WRITERSoftheFUTURE.com

Thanks everyone! I am submitting online. I was never planning to send a hardcopy. I just wanted to know if the submissions were printed out for the judges to read, or if they read them on their PCs or devices. Thank you!

Just wondering if they read a hardcopy or an electronic file.

Thank you both very much!

When it finally comes time to submit, do you put your contact info in an entirely separate document, or do you begin your manuscript's pagination with zero, putting contact info on page 0 and starting the story on page 1?

Interesting cycle! I've just been going up and down the Peak of Inflated Expectations, in and out of the trough. At the top, things are very productive, but I notice I tend to go into the Trough of Disillusionment when I am very tired. I've been on a weird cycle of only 4 hours of sleep or less per ...

You finish your draft and read it and it's WONDERFUL! Your story is thrilling, your prose is lyrical, your imagery is worth a thousand pictures and your characters are even more alive to you than your friends and family. You laugh, you cry... You have amazed yourself! This story is a masterpiece ! Y...

This is the success thread; all success is welcome! Share away when it's ready. wotf007 I will! I had a lot of fun with that one. The mood I had in mind while writing it was 'imagine the classic Western movie, 'Shane' if it was directed in 1970 by Sam Peckinpah instead of in 1953 by George Stevens'.

crlisle wrote:Lol. That is funny. I was born in El Paso.

Everyone says, it's a nice place to come from! Seriously though, it's Ok. Great food, friendly people and relatively crime-free. Very limited winter is a plus, too.

I used to have a big problem with the overuse of italics. I'd have several on each page in dialogue, and huge blocks of italicized text for characters' memories and thoughts. I still use a few, but I had to consciously focus on weeding them out. I think I was emphasizing the proper words, but it was...

I've used this one a couple of times for Sword & Sorcery stories: "Mark Taverna was born in the barbaric frozen wastelands of Canada. Many years ago he journeyed south to the ancient desert city of El Paso, where he now lives with his wife, sons, and cat. Having recently escaped from slave-...

Congrats! Make sure you share it with us when it's out / out for pre-order! Thanks Andy! It's a little outside the realm of this board, but it is 'speculative' in a way. The anthology's theme is team-ups of Western historical characters who never actually met. We had to keep it realistic as to thei...

I've gotten inspiration from dreams, landscapes, historical incidents, memories of friendships or relationships I have had and the intricate toy-soldier scenarios I played as a child, role-playing and computer games and many other places. Once I saw two brothers eating together at a Golden Corral Bu...

Dustin Adams wrote:After that I'd say focus on your writing skill, and get to know the first judge(s).
https://www.writersofthefuture.com/writ ... -the-odds/

That link was very informative, Dustin! Thank you!

Thank you Wulf!

If you manage to have a famous established author in the SF&F genres critique your entry, does it in any way compromise your eligibility to enter the contest?

[b] I mean this in the best way possible, but there are dozens of available threads on the forum. This one is special, because Wulf is taking time out of his post-winner life to provide guidance and support to writers who haven't reached that point in the journey yet. It's public and I know it's im...

I just heard from the Editor in Chief of the indie press publishing my upcoming Western novelette that the anthology will be coming out this October! It's been a long time since the story was accepted last spring. The poor guy AND his daughter have both been having terrible health issues and everyth...

I'm not enrolled, but here's a couple off the top of my head. They're probably mostly SF oriented. Not sure if they have been used in stories before or not: Robot scrapyard seen as death camp. The first A.I. President! Sentient cancer. Hey feller, whatcha got in that sack? Um, I didn't have one, so ...

Thanks. Mine is only 14K and we get into the story relatively quickly. Makes me wonder how a lot of fantasy epics ever made it past the slush pile. You see a lot of chapter-long intros out there about the landscape, or Gods creating the universe, or some random deer running through the forest.

On Super Secret Tip #2, Don't Drive to the Story: Would one be allowed slightly more mileage for the trip with a longer story? Do judges/editors expect the same brevity and immediacy in your opener to a 20,000-word novelette as they would from a 3000-word short story or a 500-word flash fiction?

My best rejections have been a "didn't win me over" from SF&F (no further comments, though, darn it, but he even signed it as Charlie, not CC!), a very nice letter from Beneath Ceaseless Skies that explained that I had written a fine S&S adventure in the classical mode, but they we...

Also, I have to say: you, sir, win Best Username of the Year So Far. (At least, in my humble opinion.)

Thank you! And even if that honor is all I take away from the competition, I'll be content. Not ecstatic, of course, but content.

I'm curious about the style of writing that is preferred by the judges. I know it's extremely hard to get into the major magazines unless you are writing a very modern, cutting edge brand of SF, very literary, somewhat obscure, and often message-oriented. Is it worth submitting a more traditional st...

Hello everybody! My name is Mark Taverna. I have sold a few Sword & Sorcery stories to indie presses, but nothing that would disqualify me from the competition. I've been writing since I was a teenager, with a few long interruptions. I became a stay-at-home dad last year, and could finally write...