WRITERSoftheFUTURE.com

I applied September 25 last year and found out the first Monday in December I think - but most people were notified the day after Thanksgiving.

They said, "Mermaid frozen in an iceberg," and he developed the coolest story out of it on the fly, and then pitched it to us without batting an eye. It was amazing to see his mind work that up so fast, and then relate it to us in a pitch, demonstrating how it's done. He's an excellent in...

Uh oh. The character climax of my novel is all mind speech and is a three way italics conversion. Guess it won’t be up your alley!

Reporting in just to—as Wulf said— show we’re all in this together. I have sent 8 queries on my YA fantasy novel so far - and I already have a full request! Very exciting. I’ve completed one story that will be my WotF entry for this quarter and am 1k into a second story. My krakens come back and go ...

That’s a great result! Congratulations!

HermioneLee wrote:Thank you very much, TimE. So everyone, from Semi-Finalist to Rejection, receives an email from Joni?

Everyone. She’s amazing!

I'm going to give you some free advice...wait a minute, all this advice is free! :) I recall the most important thing I learned in sales, the KISS method: KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID. :) It is really, really easy to complicate what a story is, turn the process into some elaborate monstrosity, or cloak i...

At the risk of tooting my own horn, I will say that this past year I started focusing on the internal journey of my MCs instead of the external and I got 2HMs, a SHM, and my first pro sale. It’s the emotional element that is compelling, I think, in stories. Even Jack Ryan and Jason Bourne have inter...

Thank you for sharing this, Becky! I've focused on internal character arcs with a Three-Act Structure when writing novels, but for some reason I have a really hard time making my brain translate this same concept into short stories. Any tips on that would be much appreciated! Same thing, just short...

I took Dan Well's class on "Creating Character Arcs" and it was awesome. Not only does he sound just like he does on Writing Excuses, but the information was amazing. It just helped me finish off my Q2 submission. Thanks Becky! A question: Do you think that the main character arc needs to...

I took Dan Well's class on "Creating Character Arcs" and it was awesome. Not only does he sound just like he does on Writing Excuses, but the information was amazing. It just helped me finish off my Q2 submission. Basically, he walked the class through the Three-Act Structure with an empha...

Henckel wrote:Does anyone else out there use polysyndeton as a literary device? I don't see this much (if any) in sci fi/fantasy. Not sure us using such a device would be frowned upon in this contest (even when used correctly)??? Any thoughts?

Learned me a new word today!

I’m getting up at 3am. I should be dreading the flight and the tired but I’m so excited!

It’s generally recommended to avoid details regarding your story on the forum as the contest is anonymous - I’d edit out those details. Judges have been known to browse the forum.

I hear y'all on the exhaustion! Despite this absurdly busy week, I stayed up late editing my first story of Q2 because I got in the zone. I'm pretty psyched about it, but the wait is going to kill me if it's my next WotF submission! I've had a long stretch of radio silence from the zines (which, ye...

Yeah... they always say that though. I checked the Grinder - it's been mid-April the last two years. I wouldn't start twitching until after the Gala, personally.

AlexH wrote:I'm sure I remember Joni saying late-March this time?

They’re frequently aiming for faster results. IIRC last year Dave Farland had some real health issues during Q1, which delayed results. Here’s hoping it’s sooner!

If you have an audible subscription, I highly recommend the Great Courses "How Great Science Fiction Works" lecture series. I loved it, and found the speaker very personable. Not always the case - I've quit lectures before because of a boring professor! :)

Like swift said you can’t resubmit that story, but you’re not barred from entering. You’ll get a critique from Dave Farland so definitely reach out to Joni! General consensus is that anything but a finalist is still a rejection - and there have been mixed results from people using finalist in cover ...

https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/SFTerms.html

I don't know if you guys knew this existed, but I'm totally excited about it. Especially if you've got a story going into the Jim Baen awards.

If you’re pitching a complete manuscript, stick to one. If you’re just asking questions, you can mention both. But I wouldn’t try to pitch both.

You can send it to me. At that size it’ll take me a few days but should be within a week.

1. You talk to an agent or editor about your manuscript. Ideally, you want a completed novel manuscript if you’re going to a pitch session. If you don’t have a completed book, you can still use the time to ask questions, get them to review your query letter, etc. 2. Business cards are a good idea fo...

SUPER Congratulations to Wulf Moon for winning "Best Author" in the Critters Reader's Poll! We know how hard he works, he really deserves this recognition. More, Super Duper Moongirl and the Amazing Moon Dawdler won Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Short Story, and OUR little Writing Wor...

I've completed a flash story on the BLOOD SUCKER prompt. I accidentally wrote 1346 words, dangit, but will cut it down to 500 anyway. As for the British flash competitions, I do suspect they're going to be more in favor of literary type flash, more like FFO than DSF, but a great story is a great sto...

If the grand prize weren’t so significant I’d have skipped it - but $12 for a potential $1300 prize is worth it, to me.

https://theshortstory.co.uk/competition ... mpetition/

All of you doing the flash prompts regularly - this is a good opportunity for you!

I don't think he does much else, he probably reads really fast, and he's been at this for a long time - I've assumed he has a smooth system for rejecting or holding stories. I've noticed this before, too. He's so fast, and frequently gives feedback and comments to boot. Not to mention curating one o...

I vary where I break it - sometimes it's a cliffhanger and sometimes I tie things off with a bow with a few dangling threads. I (personally) like to have easy places to put a book down. I'm a mom, I have work and life to deal with, so it's nice to have a satisfying place to stop without it nagging a...

Wow. I totally missed this entire thread during my 2-3 year hiatus. I mean, I saw it, but usually only long enough to know there was a new message and click the "mark all threads as read" button. <sadface>. With another glance, I looked at the original post. Damn. wotf015 I will get all c...