Submission Guidelines — Writing — Publications
Rules of The Underworld — DTU’s Submission Guidelines
Rules To Write for Dominium Tenebrarum — The Underworld
Please ensure that your story abides by Medium’s Terms of Service and Rules and Guidelines first and foremost.
Submit stories in DRAFT format.
If you have older stories, however, that are in need of a home and would like to submit those, please let me know and I will verify if they are a fit for the publication. I may ask you to reformat some things or make some additions as per the Submission Guidelines below.
Basic Guidelines:
- Include a Title and Subtitle.
- Specify your genres in either your title, subtitle or kicker (such as, Thriller, Romance, etc.). I also recommend specifying your beings (vampires, werewolves, fae, etc.).
- Please ensure you have a properly cited image that abides by Medium’s rules and falls under the purview of Fair Use (you own the rights to, is a royalty-free image — AI generated images are allowed so long as they too fall under the purview of Fair Use). Please link back to the image source for Pixabay, Unsplash, Pexeles, etc. images.
- Choose 4 appropriate topics for your story. These can include: Vampires, Werewolf (this one is more popular than the pluralised one), Underworld, Fiction, Fiction Story, Fiction Short Story, Short Story, Fiction Series, Novella, Books, Book, Fantasy Fiction, Fantasy Short Story, Urban Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Supernatural, etc.
- Please tag “Dominium Tenebrarum” as one of your 5 topics (written as such without accents).
- I do recommend labelling your beings in your topics and whether it is Fiction, Poetry or Myths so your stories get automatically included in the appropriate tabs of the publication.
- Please specify your Warnings at the top of your story (either above or below your image). These warnings may include: Language, Mature Sexual Subject Matter, Violence, Blood, Drugs, etc.
- Please ensure that you have proof-read your story and used a grammar checker like Grammarly, Hemingway, or other.
Content Specifications and No-No’s:
This publication is a mature publication. Hence, mature sexual subject matter, crude language, sexual language, implications, innuendos, steamy scenes, are all allowed, BUT no erotica.
A few no-no’s:
- No erotica (as mentioned above)
- No gratuitous gore
- No Horror
Blood vs Gore: CSI levels of blood are typically ok. An autopsy without too much graphic description would also work. Game of Thrones levels of blood and gore would not be okay.
These are just some examples. Feel free to reach out with any queries.
Horror vs Thriller: Thrillers that get the heart palpitating are allowed. Stories that are meant to keep you up at night with terror are not.
Sinister, thriller, ominous, suspense, blood and violence are all fine, without going over-the-top.
At the moment I must refuse horror and gore due to my C-PTSD. Thank you for your understanding.
Scheduling:
As of yet, stories are published right after I have read/edited them, which can be anytime.
If you wish for your story to be scheduled for a specific day of the week, please let me know in a private note, and if I can schedule that, I will.
Thank you for submitting to the rules of The Underworld.