Wulf Moon's SUPER SECRETS Workshop & Challenge!

[Wulf Moon]

Wulf Moon - for the ignorant and new, what do we do with Heart Drums?

InkFinger, this is a writing prompt. Writing prompts are designed to prompt you to craft a story around them. The members enrolled in this year's workshop have agreed to write one KYD exercise with them a month to help them improve their writing craft. For more on what my KYD exercises are, you can find the SUPER SECRET on how to Kill Your Darlings here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7600&start=960#p92258

There are also great examples that follow after that post by members enrolled in that year's workshop. The KYD exercises start here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7600&start=630#p90555

This year's workshop is now closed and underway, but anyone can follow along and do any of the exercises on their own, that's why we share everything in the open here. It's all meant to help, and help it has for many, and not just those in the workshop.

I do know many have used these prompts to craft 250-word vignettes (what KYD's are) that they expanded into full-sized short stories. One of the members--disgruntled peony--created a story from hers that was a fourth place finalist in Writers of the Future! So have fun with them, and may they help you come up with a story, maybe even one that wins Writers of the Future!

My very best to your writing craft and writing goals!

Beastmaster Moon

[Reuben]

One more thing: There's a thread Liz created to play around with the supersecrets here viewtopic.php?f=16&t=8000. I'd be happy to critique you, and I'm sure others would be as well if you choose to do so. The only downside is that then it's considered published, so it's just for exercise.

[Wulf Moon]

SUPER SECRET #47: Stick Your Landings! : )

Yes, I have to finish two more parts on SUPER SECRET #46. But I'm deep in editing for clients and workshop members, plus a deadline I must meet before month's end. But one thing has come up so often, I need to do an emergency SUPER SECRET. You're about to go into labor on your next WotF submission, and I've got to help you deliver a healthy baby to win!

I've talked about endings before. You have to nail your endings. Watch a beautiful routine by a gold medal gymnast like Simone Biles. At the end of a nearly flawless routine, she lands on her feet with a perfect stance. But note her arms and hands. There's a dramatic pose that says, "Ta-da!" She tells you by that pose she stuck the landing; it's dramatic and finishes off the routine with a solid ENDING of grace and poise. Show's over, folks. You can hand me the gold medal and go home.

You have to do the same with your endings. Many stories I edit for aspiring writers fizzle out at the end. Sometimes, the only way you can tell they are over is that they took the care to write THE END at the end. Otherwise, you'd scroll down hunting for what must have obviously gotten lost, it can't end here, can it? Well, it did, and if you don't have someone experienced telling you to go back in there and nail your ending, you can have a perfectly good story lose on that last line's failure. Yep, you did everything right, all the way through. But if you don't nail your ending, you lose.

You do know Kary English, the WotF first reader, reads the first two pages, AND THEN CHECKS THE LAST PAGE to see if you nailed your ending, right? She won't send it on to Dave if it looks like you failed at the end. A waste of his time. It's that serious.

But there's another recurring issue I see. Scenes are like mini stories. Many need to go back and repeat that to themselves. Scenes are like mini stories. ONE MORE TIME, WITH FEELING! : ) They have openings with characters in settings (please do some scene setting!), they have middle drama, and they wrap up with an ending to the scene. Good scenes end on dramatic notes, hooks such as cliffhangers or mysteries or puzzling questions or GRAVE DANGER that compel the reader to move to the next scene to find out what's going to happen to that dear heroine, is she going to be okay? Instead of sticking the landing on the last lines of a scene, it's like a gymnast that does her twists and twirls and then, just when she's supposed to land on her feet and raise her arms to say "Ta-da!" ... she stumbles off the floor to get a bottle of FIJI water. And the next routine begins, and the next, and each scene ends without the dramatic sizzle that makes you crave the next scene. It's as if the author is saying, "Whew, I'm exhausted. Glad that one's over with!"

If you want to win contests, you must create page turners. And that means you don't end a scene when the action is over, you wrap it up with an intriguing lead into the next scene. Take the old Ginsu knife ads. After they show that their knife dices, it slices, it pulverizes, are they done? No, there's that famous line that makes you hang on the edge of your seat. "But wait! There's more!" Get out of town! There's more? You've already promised me a knife that can cut through a hearty redwood with a single slice, what more can you possibly offer me? And the advertisers keep upping their game until the drama is so high, the only way to satisfy your whipped up desire is to call the number on your screen and buy what is clearly the work of Samurai metallurgists, certain to replace every other knife you own.

Same thing with stories. End each scene with dramatic power. Give your reader a reason to turn the page and read the next, all the way to the coup de grace at the end.

All the beast!

Beastmaster Moon

[Henckel]

Thanks Moon!!!!

[Wulf Moon]

Thanks Moon!!!!

You’re welcome! May the Force be with you this Q!

[RSchibler]

Great one, Wulf. I've been working on my scene openings and endings, so this was good timing.

[Wulf Moon]

Thanks, Becky and Henckel. I've had to repeat this counsel over and over to clients and workshop members, so I know it's needed. I think it will help writers if they view each scene as a mini story, and put extra care and effort into the opening of each scene, and it's conclusion. Especially the conclusions to scenes--as Ruby Rhod says, they need to pop, pop, POP!

Are we green? : )

Cheers!

[RSchibler]

Super green.

[SwiftPotato]

Happy first day of March, folks! Today's Monday prompt is: ACCIDENTALLY LOST SOUL.

[Wulf Moon]

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL MARKET

When I was at the Writers of the Future Vol. 35 workshop, each of us were handed a special gift: the very first issue of a gorgeous full-sized, full-color magazine known as DreamForge. I hadn't seen a magazine in the industry like this since Sovereign Media produced SF Age and Realms of Fantasy. It was an ambitious undertaking, a breathtaking publication filled with original art on each page, and I wondered who could go out on a limb like this and try it again. And then I found out who the publisher was: a Writers of the Future winner named Scot Noel. When you win Writers of the Future, you are taught to dream big, that anything is possible.

Well, they did the impossible! DreamForge ran for two years and had over twenty stories achieve the honor of being on Tangent's coveted Recommended Reading List. Then covid struck last year, severely impacting their business. The postal system struck as well, failing to get many print copies to their subscribers, costing them a fortune in additional printing and postage to make replacements.

But Scot and his wife Jane didn't want to throw in the towel. So this year they've switched to a nonprofit, and started a Kickstarter to keep paying writers six cents a word, a respectable rate! And they've put the focus on publishing aspiring writers, even providing edits to help stories that are almost there. Have you wondered where my SUPER SECRETS workshop members have been? I challenged each of them to write a story for this market, and they've now done so.

To aid DreamForge Anvil's cause, I just donated one of my live virtual workshops as a pledge reward, to be held May 15th, 2021. This workshop is part of my award-winning SUPER SECRETS Workshop series that kept selling out last year. The title is: "NAIL YOUR OPENING: How Driving to the Story Creates Accidents." This workshop is the most important one I teach, because if you fail in your opening, no one will read your story. Includes my workshop, their Best Of anthology (yes, an actual printed BOOK), DreamForge Years 1 & 2, a year's subscription to the new DreamForge Anvil, and more! It's not expensive, only $35 for all, and every penny goes to paying writers for their stories. I think that's grand.

If a workshop's not your cup of tea, you can support for as little as ten bucks, which will get you a year's subscription at almost half off! When you subscribe, you'll not only be helping hopeful writers like yourself, you'll be reading great stories, such as, oh, I don't know, how about this one? "Shaken, Not Stirred," by Wulf Moon in their flagship April Issue! Sipping chilled martinis alongside the Sagittarius Stream not your thing? Got you covered! I've been commissioned to write SUPER SECRETS writing articles for the magazine, and the first debuts in this same issue!

Come along for the ride! If you're able to help, this is indeed a worthy cause. Not only will it save a gorgeous magazine, it will preserve an important market for aspiring writers, possibly even one for you! And if we get to spend some time together in my workshop, all the better! But let's save the drinks for the end, shall we? You're going into the Forest after all. Got to have your wits about you . . .

Nighty-night.

Here's their Kickstarter! https://bit.ly/DFKicks

[Wulf Moon]

Final thought to add to the above: I highly recommend subscribing to markets you hope to sell to. It not only helps you see what an editor likes, it sustains the market so it will be there when you wish to submit your stories. It also gives you an advantage over others that don't support. You see, editors like seeing this sentence in your cover letter: I am a subscriber to your magazine.

Dean Wesley Smith, now a judge in WotF, taught me this Secret years ago when I was in Wordos. May it help you get that bit of editor appreciation that can help put your story over the top when the selection is close!

[Dragonchef]

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL MARKET
Here's their Kickstarter! https://bit.ly/DFKicks

!Rebel Yell!

Done!
I am looking forward to that workshop, Wulfy!

[storysinger]

I got the email about this offer and signed up for the 35, well it ended at 39. I am stoked about the upcoming experience.

[Wulf Moon]

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL MARKET
Here's their Kickstarter! https://bit.ly/DFKicks

!Rebel Yell!

Done!
I am looking forward to that workshop, Wulfy!

Sweet, Dragonchef! Glad to hear that rebel yell! I'll hire you to cook virtual appetizers for everyone! Don't forget the SUPER SECRET SAUCE! : )

Storysinger, glad you're stoked! $35 covers my workshop, a year's subscription to DreamForge Anvil, a year's subscription to Space and Time Magazine, all the digital back issues of DreamForge 1-7, a novel, and their Best OF print anthology WORLDS OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS. It has to be mailed out, it's a physical book, thus the $4 add on at the end. Postage, and those shipping packages. But Scot has told me 100% of that $35 goes to paying hopeful writers for their stories. It's why I'm doing this. I have a strong desire to help writers like you get published. It's why I created the SUPER SECRETS. It's why Scot is creating the new DreamForge Anvil. See you there!

Looking forward to helping everyone NAIL YOUR OPENING. The most important SUPER SECRET you will ever learn!

Thank you to all who can support the DreamForge Anvil Kickstarter. Your pledge will help aspiring writers get published...maybe even you!

Here's their Kickstarter! https://bit.ly/DFKicks

All the beast!

Beastmaster Moon