Pitches

KRITIQAL has begun accepting a limited number of paid essays! If you think your writing would be a good fit send a short pitch (and any applicable samples) to contact@kritiqal.com.

Pitch process

How to pitch

• If you think your idea would be a good fit for KRITIQAL, send a brief (2-3 paragraph) pitch to contact@kritiqal.com. I try to respond to pitches within a week, but depending on volume and life circumstances it may take me a bit longer (please be patient).

• If you’re not sure about a topic and want a quick yes/no before writing a full pitch, feel free to message me on Discord.

• Please do not pitch finished essays.

What happens when your pitch is accepted?

• We’ll establish a rough deadline for first draft submission based on when you expect to be able to finish a piece. Please do not submit your draft outside of this window as I will be unable to pay you.

• Any text format is acceptable for initial draft submission, but edits will be done through a shared Google Doc.

• On draft submission you’ll be payed via Paypal (if you are not able to use Paypal please let me know before I accept your piece so I can see about alternate payment methods).

• First round of edits will focus on content, second round will be for style. Ideally these should be low impact and quick to resolve. If edits seem excessively labor intensive please let me know.

• Time between submitted draft and final edits should be 1-2 weeks.

When will a piece be published?

• Up until publication there is no guarantee an accepted pitch will appear on the website. If after edits it still doesn’t meet publishing criteria, we may choose not to publish the finished draft.

• You will be paid regardless of if your draft is published.

• If your draft is not published you are free to pitch it to other sites/publish it on your own.

Topic guide

What we’re looking for

• Essays/reviews for games which have not appeared on Critical Distance

• Series/developer retrospectives for works with a small critical footprint (see "Terraforming Oddworld" and "Transmutations: an owch analysis")

• Creative non-fiction about dead, dying, or undead MMOs (see "6,303 days in quarantine")

• Deep readings of recent releases (see "And there will be no one to cross the Rubicon") NOTE: what recent games will be considered is entirely dependent on my own interest + how unique the pitch/reading is compared to what's already been written as we can't cover everything.

Stuff that doesn’t fit

• Consumer reviews

• News stuff

• Guides and other instructional writing

• Listicles (with rare exception)

• Primarily autobiographical essays (1st person writing is welcome if it connects to a larger theme/topic)

• Interviews (if you’d like to talk though, I’m always interested in having new guests on Kritiqal Care)

• Anything about the following games (it's fine if these come up as related works or in broader essays):

  • Baulder Gate's 3

  • Fortnite

  • Starfield

  • Cyberpunk

  • Activision-Blizzard games

  • any of the Sony flagships

  • most games described as souls-likes

Who should pitch?

These are not hard rules, but I will prioritize writers who fall into any of the following:

• Writers who are not cis/white/het

• Writers outside the US

• New writers/people who don’t typically write about videogames

Style guide

Media

• Titles are italicized:

  • Sonic Unleashed

• On first appearance, developer/director/author and year are included in parenthetical:

  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic Team, 2006)

  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Kazuho Ikegami, 1999)

• After first entry, long titles can be abbreviated if it’s clear from context what is being referred to.

Citations/quotes

• Secondary sources should be integrated into the text rather than just linked to.

• Full works cited section is not necessary unless integrating lots of academic sources. If so, use MLA style and included at end of document.

• Quotes longer than a sentence should be broken out as block quotes.

• Please vet sources.

Formatting

• Single space after periods.

• New sections use either H2 titles or three forward slashes, centered horizontally (///).

Images/screenshots

• Most essays include related images/screenshots, provided by author. If you plan not to include images please let me know.

• Please ensure images are high quality (larger than 480px*720px) and do not include watermarks or other elements.

• Social media graphics will be created by KRITIQAL using our standard templates.

Author bios

• All essays will be credited to you in the byline under whatever name is provided (screen names are fine).

• Please include a short bio with your draft using the following format (feel free to customize it as long as it includes the bracketed details):

  • [credited name] ([pronouns]) is [who you are/what you do, in whatever words you like]. You can find them on [website/social media links].

Legal Things

Everything published on KRITIQAL is done under an Anti-Capitalist License. You are free to do what you want with it unless you’re a cop or a corporation (go away).