Submissions Guidelines

So you want to write for Slack 'n' Hash? Good for you. Now, here's the bad news: there's no money in it. This zine goes out for free, so there's no money coming in and no pay involved. However, it's a way of getting other people to see your work.

     What sort of material am I looking for? Well, primarily stuff for the d20 system, although (because I really don't want to get into the shit on this one) it's important that we're extra careful about copyright. In short, if you've submitted the work to another magazine and haven't heard back from the publisher yet, don't send the article to me -- it'll jeopardise your chances of seeing it in print in that other magazine. Similarly, if a contract you've signed gives all rights to your article to another publisher then I can't put it on this site. As far as rights to your work go, I'm not going to make any exclusive claims to it. All I ask is that I be allowed to keep a copy of the article on the website. If you want to put a copy on your own site, or you find a publisher who'll put it in a book or magazine while letting a copy stay on this site, great! No problem with that at all. Just don't send me material and ask me to remove it later. I don't like chopping stuff out of back issues.

     Okay, now that's out of the way, let's look into what we're really after. As I said before, preference is given to the d20 system. I will be considering other game systems in future, but for the moment, stick to articles that are d20 or tied to no system in particular. Please don't use material from third-party d20 system publishers -- if the material you use isn't in the System Reference Document (http://www.wizards.com/D20/article.asp?x=srd35), then it should be your own work. Material for Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms or any other copyrighted campaign world will be rejected outright.

     Each issue of Slack 'n' Hash has a specific theme. The front page of the most recent issue will outline what the theme of the next issue will be -- in the case of issue 2, the theme will be nostalgia. Where possible, try to relate your article to that theme. If your work is enjoyable enough to read, however, chances are I'll overlook any lack of theme -- I just want to put out stuff that's good.

     I can't overstress the importance of good spelling and grammar. If I have to do a lot of editorial work on a single article, that's less time I can spend doing other work for the zine. Make my life easier! The better your writing is, the friendlier I'll be. As far as language goes, I've no problem with a casual tone and even profanity (within moderation), and the more humour you can inject into an article, the better.

     As far as types of article go, I'm quite keen to see almost anything. Got a new monster or prestige class? Great! If you have an adventure to share, even better -- I shan't try to reinvent the wheel here, but if you want a guide to writing good adventures, you could do worse than check out the writer's guidelines for Dungeon Magazine (http://www.paizopublishing.com/dungeon/) -- that'll show you how to lay out a creature statblock and what an adventure's structure should be like. If you're going to send me an adventure, please make sure that it's a complete adventure. While it might be a nice idea to put out an adventure in episodes, I don't want to put out part one, only for part two to fail to materialise.

     I'm also looking for content that'd help make Slack 'n' Hash stand out from the other zines. Got a cartoon that you'd like to share? Amusing gaming stories? Art? Better yet, are you able to provide stuff like that on a regular basis? Let's talk! Show me what you've got. I'd hate to be the only regular contributor to this mag.

     In the case of text submissions, articles should either be in plain text, sent as normal text within the body of an email, or in RTF format. While this zine is put out as a web page, please don't send in HTML pages. It'll just mean more fiddling as I try to get it to fit the magazine's format. All submissions should be sent to loz(at)planewalker.com with SUBMISSION: <name of submission> in the subject heading. Give me a couple of weeks to read it and get back to you before emailing me and asking if I've read your work.

     As far as artwork goes, try to keep your file size as small as possible and in .gif or .jpg format. I want the page to load as quickly as possible, and if the attachment in your email takes an ice age to download then I'll ignore it. Sorry; I've not got much bandwidth. Your work should be viewable in an 800 pixel × 600 pixel window, but if you can make it a bit smaller, that'd be great. Comic strips should be no wider than 800 pixels, with legible text. If you want to submit a regular cartoon series, include a brief guide to your cast (if your strip has a regular cast) or at least some blurb about the series' theme. For example, Grunt! is a cartoon based on the lives of a couple of minions in a dungeon -- an orc named Lenny and a kobold named Timmy. It's their job to get decapitated by adventurers. Hilarity ensues. Send cartoons to loz(at)planewalker.com with CARTOON: <name of submission> in the subject heading.

     When I post your material, I'll need a name (or a pseudonym if you don't want to use your real name), and a brief bit of biographical information (50 words or so). If you have a website, I'll happily link to that. I'll accept work of any length, but ideally it'll be between 1,000 and 6,000 words. Assume 750-1,000 words per page.

     That said, I hope to see your articles soon!