Becoming a Writer for Positive Minds

Follow these submission guidelines and tips

About Contents

1. Our Vision and Goal
2. Guidelines for Style and Formatting
3. Submitting Your Story

1. Our Vision and Goal

If you’d like to write stories for Positive Minds, these are the things that you should know.

1. One particular goal should be reflected in every article at Positive Minds: it should encourage a positive mindset of hope.
2. Your story should provide a positive point of view that gives hope to our readers. Just think in your mind, before submitting your story: Would you feel really inspired and hopeful after reading your piece of writing? Share your draft link with a friend to get honest feedback.
3. Your story should have a clear message and something which the reader can use in real life. This may be a set of habits or techniques for the readers to foster a positive mindset in their life.
4. Write with an intent to get chosen for further distribution. This means that your story on Positive Minds will always be a source of knowledge and inspiration for Medium readers. Medium helps promote high-quality stories. The process ensures that you try to achieve a level of writing that is found nowhere else on the internet.

2. Guidelines for Style and Formatting

Follow these tips to increase the probability of having your story accepted for Positive Minds publication.

Style

Positive minds is a publication where an honest, authentic, and creative style is encouraged. We want the story to be user-friendly. It should easy to read and digest.

We want good writing; we want your best attempt. We don’t want dry, dull, intricate sentences that readers have to read twice to make sense. Try to present a difficult idea in simple words. Your readers should love to read your insights while having a cup of coffee.

The words should be simple, but we’d encourage you to make your story very engaging. Use small and long sentences to create music of words in your reader’s mind. Use longer sentences for more interesting or more informative ideas. Use small sentences to relax your reader. Make your story fun to read but focused on the core message.

As new writers always have some confusion, I wrote an article about this.

Editing

We want our writers to do their own editing to the best of their ability. Spelling errors and grammar errors should be corrected by you. Use Grammarly and Hemingway app to remove these common errors. Proofread your story at least two times. Use a text-to-speech engine to listen to your story. We’re going to take some time to process your story before we publish it.

We want you to submit your draft. The draft should be free of all errors and mistakes. We do not accept already published stories.

Format

• Use a Cover photo from Unsplash, Pexels, or Pixabay. You can look for license-free photos on these sites. You can use your own photography. Do not forget to reference the source of a photo in the caption of each image. The editors reserve the right to change the photo. Medium is very strict about the proper licensing of photos.
• Confirm that your headings are title-cased and subheadings are capitalized. Follow the formatting practices used in this story.
• No promotions are allowed. Positive Minds is not the right publication to sell products or courses. Remove all promotions and CTAs.

Curation Guidelines from Medium: What curators look for in a story

We value quality content — fresh ideas, unique perspectives, varied voices, smart thinking — and believe readers do, too. Here are the elements our curation team considers in evaluating story quality:

• Does the story meet a high editorial standard? — Is it well-written, easy to follow, free of errors, appropriately sourced, narratively strong, and compelling?
• Does it add value for the reader? — Does it share new insights or perspectives? Offer an original take on a familiar issue? Does it stir emotions and/or thinking? Provide meaningful advice? Enrich a reader’s understanding of the topic? Does it feel like time well spent?
• Is it written for the reader? — Is the story written with the reader in mind? Does the story make a connection with the reader or to a larger issue?
• Is it complete? — Is it a finished, polished piece of work? Considered? Concise? Will a reader walk away satisfied?
• Is it rigorous? — Are claims supported? Sources cited alongside stated facts? Does the story hold up to scrutiny?
• Is it honest? — Is the story written in good faith? Is it truthful?
• Does it offer a good reading experience? — Is it properly formatted for the web/mobile? Does it have a clear and relevant headline that lets the reader know what the story is about? An easily readable story body — paragraphs/spacing/styling/section breaks/quotes?
• Is it clean? Is it free of typos and errors?
• Is the imagery appropriate? Is the imagery relevant and appropriate to the story?

References to external studies

Usually, the best performing stores draw upon outside sources and experimental proof from research, philosophies, or accepted theories.

These references to studies will make your story more authentic. The readers feel more confident that your information can be applied in real-life situations.

Unless you are writing about your personal experience, you should try to find supporting sources for your key points. You can use research studies, philosophies, books, author’s quotes, or online sources, with a reference or a link to the source.

When you are writing on a new creative topic, it cannot be easily judged as right or wrong. However, the best-performing stories on Medium are often supported by solid research work or other evidence. If you are going to give your readers new hope with your story, try to address their skepticism first.

Example Stories

Just try to follow the content, style, and editing of these stories:

This story was curated into four topics: Mindfulness, Self, Psychology, and Mental Health:

This story was curated into two topics: writing and creativity.

This story was curated into three topics: language, psychology, and self.

This story was curated into one topic: self.

This story was curated into two topics: productivity & work

This story was curated into two topics: family & parenting

This story was triply curated into Equality, Race, and Society

This story was triply curated in Productivity, Self, and Work:

This story was triply curated into Politics, Equality, and Society:

This story was curated into SELF and SELF IMPROVEMENT:

This story was triple curated into Politics, Equality and Race:

For getting distributed to topics, read these highly simplified and popular guidelines:

Submitting Your Story

To submit your story for Positive Minds, please follow this link. We’ll try to get back to you as soon as possible if your piece has been accepted.

To become a writer, if you don’t have a draft ready yet, just write “I want to be a writer” in the responses below.

After you have submitted your story

These three things can happen:

1. Your story is accepted. You will be added as a writer in Positive Minds. You’ll receive an email that you have been added as a writer.
2. You may be asked to improve your story. If your story is good but needs a bit more work.
3. Your story is rejected. If you don’t get an email or any response within three days, you can safely assume that we have rejected your story. You can always submit a new and better story to retry.

If you have any other questions, you can use the responses section.

— Positive Minds