About this Writing Project

Before you start work on a story for this Writing Project, please take a few moments to read these few paragraphs as they describe exactly what is expected of participating authors and their submissions.

Empathy is the key word when it comes to this Writing Project.  This is, essentially, an exercise for authors helping them to see the world through foreign eyes, and what eyes can be more foreign than those of a different species.  The goal of this project is not to humanise the animals you are writing about, but rather to see the world from their perspective and try to imagine what it would be like to be them.

There is an important restriction authors need to be aware of when it comes to this Writing Project.  Specifically, we only want one story per animal, so if a story has already been written from the perspective of an ant, we won't accept another story from the perspective of an ant.  There is nothing to stop you from writing a story from the perspective of an animal that has already been done and publishing it on your site or in The Vault, as appropriate, but it will not be accepted in this Writing Project.

In order to ensure there are no authors already working on a story from the perspective of the animal you want, you are asked to contact Rob via email or PM to let him know what animal you intend to write your story about.  He will then let you know if there is an author already working on a story from the perspective of that animal.  If the animal you want to write about has not been taken, you will have three months from the date of acceptance to submit your story.  After that date the animal will be made available for other authors again.

In order to qualify for publication in this Writing Project, stories should be written exclusively from the perspective of a single animal, either in the first or third person.  Other animals may be involved in the story as secondary characters, but the perspective of your story should not shift.  All submitted stories will be published under the "Fantasy" genre unless there is an overriding reason to publish it in another genre.

Further, submissions to this Writing Projects must actually be stories.  That means that poetry will not be accepted, and nor will scenes or extracts.  Your submission should be a complete, standalone story in its own right rather than a portion of a larger work.

Rules

Sign Up: Signing up to participate in this Writing Project is not required.  Members and authors may simply submit their work unsolicited.

Submission Deadline: This is an ongoing project so there is no deadline for submissions.

Submission procedure: Please submit your stories via the form linked to in the Submissions section of this page.

Genre: Any, though most work will be published as Fantasy.

Word length:

Maximum - As You Please

Minimum - 500 words

Story titles: Authors are free to come up with their own titles, but the title "Animal Tales" may not be used.

Copyright and License: By submitting work to, and publishing work as part of, a Writing Project at The Authors Haunt, you grant to The Authors Haunt and its owners a royalty-free, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, display, publish, and communicate to the public, worldwide, the submitted content, in whole or in part, at The Authors Haunt (or any part thereof, including subsidiary sites).  All rights to said work, including copyright and moral rights, remain the property of the original author.  This license agreement applies to work submitted as part of a Writing Project only.

Please note that by submitting you work to an anthology at The Authors Haunt you are granting us an irrevocable right to display that work.  That means that while you can request your Writing Project submissions be removed, and we will consider that request, we are under no obligation to remove any Writing Project submissions from the site.  As a general rule, we do not remove work published as part of an Writing Project here at The Authors Haunt.  You retain all copyright and moral rights, and are free to publish the work elsewhere from 24 hours after the work is published at The Authors Haunt.

Graphic Usage: The Authors Haunt will create an icon for your submission for use on the Writing Project main page.  This icon will be designed to be in keeping with the Writing Project theme.  Resident Authors are free to submit suitable graphics for use on their sites at The Authors Haunt.  Authors are free to use graphics designed by The Authors Haunt design team on their sites at The Authors Haunt, in their signature on The Authors Haunt Community Forums, or elsewhere provided the graphic is used to link back to their story here.  Authors may not use graphics designed by The Authors Haunt design team to link to, or as headers for, work published elsewhere.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Writing Project coordinator.

Submissions

Before submitting your work to The Authors Haunt, please ensure that it has been properly edited.  If you have used the services of an editor, we strongly recommend that you provide an acknowledgement note, which can be included in the "Comments" section of the submission form.  Please pay attention to the genre, type, rating and warnings fields and ensure you apply suitable coding in each section.

To submit your work to this Writing Project, please click here.