Structure

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Story should have a beginning and an end

 

Some authors think that storytelling is a space for them to tell a story that is not consistent, to wonder about the confusion, without no clear direction. Here we follow Calvino religiously: a story must be light and exact. A good story contemplates multiplicity while being quick and agile. A story makes the invisible visible while still having a beginning and an end

 

If there is no end, stories can be open-ended, but take the reader somewhere.

 

Stories can tell of a “crisis”

 

One of the other defining structural traits of a story is that it involves a moment of 'crisis': a point at which the character confronts something which demands a response, thereby drawing out details about the character, or driving the plot forward, or casting the context in a new light.

 

Tell one story

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Cut the "spiegone"

 

Academic authors tend to, by default, to retrieve to meta-discourse and explanatory paragraphs (what we call in Italian spiegone).  "Cut the spiegone" is part of our Otherwise jargon. 

 

We should strive to help authors the narrative quality, and the pieces consistency and clarity, and less its explanatory content....

 

Voice and Perspective

 

Stories should tell of something and someone, even when they are author-centred

 

We do not publish writing that is exclusively centred on the author and his/her reflections on one’s subjectivities, confusion and wondering unless it gives a glimpse into a shared reality, and how that shared reality is experienced, narrated and felt by others.

 

We publish stories that make readers think and imagine worlds and realities other than themselves. And we invite authors to do the same.

 

We want to know about those “others” the author is speaking and writing about. We want to hear about their stories and experiences. We want their stories to come with their own words and biographies.

 

We want authors to be situated, related to the lives of others.

 

We do not want authors to use “others” to tell the readers who they are.

 

Stories should be eloquent

 

Stories should say something. We do not want stories to be necessary representative, but we want them to be eloquent, or rather to talk about realities, to describe, tell, show, recount, unveil and discuss. 

 

 

Flow

 

Make it consistent 

 

Keep the pace

 

Assume that the reader knows nothing

 

Show, not tell

 

If you cannot show why it matters, do not write about it

 

If you cannot expand on a detail, showing what it is, do not mention it

 

 

Language, Spelling and Style

 

Language: British English using -ise spellings

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 Spelling resources: Concise Oxford Dictionary, also available as a free app on the Apple Store named Oxford Dictionary of English, though most editors will have access to it from their institutions

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 General style guide: Trask's Guide to Punctuation [available online at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/]