WRITERSoftheFUTURE.com

Submitted 12/28/18

Rejection 4/18/19

I'm in.

I'm in for the quarter. I almost completely rewrote a former piece, and added about 4k words, but still counts as revised. Best of luck to those of you writing up to the deadline - I think this is the closest I've ever come to the cutoff. Thanks to all who helped with swaps.

I'm looking for someone who hasn't read this piece to glance over the first 450 words and see how it grabs them.

You should send in a complete story that fits the word count. If you don't have anything that is under 17k words, either edit them down (although the closer to that limit they are, they harder of a sell they're going to be), or write something that is :)

I just finished a massive rewrite of my story. It could *almost* count as a fresh piece, but that would be cheating.

I'm open to critiques for anyone who wants eyes on their story. Send them my way.

Good luck all.

I tried a 3 POV story for Q3 and got a rejection. The story had other issues, but trying to weave in three POVs for a short story was a challenge!

I agree, five or so solid critiques is enough to know if the same issue is bugging multiple readers. I don't take every piece of advice from every reader, but I do consider it all. I've been lucky to find really excellent swap partners through this forum.

I'm a terrible over-editor. I don't know how to NOT edit my stories. I'm always poking at them, seeing if I can make them live. Like the good doctor, though, I tend to create monsters instead of paragons. On the topic of editing, I've cleared my reading queue (I believe, poke me if I haven't gotten ...

I think it's important to make the reader ask questions, speculate, and get intrigued right away. The best hooks make promises to the reader, drawing them into the tale. Things like: this problem will be hard to solve, or this character has an interesting issue, or this setting is rich and will be f...

I say we draw straws. Only way to keep things fair.

I reworked an R, and it's 2/3 a new story. I'll make it my Q1 submission, and then it's only a 1/3 of a story resub rate for the year.

YAAAAY!!!!

I'm down for the glass-three-quarters-full challenge. I know I won't have time for Q1, but I can do the other three.

Brittany that's FANTASTIC! Congratulations! Kiss those baby cheeks and cheer! Woo-Hoo! Always a joy when there's a forumite finalist.

I have written two stories inspired by Welsh mythology :)

I'm going to do my best but working on historical fiction is, well, work. Who knew? I'm hoping to wrap up the book in time to squeeze a rewrite into Q1 but I'm full on in the murky middles and wrestling with plot bears. But I plan to make the attempt and not break my streak.

MattDovey wrote:Look at it this way: you need two things to be a writer--rejections and acceptances. You've got the rejection now, so you're halfway there, right? Right!

Matt, if you're telling me it's supposed to be a 1:1 ratio I've got a huge pile of acceptances headed my way.

Aaaaaaaaaaany minute now...

Always

Send it my way.

Always up for swaps.

Congratulations KristyEmber. That's a great accomplishment. It's hard not to want that shiny shiny finalist, but a semi-finalist is JUST off the mark as I'm sure you know. You'll certainly sell the story elsewhere AND you get a personal critique from Dave. Pretty shiny. I wonder if that means the fi...

You definitely should include HMs to your author's bio and market your work. I'm sure it will land you some publications. Don't you think so? The standing advice around these parts is that an Honorable Mention is essentially still a rejection. It's a good rejection, and shows ability and progress, ...

Entered Sept. 11
HM November 15

HM here. Satisfied.

Congratulations to everyone who placed and my encouragement to those that did not. Keep at it!

There once was a group with the itch
To make worlds from words and get rich
But every three moons
They’d stop in their swoons
With their heads put together, and twitch

Oh definitely. But I’m wondering if the timing is auspicious or coincidence.

Does mentioning the contest in the writing tips count as a "peep"?

If so, PEEP.

The cure to twitching is writing new stories and sending them out to other markets. Soon, you'll have so many pans in the fire, it won't matter so much if this dish flops. You've got plenty more cooking! Ding! Order up! ~Moon~ This is so true. I’m working on a novel, always edit and turn around my ...

Shake and Bake. And I helped!

2) A reviewer's job is to tell you what's not working for them in the story. Their job is NOT to tell you how to fix it -- that's your job. I once got a critique back on one of my stories, and the reviewer basically told me I needed to just rewrite the entire story from beginning to ending, and als...