you can take me for a trip with one word and provide the required twist at the same time, incredible. If it requires
1,000 words; 10,000 or 100,000 to do what you want it to do, okay. I'm going to read them all, if the proper format has been followed;
spelling, grammar and writing all pass muster and the first few lines grab my attention, trust me. And I am going to read them all critically. I have been a little lax in format details in the past -- that
has come to a thankful end. Follow the format or forget the submission.
Make certain your work is as polished as is humanly possible on your end.
I'll take care of small details on my end.
An editorial warning: I represent an editorial staff of one overworked
and underpaid old guy. As a result, editing for this book or these books will be done in the carte blanche manner. If a work is accepted for publication, heavy stress placed on the if, I will be doing the editing without consulting with the authors. Not to worry, your story will not be changed, just the details to bring it into shape for publication will be performed by me. The number of submissions expected to be offered will not allow for such luxuries as back and forth communication or simple discussion. That tells you in advance that around here, I am God. For those who may be a bit put off by this, enquire of other authors who have already been involved with my work to get their opinion. If you remain concerned, I can only suggest that you not submit, thus saving us all time spent without productive results and fragile egos being grotesquely bent out of shape
because their favorite phrase or turn of word was left on the floor.
One of the hallmarks of the Twisted Tails series is the quality of story. I don't care in the slightest about word quantity, just quality and economy of word use. Write concisely. I expect that most of the stories in this work will be of a more literary style than ordinary genre works, though genre-style
(formula) works are also acceptable, if they meet the concept outlined below.
Now, pay close attention because I'm going to say this only once. TWISTED TAILS
VI is a look through different eyes.
1. Aliens and their kin.
2. Humans looking at aliens.
3. Aliens looking at humans.
4. Humans and aliens looking at one another.
5. Humans and aliens interacting on their world, our world, or anywhere in between..
What I am looking for here is alien - not humans with stuff stuck to their heads and faces ala Stern Drek. Be aware that alien means alien so your imagination is going to be taxed heavily and I don't want aliens whose only mission in life is to destroy humans, destroy the Universe, bite the necks of humans or other nonsense like that. Please, no shape shifters who sleep in buckets, no sex shifters or any other absurd notions that stretch plausibility to the breaking point.
Aliens come from different worlds and their entire evolutionary history is based in those locales. That is to say, the development of their world is not necessarily an Earth orbiting some other star. It is not a globe of similar size and/or mass as our own. Its parent star; geology, atmospheric constituents, flora/fauna and other elements are different. Make us aware of that and make it plausible but not a university textbook in short story form.
Oh, if you decide to do a parody (dangerous ground) I must inform you that it will be looked over (scrutinized is a better word) with much care. Parodies, even the wild ones, tread on thin ice and I will be looking at them with a jaundiced eye to make absolutely sure we are not opening ourselves for any kind of legal entanglements. I will not accept any form of FanFic no matter how good it may be because I have a "thing" about creativity that does not include playing with someone else's universe and characters. Create your own.
Now, having
said all that, I want engaging stories in which the reader is trapped in worlds
and points of view that will hold their interest and allow them to spin off into
other places and environments with your characters; to cast off the world as we know it and enter
alien realms. Just bear in mind that I recognize humans in rubber masks
when I see them and that I want twist endings that are logical and plausible.
This is still, after all, TWISTED TAILS. Otherwise, it doesn't matter how
you approach your work. Make sure whatever you have done is as smooth as a
newborn's butt before you send it to me and I'll be a pleased puppy. Does that set well with you?
FORMAT
Read this carefully and follow it to the letter.
FONT: Arial 12 point for everything.
INDENT: Set the paragraph indent function to 1/2" (0.500"). Do not use tabs or spaces. Let the sentences in a paragraph wrap automatically. Use "ENTER" only for a new paragraph. First paragraphs
in the story are to be indented, too. That means at all chapter breaks as well.
LINE SPACING: Double space. Set that when you start writing. Do not add extra spaces between paragraphs.
LONG DASH: Use a long dash or an ellipsis for interrupted or incomplete sentences. When using the long dash for incomplete or interrupted dialogue, remember that some systems do not recognize this as the termination of a sentence and will give curled quote marks in reverse. To avoid this, add a period at the end of the long dash, type your quote, then return to delete the period. Do not add a space between words and the long dash. Hyphenated words follow the same practice: No space.
ELLIPSES: Three periods in succession with no space between the periods and no space between words and the ellipsis. When a sentence trails off you may use an ellipsis to indicate that, but use the proper punctuation after them.
To give you an example: "Well, what would you have me do...?"
ITALICS: When italics are called for, use them. Use them as little as possible but, when needed, they're okay. The same applies to bolded words. A word about italics; they are often used for internal thoughts of characters. When this is the case, do not include
quotes. The he/she thought tag: If you use the ", he/she thought" tag, all of the thought line is in regular type with no quotes.
Example: That Helen is always playing jokes, he thought. No italics.
Or: Uh-oh. Now what does he want from me? Internal thought
without the tag; all italics. Speaking of quotes, use curly quotation
marks and apostrophes throughout.
ALIGNMENT: Align left with ragged right.
MARGINS: One inch (1") all around, please.
POINT OF VIEW OR SCENE BREAKS: Insert a * * * centered between lines and continue your story as before. No extra spaces.
Another note of caution...! I have noticed that many writers have an
uncanny knack of mixing POV. Not just in a paragraph, but frequently in
the same sentence. This is a major problem and often will result in
rejection of your entire ms. Yes, sir/ma'am, even if I love the story.
PERIODS, COLONS and OTHER TERMINAL PUNCTUATION: Use two spaces after periods, colons, and any other sort of punctuation terminating a sentence. There are reasons for this and if you want to know, just ask me. I mean this.
And I don't give a hoot about what anyone else says or how it turns out in the
printing.
WIDOWS AND ORPHANS:
Turn it off.
Everything else is self-explanatory and is displayed in the example following this page.
When you send your submission, send it as *.rtf attached to your e-mail and title the file as
follows:
TT VI-Your pen name-title of work.
Example: TT VI-Sammy Clemens-The Blobnick that ate Tokyo
Again,
Include the file as an attachment to your e-mail for submissions. Do not embed your submission in the body of your e-mail,
no matter how short it is. You will find my e-mail address (a link) down the first page of my site a bit, just below the Double Dragon banner.
2009
FROM THE FOREWORD FOR TWISTED TAILS VI: The Alien Connection:
As we launch into this sixth book of the TWISTED TAILS anthology series I am reminded of Michael Crichton’s debut novel, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN. Why? Because his first and quite likely his best published novel gave us a look at the possible and horrendous result of the introduction into our happy little home of an unknown biological entity from out there somewhere. Before we go on, some clarification is needed here. ANDROMEDA STRAIN was his first published book under his own name ([JOHN] MICHAEL CRICHTON).
At the time that book was published there were few here on our safe little planet who gave such an occurrence much thought other than writers creating alien invasions from anywhere and everywhere. You know the kind, acid drooling critters whose spit could melt anything but themselves and they were mindlessly bent on nothing more than destroying life in any form—particularly the human kind. Oh, and let’s not forget giant bugs as in Heinlein’s STARSHIP TROOPERS, a dull premise and not-so-great science fling, but a good bit of storytelling. Anyway, after reading Crichton’s book it struck me that the stuff from which we are made could well have been brought here from out there, that we are all aliens and we are not home grown...well, at least not necessarily.
The first known mention of such a possibility was made by a, wouldn’t you know, 5th Century BCE Greek philosopher named Anaxagoras. Hmm, those guys get all the glory, don’t they? Anyway, I was aware of most of the arguments against the concept, but it remained unproven one way or the other so I penned the following as a joke in 1971.
AN ODE TO PANSPERMIA
I’m an alien, you’re an alien—we sprang from
alien sources.
Homo Sapiens and the Simians—even Arabian horses.
I’m an alien, you’re an alien—we came on alien
transports.
So did the orca, the dolphin clan, and all their
cetacean cohorts.
And now that we’re here, we’ve nothing to fear but
future visits from alien sources.
J. Richard Jacobs
It is forty-plus years later and that it has turned out as something less than a joke is not much of a surprise, especially not after the heated debate that ALH84001 spawned. Scientists are still going at one another fang and claw over the issue and it may never end.
What we hope to do with TWISTED TAILS VI: The Alien Connection is to see things through alien eyes and give aliens their due as intelligent beings, instead of just being bloodsucking dumb thugs on a rampage through and between the gardens of blooming galaxies. We are going to make observations of humans through their eyes, of them through human eyes, and whatever other combinations are possible through the writers’ grand eyes of wonder and imagination.
Please, enjoy your stay at The Alien Connection, a pleasant stopover between here and there. Then, again, maybe not so pleasant. You’ll have to decide that for yourself.