Theme for Issue 2: Cockroaches Ate the Ending.

Submissions for this issue are now closed. Responses will be sent ASAP.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote:

Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

This theme is all about momentum. From its first sentence, your story should be moving and nothing should stop it from reaching its conclusion -- not even the truncation of its last few paragraphs.

If you have to explain how your story ends, you're using too many words. Focus on building the tension, not on how you want to release it. You should engage the audience in ways that they are cautiously certain of what will happen next, and then stop. Let that inertia carry them the rest of the way.

For an example of how one might interpret this theme, enjoy this video by RadioHead.

General Submission Guidelines are here.

Email your submissions to jase@bucketweb.com. Stories may be in any style or genre, up to 1500 words. Acceptable formats are TXT, RTF, Microsoft Word DOC, PDF, and Open Office ODT.

Simulataneous submissions are fine. Please put any bio/cover letter information that you feel is important in the body of your email.

UPDATE: Please put "Cockroaches Ate the Ending" somewhere in the subject line of your email so that I can spot it amidst the spam messages I get. I will reply with a brief message to confirm I received your story. If you don't get this confirmation within 48 hours, please resend.

Thank you in advance for your submissions.