Okay I'm going to share the guidelines.
--
Just keep it PG-13, no erotica, no heavy gore/body horror! Vampires have always endured because they adapt to the times. So should your story. Your vampire might be:
Ancient or newly turned
Monstrous or sympathetic
Bound by rules or breaking every single one
Feeding on blood… or something else entirely (if not blood, however, give us a solid reason for the departure!)
We welcome all vampire traditions, tones, and styles. Classic, modern, folkloric, experimental. What we ask is this: Bring us something that feels alive (undead!). To keep this anthology fresh and meaningful, every story must include at least one of the following elements:
A meaningful cost of immortality
A twist or inversion of a known vampire rule
A moral dilemma connected to survival, hunger, or power
A legacy, lineage, or inheritance element
A moment of invitation, permission, or crossing a boundary
A unique or non-traditional method of feeding
All of these fit the requirement of a Haunting vampire. Your interpretation is yours to craft. Please stray from a story filled with obvious tropes. It's not an automatic rejection to have a head-of-a-lineage vampire living in a castle on a hill with succubus girlfriends and a handsome protagonist under a delirious spell... but we ask that our writers think outside the box.
--
You can see by the final bit of the guidelines that Dracula would be disqualified. Sure they say it's not an automatic rejection but look at the wording. The disrespect.
It also confuses me on what 'heavy' gore is but the body horror as well. Because a lot of vampire tales involve the initial death and rebirth and that can be gross but is it body horror? I don't know.
The last list and final bit is what's getting me. What's giving me the same garbage so many of these horror submission guidelines do anymore.
"You have to be fresh and new but also still be about the thing, it has to be the thing, recognizably the thing but completely different from everyone else's version and especially the classics that made the thing."
What do they want?
Vampire coffeeshop? Another little vampire book? Mister sweet old man across the hall who never seems to sleep or leave his house and always has a mustache like he just drank some juice? The fuck do you want from me?
Because I'll be honest, half the time these places are asking for vampire stories what they really want are ghosts. They want ghosts. But they want sexy ghosts, tragic ghosts, ghosts that can touch you but not like that, no never like that (only Dan Aykroyd gets away with that).
'Adapt to the times' but also we welcome all traditions, tones and styles. Except no tropes from the classics.
They're always like this. I swear to fucking hell they're always like this.
