How I Met My Other Anthology Submissions: What We Want

Whenever I meet a new couple, my favorite question to ask them is how they met. People's faces light up as they tell their stories and I hear some of the funniest, craziest tales. This is what inspired How I Met My Other: True Stories, True Love. I want to collect the most interesting, heart-warming, and unbelievable stories.

So what exactly am I looking for with this anthology?

First, I want the story to be as close to the truth as possible. It doesn't have to be the author's own love story, it can be an entertaining anecdote from someone else in his/her family. For example, I will be contributing the tale of how my maternal grandparents came to be together. Obviously, I wasn't there and will have to imagine the dialogue that was said and how the settings appeared, but I will be sticking to the events and how they actually happened as close as I can.

The most important thing to me is that the stories read as a narrative. I want to BE THERE with this person, experiencing every moment as he/she did. Often people slip into telling their love story instead of showing, so it comes across as a sports replay. This is why the word count is 3,000 - 5,000 words. I want to become attached to the people falling in love. Which brings me to my next point...

As with any good story, emotion should play a key role. This is especially true for real life love stories! I want to be excited when the couple finally gets together, laugh at the humorous parts, and wipe away a tear or two if there is something sad.

Last, as I said earlier, I am looking for stories that have something that is interesting or unique or unbelievable. So many times I've heard of tales where things seem to strangely align...the timing was uncanny, a different person showed up when it was always another, the couple were in the same location many times before and never knew it. Or other stories where people met each other in the most unusual circumstances. What I really want is something that makes the reader say, "Wow! I can't believe that happened!"

I am excited to see all the different submissions and learn about real couples and how they got together. These stories are my favorite after all!

**For full submission guidelines, click HERE.