Discussion: Q2 Volume 37

[Wulf Moon]

wotf057

Wow.

Congratulations to everyone and commiserations to anyone who is disappointed. I understand that feeling in the bottom of my soul. Keep writing, and as a dear friend recently told me, BELIEVE in yourself and your goals.

Becky, this is wonderful news. Semifinalist is top 16! Your last was a Silver HM, as I recall. And you had your first pro sale, and then another sale this year. Judging by your trajectory, I will say LOOK OUT Q3!

Keep up the great work! And thanks for all the work you do helping others in here. It is appreciated by all.

Three cheers for Becky! WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!

Wulf Moon

[guthington]

Congrats to the HM's, Silver HM's, and semifinalists! I guess it's too early to hear from the finalists.

Commiserations to the Rs, I know how you feel. I'm impressed by those of you who are being proactive instead of climbing under a rock for awhile (that's the way I responded at least for a while. Then emerged and tried again.)

I've enjoyed the conversations regarding first person or not, the importance of using that right word, your reactions to Dave Farland's most recent post about how even well written prose can be too boring to continue to the end. I'm now worried about how important the first sentence is. If you are like me, you read his posts and nod your head... yep, my entry is competitive. I did that, didn't do that. And then... the form rejection email and the whole burst ego and the what was it? But... I guess it's one thing to read what you wrote and think it's insanely interesting and a whole other thing to read another's. At any rate, I'm impressed with the engagement here.

I don't have an entry for Q2, but I do for Q3 and am working on a draft for Q4. My Q3 is on the short side and in first person (which I usually avoid, but it seemed to work. However those conversations about the dangers of using first person caused me some anxiety). My Q4 (assuming I get it done in time) is on the longer side and in third person. I was inspired by one of the recent WOTF audios sent to my inbox from Joni from the judges (I think there were 8) and a strong hint about the number of winning stories that were later turned into novels.

[Michael Kingswood]

Got another HM. Really kinda getting tired of these, to be honest.



Congrats to all the placers. And really, to everyone. Merely finishing and entering is a victory in and of itself.

[Agathon]

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 payment) to the 2020 NIWA Anthology, "Escape". I guess the practicing has paid off. Submitted to Q3 also. Still have a day job and maybe someday I'll take the Bradbury challenge but for now I write a couple of stories a month. I type and think slow. Anyway, how many HM's do they hand out in a quarter?

[DoctorJest]

HM for me also, which I'll happily take, under the circumstances!

Right, I think you said you were concerned about the R... Grats on the HM!

Hmm, I have been in the past, but for this particular entry I was honestly feeling quite open to any result, and curious to see where it went. It was a chunky rewrite of an earlier HM (from years prior), and the first time I've tried submitting a rewrite. Since it already had an HM to its name (albeit under a different name), any result at all would just have been useful information to me. As it is...I don't actually know what this tells me now! At least nothing I did made it worse.

(The circumstances I referred to were, in fact, that I wasn't able to get the story I wanted to submit together in time, not least because I suddenly had an idea that would mean rewriting the whole thing from scratch, but which I knew immediately would make it stronger--so I fell back onto something I could definitely have ready in time. Then everything went wrong, and I didn't get it ready for Q3 either...but Q4, for sure! I swear!)

[czing]

I entered Q2 with a sort of "whatever I'll just submit this". It was short and intended to be humorous but certainly isn't actually laugh out loud funny and it is probably deeply flawed even though part of me likes it. And lo and behold I ended up with my best placement thus far as Silver Honorable Mention.

So it just goes to show you, there is no telling what will tickle the fancy of an editor or judge so it is just best to get those stories out there. I have another one that is very different but I have sort of the same feeling about (flawed but I kind of like it and hey it is just sitting there so I might as well enter it). Who knows - maybe that one will get me an even better result :)

Congrats to everyone who submitted no matter the nature of the result. The biggest win is getting things out there!

[LibrarianBarbarian]

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 payment) to the 2020 NIWA Anthology, "Escape". I guess the practicing has paid off. Submitted to Q3 also. Still have a day job and maybe someday I'll take the Bradbury challenge but for now I write a couple of stories a month. I type and think slow. Anyway, how many HM's do they hand out in a quarter?

I have read that a placing of HM means your story was approximately in the top 10 percent of all submissions. Not entirely sure if this is accurate.

[Wulf Moon]

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 payment) to the 2020 NIWA Anthology, "Escape". I guess the practicing has paid off. Submitted to Q3 also. Still have a day job and maybe someday I'll take the Bradbury challenge but for now I write a couple of stories a month. I type and think slow. Anyway, how many HM's do they hand out in a quarter?

I have read that a placing of HM means your story was approximately in the top 10 percent of all submissions. Not entirely sure if this is accurate.

It’s accurate.

[Dustin Adams]

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 payment) to the 2020 NIWA Anthology, "Escape". I guess the practicing has paid off. Submitted to Q3 also. Still have a day job and maybe someday I'll take the Bradbury challenge but for now I write a couple of stories a month. I type and think slow. Anyway, how many HM's do they hand out in a quarter?

Agathon,

Grats on the HM!

I also received an HM on my first submission anywhere ever (here). Pretty cool.

If you look at the first post (page 1) from the past maybe two years of Discussion: threads, I've changed the original post with a link to the winners and HM's etc for that quarter. You can get an idea of how things look. However, the number of HMs is usually a percentage of the overall entries.

2000 entries, maybe 150 hms.
1000 entries, maybe 80 hms.

There's been a sort of debate, or a conception in regards to the contest becoming more competitive. It's been suggested we must all up our game because there are more entries and that stories are getting "better". While I won't, or can't dispute that, I'd argue that the scales of elevation are balanced. We are upping our game.

What I mean is, if "they" are getting better at writing and submitting better entries, then so are "we". Not only because we share info here, and meet individuals or groups for critiques, but because of the overall amount of shared information available to us all.
Write. Submit. Repeat.

[Dustin Adams]

... I was inspired by one of the recent WOTF audios sent to my inbox from Joni from the judges (I think there were 8) and a strong hint about the number of winning stories that were later turned into novels.

I've been thinking about this myself recently. My current line of thought is that a story that hints at a larger world feels bigger because it does so. What "hints" means is worthy of a separate discussion, but in regards to my own Q2, it is self contained. At 3300 words, it may be considered more of a vignette than a sweeping tale. It focuses on one character solidly (Nothing wrong with that) and one major event (nothing wrong with that) but doesn't hint of a larger world/story.

Not that every winner does or needs to, but I think it helps to have it feel like there's more going on, or to have the reader wish they could read more about the characters or the world. Isn't that how we feel at the end of some movies? We want more.

[Dustin Adams]

Got another HM. Really kinda getting tired of these, to be honest.

Let me know if you want to swap 450s or stories. We both have over 10 combined hm and shm. Maybe we'll spot something to help elevate.

[AlexH]

A third HM for me, and a second in a row, so I guess I can almost call myself a consistent HM receiver! An HM seemed an unattainable task to me 2 or 3 years ago, so this must be good news.

Well done to everyone who received HM first time or levelled-up, especially Becky! Dave's critique will be gold. I like czing's result too. My first HM was a story I thought was totally not right for WotF, and I've heard from a few other writers who levelled up at WotF or to pro sales when they least expected a particular story to do so.

Let's keep trying.

[Agathon]

Dustin Adams said:

There's been a sort of debate, or a conception in regards to the contest becoming more competitive. It's been suggested we must all up our game because there are more entries and that stories are getting "better". While I won't, or can't dispute that, I'd argue that the scales of elevation are balanced. We are upping our game.

What I mean is, if "they" are getting better at writing and submitting better entries, then so are "we". Not only because we share info here, and meet individuals or groups for critiques, but because of the overall amount of shared information available to us all.

Dustin Adams, agreed.

My introduction to Science Fiction in print was a TV tie-in with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Someone in my family thought I would like to read it because I was a big fan of Fireball XL-5. I've read the magazines off and on over the years and can't walk past a "Best of..." Anthology in a used bookstore. Anyway, I can testify that all of Science Fiction and Fantasy has been getting better since the 1950's, except movies. There are plenty of movies that are no better than an episode of Fireball XL-5, story-wise. And plenty of good stuff has been worn out over the years, for instance, the Terminator Series. The first such story I can remember is "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison from the late sixties. Computers or robots taking over the world, well, I'm not going to write that unless I figure out an angle no one else has covered yet.

Sorry, I'm not used to forums, I'll figure out how to highlight a quote one of these days.

[BrandieJ]

Hey guys. I don't post a lot here, rather keeping to the shadows. But I found out I'm a finalist for this quarter. I am so excited and so nervous. And then excited again.

[Reuben]

Hey guys. I don't post a lot here, rather keeping to the shadows. But I found out I'm a finalist for this quarter. I am so excited and so nervous. And then excited again.

Wow! Congrats! (Does that mean you're still in the running?)

[BrandieJ]

Thanks! And yep!

[Reuben]

WOOHOO!!

[Dustin Adams]

Hey guys. I don't post a lot here, rather keeping to the shadows. But I found out I'm a finalist for this quarter. I am so excited and so nervous. And then excited again.

Grats!
Enjoy, maybe, the wait......

And thanks for posting. We like moving shadows.

[Dustin Adams]

Sorry, I'm not used to forums, I'll figure out how to highlight a quote one of these days.

It's easy. Just click the " box to the left of the screaming Jean Claude. It opens a new message with the entirety of the quote (I truncated manually).

[Agathon]

It's easy. Just click the " box to the left of the screaming Jean Claude. It opens a new message with the entirety of the quote (I truncated manually).

Found it, thanks!

[chuckt]

Hey guys. I don't post a lot here, rather keeping to the shadows. But I found out I'm a finalist for this quarter. I am so excited and so nervous. And then excited again.

Awesome. Congrats. That's so exciting.

[KD Julicher]

Hey guys. I don't post a lot here, rather keeping to the shadows. But I found out I'm a finalist for this quarter. I am so excited and so nervous. And then excited again.

Congrats! Being a finalist is so awesome! I hope you win!

[HermioneLee]

Hey guys. I don't post a lot here, rather keeping to the shadows. But I found out I'm a finalist for this quarter. I am so excited and so nervous. And then excited again.

Really? Congrats! Hope you win this quarter!

[Wulf Moon]

Hey guys. I don't post a lot here, rather keeping to the shadows. But I found out I'm a finalist for this quarter. I am so excited and so nervous. And then excited again.

Brandie! You’re a fine girl! What a good winner you will be!

That makes TWO of my friends as Fianilsts this Q2. May BOTH of you win! I especially want to see what you wear to the gala! To mine, Brandie wore a BOOK, folks! Too cool!

May your next call be golden!!!

All the beast!

Wulf Moon

[SwiftPotato]

Hey guys. I don't post a lot here, rather keeping to the shadows. But I found out I'm a finalist for this quarter. I am so excited and so nervous. And then excited again.

That's awesome! Congratulations!!! :) Best of luck!

[disgruntledpeony]

Hey guys. I don't post a lot here, rather keeping to the shadows. But I found out I'm a finalist for this quarter. I am so excited and so nervous. And then excited again.

Awesome! Best of luck, Brandie!

[CCrawford]

Hey guys. I don't post a lot here, rather keeping to the shadows. But I found out I'm a finalist for this quarter. I am so excited and so nervous. And then excited again.

Congratulations!

[kizernix]

Thanks! And yep!

Awesome! Hopefully we will see a post from you soon holding up your winner sign!!!

[Wulf Moon]

Wow. Update. I now have THREE good friends as finalists this Q2. Elizabeth Chatsworth just announced. Dave referred her to me for some editing work, how we first met. I have never had three friends in the running before. One at best. This is incredible! I want all three IN!

May the best women win!

All the beast!

Wulf Moon

[TimE]

Hey guys. I don't post a lot here, rather keeping to the shadows. But I found out I'm a finalist for this quarter. I am so excited and so nervous. And then excited again.

Well done. Fingers crossed for you.