The first requirement for stories in _Mystery Magazine_, is interest.
Literary style is of no consequence if the stories arouse and hold
our readers’ interest from beginning to end. The types required, are
detective stories and mystery stories. In the former we must have
plots containing absorbing mysteries, with few principal characters,
a pretty love theme, plenty relevant dialogue, lively action, and
local color pertaining to the police department. A slight touch of
comedy is permissible, but dramatic climaxes are the rule. Long drawn
descriptions tire. Large numbers of characters confuse, and too much
dialogue is irksome. These romances must be distinctly, as their name
implies, detective stories, and they must cater to girls as well as to
men.
The mystery stories must be based upon popular occult theories,
with lucid and logical explanations of the phenomena, or they can
be mere mysteries of a material nature. In short we only purchase
good wholesome stories, with gripping interest, tense situations and
powerful, mystifying plots, having a simple explanation. Sex problems
and stories of loose morals are not wanted.
LU SENARENS.
_Mystery Magazine._
FRANK TOUSEY, Publisher,
168 West 23rd Street,
New York City.
THE OUTLOOK
_The Outlook_ has only a limited space available for the publication
of fiction, and therefore there are certain arbitrary bounds which we
must set, bounds which have little or no relation to literary merit.
We do not use continued stories and we practically never accept single
stories of more than five thousand words in length, and seldom stories
of more than three or four thousand words.
Within this rather narrow limit we are anxious to secure stories which
show that the author has a background or experience and a knowledge of
human nature. Fiction which indicates the fact that its author has
a sense of form, as well as an idea to express, is doubly welcome.
Stories which are sentimental do not appeal to us, but we are also
convinced that stories with real strength can be written which are
not raw, crude, or offensive to good taste. We do not think that the
adjective “strong” and the adjective “unpleasant” are necessarily
synonymous.
After all, the editorial selection of fiction depends so much upon the
personal equation and upon the immediate needs of a journal that it is
difficult to give any more definite guide than that we have presented
here to those who desire to submit fiction to _The Outlook_.
THE EDITORS OF _The Outlook_.
_The Outlook Company._
381 Fourth Avenue,
New York City.
THE PARISIENNE
The following is in response to your question about what kind of
fiction we want for _The Parisienne_ and _Saucy Stories_:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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