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I was overjoyed to get SHM for my first WotF entry earlier this year. I'd submitted the story in an earlier form to F&SF magazine and gotten a high tier rejection for it. The SHM I received for my revision made me very happy and proud! Then, reality sank in and I realized that this story will li...

The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay was pretty good. Also, Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg and the Dancing Gods series by Jack Chalker. This kind of fantasy was very popular in the 1980s. They don't get written much anymore

I recently recalled a post-apocalyptic novel I briefly owned that was written some time in the 1980s. Unfortunately, I don't recall much, as I think I lost the book before I could finish it. All I do remember is that it was a low-key story about a young man in a near-future dystopian America that wa...

Thanks vibrantbear. I will PM you so we can exchange emails.

I just finished an intro chapter to a novel I am writing that I hope might work as a stand-alone story. I'm thinking of entering it in the next quarter. I'm not sure if it is right for the contest. The SF element might not be strong enough, and the language of some of the characters and some themati...

Thanks all, I really appreciate the support. The night I got the call was such a rollercoaster. I was trying to rescue a street kitten that had been stuck in a garage storage unit when Joni called. I was ecstatic to get the news (and am crazy on edge to find out the results), but the kitten passed ...

Hello everyone! I've been writing a while, 3-4 years. I'm old, got into writing late, have never wanted to write a novel. Fumbling along getting both good advice and bad. Anyway Q2 was my first submission to any publisher ever. Received an Honorable Mention. In the meantime, sold a story (token pay...

Thank you, Wulf! I think I owe you a BIG thank you, as I pilfered many secrets from your overflowing vaults!

Hi there RSchibler! And CONGRATULATIONS on your Semi-Finalist Award!!! You gave me a crit for an earlier version of this story. I think the advice you gave me enabled me to attain a higher rating than I ever could have managed without it. If you would not mind re-reading it in its current form, I ca...

Hi everyone. There is an older thread about this, but nobody has responded in over a year. I would like to see if anyone who had gotten HM or SHM recently would be interested in exchanging crits in order to improve our stories for re-submission to WotF or for other markets. I think I know what my fa...

SHM

If you get a HM or Silver HM do you have to rename your revised story before submitting it again to maintain anonymity? Nope. You become once again just a number in the system to first reader Kary and coordinating judge David Farland. Contest coordinator Joni is the only one that links up the numbe...

If you get a HM or Silver HM do you have to rename your revised story before submitting it again to maintain anonymity?

http://forum.writersofthefuture.com/images/smilies/wotf056.gif Wow! Better than I expected! Thanks to the forum members who critiqued my story, Empressed, Oshisushi911 and Kschibler! So this means I can polish it up and enter it again, correct? Congrats to everyone, or keep on plugging, as the case...

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...