DCP's books entertain readers with meaningful
dark fiction—spellbinding stories with less adult language and sex. DCP books give readers an entertaining,
thrilling, scary, imaginative read, leaving them with something
to ponder.
DCP is CLOSED to submissions.
In General
DCP publishes horror, dark crime, and psychological thrillers. Nothing else.
Click
for more on genres...
Conflict & Characters. DCP is looking for
page-turning stories in which characters overcome (or fail to overcome) the horrific.
Conflict is the basis of drama, but readers won't care about
the conflict, no matter how intense, unless they care about
the characters experiencing that conflict. Create living,
breathing, hurting, hoping characters. Plot. Stories should be well plotted. They must make sense, even
if you're dealing with the psychotic or supernatural. We're
looking for popular fiction, not literary musings. Get into
the story quickly and keep the pace brisk.
Mood & Setting. We like atmosphere
and mood, description and setting. DCP is disappointed with
fiction that gives no sense of place, fiction that's nothing
more than characters floating through cardboard sets. Anchor
us in the sensory, the concrete. Just don't overdo it. Topics? Your imagination
is the limit. Whether it's human evil or monstrous badness,
make it fresh and unique. DCP is not looking
for the commonplace: Don't send anything with vampires,
werewolves, or zombies. Even serial killers are becoming ho-hum.
Instead of writing what others have done to death (pardon
the pun), write something that horrifies you, something only you could write.
DCP is looking
for fiction with meaning and decency, but please don't send anything
moralizing or preachy.
DCP is not looking
for fiction about religious topics. But can you have characters
with faith? Absolutely. Characters struggling with faith?
Sure thing. But faith or religion shouldn't be the central
issue in your story.
DCP wants contemporary
stories, exciting stories, written skillfully,
that leave the reader something to ponder. What's a book that DCP wished it had published?
Stephen King's Green Mile. Excellent story with moral
values.
Content Standards
The readers of DCP
books are people from the ages of 14 and up who enjoy dark
fiction but who aren't comfortable with all the adult elements
of similar fiction from other presses. The process undergone in considering content standards for DCP
anthologies reflects
our desire to publish fiction with different values. If your
story were made into a movie, what would
it be rated according to the MPAA designations?
Sex... to 
The sex
in your story should not be explicit or tawdry, but must be
essential to the story. DCP does not publish erotica.
The standard for Dark
Cloud Press submissions should be no more than PG-13. Violence, Bloodshed, & Gore... to 
Even the Bible
earns an R rating for violence. You can't get much more graphic than
hand-to-hand combat, slaughter, the dashing of children, eating
human flesh, blood up to the horses' bridles, and birds feasting
on corpses...
The standard for Dark
Cloud Press is R, but the nastiness should be integral to
the story. Language... to
Blue language is
something fiction could do with less of. Dark Cloud
Press standard: PG-13—the less the better.
Submitting to DCP
DCP is currently CLOSED to submissions. Guidelines here.
We do not publish novels. Do not query about your novel.
The best way to get an idea of the kind of fiction DCP is looking for is to read
one of our anthologies. Check out Thou Shalt Not... and Tales of Blood and Squalor.
Story manuscripts you submit must be in the following format:
- Times New Roman, 12 pt
- Paragraphs double-spaced with first lines indented 1/2 inch, ragged right
- No extra space between paragraphs
- One-inch margins all around
- Microsoft Word .doc or .docx files only, sent as an email attachment
For more about proper manuscript format, see
William
Shunn's example.
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