WRITERSoftheFUTURE.com

Thanks everyone.

Congrats Jonathan. Seeing your story in a foreign language must be quite a rush.
I remember stumbling across my first Nature story in Arabic. It was surreal. (Nature buys international rights, so they didn't need to tell me this was happening).

I have a story out in Nature today:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02854-4
and arelated blog post:
http://blogs.nature.com/futurecondition ... ver-again/

I found the original Hellfire story in V 32 from 2016. I looked in all the Writing tips from 2016 before the anthology came out and could not find where he talked about it. He does have a blurb before the story itself in the anthology where he refers to it as a "Kitchen-sink" story. He eve...

I remember it from V35 as well. Dave talked about it before it came out in one of his emails. He seemed excited about the large variety of ideas he put into the story and I got the impression he used what some call "discovery" or "seat of the pants" technique to write it. I also...

I remember it from V35 as well. Dave talked about it before it came out in one of his emails. He seemed excited about the large variety of ideas he put into the story and I got the impression he used what some call "discovery" or "seat of the pants" technique to write it. I also ...

HM for me. I always have mixed feelings about HMs. I've yet to sell one, but I have had a lot of success with my Rs.

Congrats to everyone who entered and especially those who placed and specially especially to those who are suspiciously quiet.

I have a story where the main character had a similar arc. His daughter died of an incurable disease and this sent him into a spiral of depression for some the same reasons your character did. He had no one to blame so he blamed himself. Ultimately his arc was resolved through acceptance that his da...

I sold my one SHM from this contest to InterGalactic Medicine Show - after an R&R request. The editor there, like Dave, felt the story needed just a little something. Both of them were right, and the resulting story came out great. The only story I have resubmitted to this contest was an outrig...

Wulf Moon wrote:
https://www.writersofthefuture.com/educator-resources/

Very cool. Thanks!

There are only twelve reports in the Grinder for WOTF this quarter. That leaves about 16 more to go. Given that Grinder users are only a tiny fraction of WOTF submitters, I doubt the unreported Grinder entries account for all the finalists and semifinalists. I therefore conclude there is at least on...

An HM for me.

My standard cover letter is very similar to those given above. Some markets will also ask for a writer's bio, so you may want to develop one. Write it in third person and maybe mention your occupation, where you live, family, pets, etc. Insert a link to your web page if you have one. Keep it to two ...

I pulling for sometime in June, then I can have three entries in at once. That's only happened for me once before and it really heightened the twitching. If they delay it to July, we can all go for a Four Twitch Slam.

storysinger wrote:

Dustin Adams wrote:It is interesting to watch the high post-counters win and move on. Makes one think there's a correlation.

Let's do one better and have three forumites win and meet in LA.

There are still twelve slots open for this year. Let's take them all!

FWIW, I got an HM on a story of 1900 words and an R on a story of 800 words. Putting length aside, I would say the 1900 word story was a better fit for WOTF and may be why it placed higher. Those are the only two I have entered with less than 6000 words and I only entered them because I had nothing ...

Thanks. So far, no one has said a piece of dialogue is boring. I certainly try to avoid that! However, I will take another look to see if it can be compressed. Good to get this many responses to one problem. I'm sure it is not! I use the technique I described when I have a character doing a lot of ...

If the character speaking at length is not the POV character, consider fading out to the POV's internal thoughts and then back in when something else interesting is said. This will give it a more natural feel and avoids boring the reader while still capturing the verbosity of the long winded speaker.

I'm in.

I feel this way often. I use a couple different things to get through it. First is the mantra, trust the process, trust the process ... Stories are complicated and their elements do not coalesce all at once, so it is common to feel as if I'm wading through a swamp when I'm half way through the first...

For those who do not get Dave's newsletter: Illness On Sunday, March 10th, after teaching his very fun “And the Plot Thickens” workshop, Dave suddenly collapsed from a combination of pneumonia and a heart attack. Dave is in the hospital recuperating and will most likely be getting a pacemaker in the...

My Q2 WIP will likely slip to Q3, but I have a flash piece I'm working on I can send in Q2. Write on, everyone, and see you in Thursdayember.

It depends on what you mean by central question. Typically, I start with a concept, which is probably what you mean. For genre fiction, this would be the what is unique and interesting about the world you are building, be it magic or technology or societal construct. I usually require two or three s...

Very cool. Thanks Kent!

I'm 250 words into mine. It'll probably be about 8000 when all is said and done.

Entered 12/17/2018.
HM 4/18/2019

I'm in. As for the earlier discussion about editing, I agree with Wulf, less is more, but with the caveat when we are first starting out, it takes a few extra passes to get all the necessary ingredients into the story. I also have found that I've become more and more a pantser rather than a plotter....

I've PM'd you.

Congrats!

R for me, but that was expected. My piece was just a tiny slip of a thing. It might sell in a flash market, though. Good luck to everyone and congrats on the HMs coming through.

Submitted Sept 29.
R on Nov 15