Apex Book Company

Folks, do you know how scary Apex slush can be?

I’m not going to go into the typical editorial gripes about amateurish writing, unprofessional cover letters, and idiots not following guidelines (god, but I’d like to!). Instead, I want to open a discussion about the stories that we read–their plots, their characters, and their settings.

After 3.5 years of reading Apex slush…thousands of stories…I’m convinced that the “institution” of marriage is the base causation of all the world’s evils. Marriage creates so many dynamics of hate that it gets hard to track.

One popular marriage-hate archetype we receive is the “make it all end” fantasy. This starts with the protagonist waking in bed and thinking: “Fuck, here I awake in this same bed and realize I’m still married to the same fucking loser.” These are a riot. Almost always cigarettes are smoked, the wife/husband list of flaws is provided, and then the protagonist goes off to some boring job. Something happens, pushing the protagonist into a murderous rage, and essentially resets his/her life either by going to jail, committing suicide, or making off to another location.

There’s also the popular “revenge” fantasy. These are not always murderous, but mostly are. The spouse will do something that pushes the protagonist into a rage, that in turn, sets off a series of actions that culminate in the demise of the hated spouse. I have found that these stories typically contain the highest amount of visceral gore, as the writer pours his/her heart and soul into the execution and torture of their beloved.

I’ve had the opportunity to read about protagonists cheating on their spouses just because they can. Cheating in humilating ways, because twisting that knife in the back always jazzes your senses.

A disturbing archetype is the “it’s all your fucking fault” story where the protagonist uses his/her spouse as the fuel for their hate. If you hadn’t done this on our wedding day, then that wouldn’t have happened. These stories will involve the murder of extended family members.

While we’re at it, let’s include the “she/he don’t love me no more” stories.

I’m not laying judgment on people who might write to let off some steam. Hell, I’ve got my own “anti-marriage” short story that was published by Nocturnal Ooze in Nov. 07 and is now in reprinted in Webs of Discord. Writing it all down is sure better than acting it out!

If you’re a writer and thinking of submitting your anti-marriage piece to Apex, it will likely get rejected. Our editors are tired of them.

But the rest of you…if you’re dating or married to a writer, watch your back. Writers love to flex that old adage “Murder your darlings.”

END

Jason Sizemore is the publisher and editor-in-chief of all things Apex. During his free time he writes weird fiction that can be tracked down from his personal website at http://www.jbsizemore.com. If you’d like a chapbook of his fiction, Webs of Discord can be bought from the Apex Shop.