Contributions

Living Tenerife is an upscale lifestyle magazine, one of whose aims is to redress the balance of the public perception of the island.

There has been far too much emphasis on Tenerife as merely an island of sun, sand and sea. Therefore all contributions should steer clear of this angle. This doesn’t mean ignore one of our best assets. All we want to do is pan the camera a little wider.
We try to maintain a certain semblance of style and so would appreciate writers taking the time to read over the following guidelines. To those writers who need not be guided – apologies.

Continuing the film-making analogy, all features should have extreme close-up’s, head and shoulder shots, scene-setting, panorama’s and where necessary, a view of ‘the big picture’.
The intro needs to be attention grabbing. Use quotes, surprising facts, outlandish claims or anything similar to make the reader want to continue. Preferably start with dialogue, detail or damnation.
DON´T USE BLOCK CAPITALS – anywhere.
Think creative non-fiction rather than essay style features, i.e. Stories rather than lectures. A conversational style is preferred, using it’s rather than it is, and there’s rather than there is etc.
Light and breezy is good, humour is a bonus (where applicable). Cut any superfluous adjectives and trim all the fat. If you can say it three words don’t use six. Sentences should vary in length to give a sense of pace and should not be overly decorated with commas. Don’t be afraid to break the rules i.e. by using one-word sentences for dramatic effect.

House style

Numbers one to nine should be written, 10 upwards appear as figures.
Use per cent, not %; in fact avoid any use of symbols where possible.
Titles such as Living Tenerife, film titles, books etc should be in italics.
Be extremely economical with the use of ! One ! per feature is the maximum, less is better.
Quotes and dialogue will liven any feature. Give all speech it’s own line.
Don’t marry Spanish words with English (if necessary, follow with the English translation in brackets)
If lists are necessary, make use of bullet points.

Agreements

Deadlines are deadlines and should be adhered to. If you think they’re unattainable let the editor know asap.
Sticking to the word count is important if you don’t want both the editor and the designer showing you the yellow card. If the brief says 800 words, bring it in 50 either side.
The submitted piece may need to be re-written in parts. This may, or may not, be your fault. We won’t ask you to re-write more than once and in return we ask that you don’t put us in that position.
Amount payable and date of payment will be agreed at the time of assignment, bear in mind this fee will include the option for us to ask for one re-write.

Submitting

All contributions should have a Tenerife angle and should be submitted in .doc format. Send proposals and completed mss to editor@livingtenerife.com