AUTHOR GUIDANCE

​

If you choose to work with classic noir scenarios — the compromised detective, the family crime syndicate, the neon-lit dive bar, or the deal gone bad — ask yourself what hasn't been said yet. For example:​

• Shift the perspective: Move the focus away from the archetypes everyone expects.

• Update the context: Ground your narrative in modern, realistic social and economic pressures. True noir lives in the desperate choices people make under real-world circumstances.

• Ditch the caricatures: Give us flawed, contradictory human beings rather than walking genre cliches. A corrupt cop shouldn't just be cynical for style's sake — show the specific moral decay, rationalization, and consequence behind their actions.

 

When You Really Need to Dig Deep

 

If you're going to tread familiar ground, make sure you're digging deeper and illuminating more. Here are a few scenarios we often encounter in the stories we read, meaning that if you submit a story to us with any of these elements, your best chance of success lies in approaching familiar premises in a fresh way as outlined above and below:​

• Crime capers gone wrong: These are often humorous but frequently miss the desperation that drives criminals or ignores the victims. Your challenge: Include the victims or have them turn the tables; uncover a truth that turns the reader’s entire perception around.

• Hit men and women /organized crime: Often "TV-inspired" (The Sopranos, etc.), these submissions too often rely on flat stereotypes rather than complex, contradictory people. Your challenge: Give us modern portraits of modern criminals; make them relatable humans; avoid cliches.

• Femme fatale stories: These often rely on 1940s tropes or stereotypical manipulative women and their hapless male victims. Your challenge: Write about non-stereotypical femme fatales; turn the tables on them in a satisfying way; adapt their tactics to the modern world; show us that people who use their sexual attractiveness to exploit others gender and economic boundaries; delve into the impact on their victims; tell us what happens when they age out of being effective and must turn to other means.

• Marriages and relationships gone wrong: These often rely on repetitive revenge arcs. Your challenge: come up with fresh catalysts for the failure of a relationship; explore how people take their heartbreak out on themselves, rather than others; give us a fresh ending that moves beyond mere revenge.

• Gang Life: Be careful with cliches employed by movies and TVs if you haven't lived or witnessed gang life firsthand as these stories often lack authenticity. Show us how redemption lives in the roots of gang life and thrives in unexpected places on the street; explore why gang life exists in the first place; place your gang setting in an unexpected place and modern milieu: in boardrooms, music studios, and the wealthiest of enclaves; illustrate the fundamental human needs that cause gang life to develop and grow; paint victims who fight back.

 

What We Do Not Accept

 

Dark Yonder is dedicated to realistic neo-noir fiction. To keep our focus on these themes, we do not publish stories in the following genres:​

• Horror: We want psychological tension and moral grit, not slashers, supernatural threats, or visceral gross-outs.

• Paranormal: No ghosts, demons, vampires, psychic powers, or unexplainable occult phenomena. The haunting in your story should come from guilt, memory, or human behavior.

• Science fiction/fantasy: No futuristic tech, dystopian world-building, time travel, magical realism, space settings, or alternate dimensions. Turn your imagination on real world settings instead. Our narratives are firmly rooted in real-world cause and effect.

• Romance: Unless you're exploring a romance that went terribly wrong, we are monumentally uninterested in traditional romance short stories.

 

In short, any submissions falling outside the noir genre will not be considered for publication. 

​

Logistics

 

Because we publish twice a year, our reading periods tend to be long. We accept simultaneous submissions, so there is no reason why this schedule should keep you from submitting elsewhere in the meantime. Here’s what to expect:

• If you submit your story between August 1 and January 31, your story will be considered for the April/Spring issue, and you'll know the fate of your story by March 15.

• If you submit your story between March 1 and July 31, you will automatically be considered for the October/Fall issue and you will learn the fate of your story by September 15.

• Our sweet spot is 3,000 to 5,000 words, with a 5,000 word max. You may submit a story under 3,000 words but no flash or fan fiction, please.

• Simultaneous submissions are fine, although we will need to be notified if your story is accepted elsewhere as we require exclusivity.

• We do not accept reprint submissions.

• You will be notified of our decision about your submitted story whether or not you are accepted for publication, but sometimes our notification emails may land in your spam folder. If the deadline to hear back from us has passed as outlined above, and you have not yet heard back from us, please check your spam folder before you inquire about your submission as we lack the manpower to answer every inquiry in a timely fashion. 

• For the subject line of your submission: please start with the title of your story, followed by a dash and your full name. 

• If your submission is selected for publication, you will be asked to provide a 200 word or less author bio and online profile with your story. You may include information on where readers can purchase your other work in this bio.

• Authors will receive $50 for each story chosen for publication in Dark Yonder.

• Authors accepted for publication will also receive one copy of the issue they appear in. Authors living in the U.S. will have a print copy mailed to them. Authors with an international shipping address will have an eBook version emailed to them.

• Dark Yonder will own all rights to your story for a period of one year following publication. After that, rights will revert back to you as the author while Dark Yonder retains the right to continue to publish your story in the issue it appeared in for as long as that issue is in print.

• Please submit your story to darkyondersubmissions@gmail.com. As noted above, for the subject line of your submission: please start with the title of your story, followed by a dash and your full name. 

• Dark Yonder also offers opportunities for publishers to advertise their books. If you are interested in purchasing an ad in an upcoming issue of Dark Yonder, please contact us at darkyondersubmissions@gmail.com.

• Please note that we do not have the capacity to respond to individual story inquiries.

 

The editors of Dark Yonder thank you.