Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Writing Group => Topic started by: Bookstore Guy on July 10, 2009, 05:32:27 PM
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Hey guys and gals - If you were thinking of finishing up a shorts story or novella and submitting it for consideration anywhere, you might want to try finishing it up sooner rather than later and get it in in the Fourth Quarter contest for this years Writers of the Future. If your story is 17K or less, I'd recommend trying to get it in this quarter which ends September 30th. Seems like you guys (myself included) should try getting used to submitting your work. I notice for myself that I feel more motivated since I am actually sending stuff in for consideration.
this is just an FYI, but I thought some of you might take the suggestion to heart.
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I have a story I am working on, and hoping to have done by the deadline.
(Then again, I said that about the story before the last deadline too :D )
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Yeah. What Erik said.
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I "finished" my Writers of the Future piece. Letting stew for a while until late August before I send it in.
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I figure I will learn the results of my story one day. It's been 3 months. Of course, the longer they take, the longer they are considering my story. I read that the average rejection time is around 45 days.
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Sounds like you're doing pretty good then. ;)
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Double what Bookstore Guy said.
As an aside, there's an online crit group that's doing WotF entries exclusively (of which I am a part) if anyone is interested. We're taking advantage of Orson Scott Cards Hatrack River Writers Workshop. Registration for the board is free through OSC's website, and then our discussion postings are in the Hatrack Groups forum. Recently, we've been pumping out some pretty regular HM's, and I think we have a lot of good writers around but we could always use more.
On the submission side, I have one in for the current quarter (Q03) that I was pretty pleased with by the time I finished it, and am about 70% done with my submission for the next quarter (Q04). Setting a goal to submit a new short story every quarter has really helped me get closer to the "regular writing" goal that I've had for a long time.
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Thanks WD! I'll have to check that out. And a story every quarter - good for you. That's a great goal to have.
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When you say 17k, you mean number of words right? Do you have a link to more contest details?
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Yes, 17k words. Full contest rules are here (http://www.writersofthefuture.com/rules.htm).
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Have you heard anything on yours, WriterDan? It's odd, because I hear about people getting rejected quickly and often, yet all I have heard is that I was officially in Q3. I'm crossing my fingers for us!
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Seconded. Good luck to the pair of you!
(Starting to get a bit more hopeful about fixing and finishing one of my stories for WotF...)
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I just submitted a polished version of my short story Survivor to the contest. How do they send out notifications? Any idea how many submissions they get per period? Do I have half a chance in hades?
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They get several thousand a quarter. I've seen varied numbers, but a lot around the 8-10 thousand mark. Don't know how accurate that is.
Assuming you followed the directions, you should get an email stating your story was officially entered in the quarter. You prolly wont get this email until late September. Of course, this is how it all worked for me, but I doubt I'm special.
I figure you have the same chance as anyone for this contest. It's hard to tell what they look for. I'm surprised my story hasn't been rejected yet, because it is more of a horror short story than anything fantasy. So yeah, you have a chance of being accepted. You have to figure most of the stuff they receive is complete garbage.
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I'll let you see mine if you let me see yours ;D ;D ;D
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Horror is still spec fic. Then again, the rules do state "science fiction and fantasy"... maybe they're branding yours as dark fantasy?
I have to admit, I'd be very curious to see your story, Steve. I'm also curious as to what RC did to his before he sent it in. :P
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I'll send it to you again :) Go ahead and tell me if you see any glaring errors so I can get the crying over before I ever have to deal with the rejection letter :)
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Horror is still spec fic. Then again, the rules do state "science fiction and fantasy"... maybe they're branding yours as dark fantasy?
I don't think I'd call all Horror Spec Fic.
Scream IMO wouldn't be spec fiction, it's just a crazy guy in a Ghost suit. Nightmare on Elm Street though has some killer dream ghost guy.
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Thanks RC! I like making people cry.
I mean, uh, thanks for assuaging my curiousity and I'm sure there are no huge errors in it. :)
True enough, Erik, though as an umbrella terms I think speculative fiction usually does include horror. Always exceptions and blah blah blah.
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You could loosely term mine Urban Fantasy/Horror...if you squint and tilt your head a little to the right. There is a spec. element to it, but 90% of the novel is creepy horror with no spec element. It all becomes a matter of them (the judges) being drawn in by the story long enough to get to the spec part so they cheer. But yeah, since they haven't rejected mine yet, it must not be terrible.
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So, um, yeah, I want to get a read on it so I have an idea of what other people are submitting. Granted, you are competing in a different quarter, but I'd still like to know. Can you send it to me? Emails on my profile.
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*grins* I almost think we need a new genre: slightly speculative fiction.
I've been known to write a piece or two in that vein myself. :P
(PS: Elizabeth Bear had a story on Tor.com in which the speculative element was pretty slight, and took a long time to show up at all. Then again, it was also a very important element, and she's also Elizabeth Bear.)
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If I turned mine into a full novel (with my short story being the prologue), it would be very spec.
And yes, Erik, horror is considered spec. fic. Urban Fantasy is nothing more than a version of horror. Horror often has magical elements, demons, vampires, weres, phantasms, myths, etc. Hack'n'slash horror isnt really horror, imo. It's just shock-value with no real intelligence behind it. It is just a really bloody thriller, nothing important.
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I read BG's short and it was pretty full of awesome. I think he needs therapy though.
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I could totally make some crack along the lines of, "well yeah, that's why we write". Just, uhh, nobody tell my (fictional) agent I said that.
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Yeah, ever since some people at work read my story, they look at me a little funny. Luckily the girl in HR who read it really liked it, so I guess I won't get fired yet.
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Or maybe, given the evidence, she just thought it was the most prudent thing to say. :P
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Well, I'm doing a final revision of my short in anticipation of the September 30th deadline.
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Did you ever hear anything back on yours Bookstore Guy?
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Nothing yet. They just announced the first set of Q3 Honorable Mentions. Neither WriterDan nor myself were honorable mentioned in the first list. So, we can still cross our fingers. Those of you that have read my story know that the Spec element is really light until the end. Hopefully it was present enough for them not to reject it due to the unspoken "Spec element on 1st two pages" rule. WriterDan and I discussed this. I decided I was screwed.
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Gah... so does that mean I might have to wait like three more months before I find out what if anything is going on with my piece?
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Yeah. They seem to announce the results of the prior quarter at the very end of the current quarter.
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Cynic: Unfortunately, that's something that I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to in this industry.
Steve, WriterDan, good luck. :)
Unfortunately, I'm just going to have to submit next quarter...
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I'm trying to get something done for WotF as well. And I'm gonna do it this quarter! I've been telling myself that for about a year now, but always chicken out. But I swear, this quarter will be the one!
Good luck to you guys as well!
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Results coming soon. Apparently.
And yes, I wish I was being sneaky and subtle, but I still haven't heard anything about my Q03 entry.
First read-through is done though, and the coordinating judge is doing a second run to pick out the finalists and semi-finalists. More HM's should be coming soon as well. Luck to everyone that has a story in.
Also sent off my Q04 story in the nick of time. Was pretty happy with that one too. Ended up being a lot darker than I had originally envisioned though.
Think I'm going to do a re-write of an old submission for this next quarter (2010 Q01). Hoping for some more goodness from the deep, dark hole I call my imagination.
If anyone wants to throw a story-swap together, I'm game. The next deadline for the other group I'm in is Oct 14th. We're trying to get all our stories off by the end of November to beat the end-of-quarter rush.
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Where'd you get all the updates? I've got my idea for what I'll be submitting next quarter, but I have not put pen to paper on it yet other than a few notes.
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WotF newsgroup:
http://webnews.sff.net/read?cmd=xover&group=sff.writing.writersofthefuture
Kathy Wentworth (First Coordinating Judge) posts there as everything happens.
Ah, and she's already figured out the finalists and semi-finalists for Q03 and notified Joni. So now, it's naught but a waiting game for the finalists to be called and the rest of the results to be posted.
But at least now we know that the time line is short. :D
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Hey Dan, you got HM. Grats!
As for my own story, I apparently didn't have enough spec. at the beginning, and it wasn't fantasy/SF enough. Oh wells. I'm actually not disappointed at all, because now I can send it to an actual horror magazine.
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Yup. One more HM on the stack.
So, I've decided to try something interesting with my next story. An experiment, shall we say. Essentially all of the stories that I've read out of the recent WotF anthologies (the last eight) were written more like novels. Meaning, they included a lot of stuff that wasn't necessarily pertinent to the story, but that fleshed out the world and helped it to feel a bit more full. So, instead of trying to keep things succinct and bare bones, I'm going to hit this next story as if it was a novel. Strip down the plot so that it's just a simple snapshot and really make things fluffy. Granted, not so much that it makes the story boring; just enough so that it feels more like you're reading a snippet of a novel instead of a fully-contained short story. For some reason, those seem to be the kinds of stories that win.
And as long as we're on the topic...
Has anyone else read the most recent anthology? The 25th? Anyhow, there was one story that really had me questioning the judges. There were 36 pages to it, there were no obvious speculative elements in it until like page 32, and it was nearly a plot-perfect copy of Stephen King's Needful Things. I mean, down to the fact that the main character was an officer of the law. I've read multiple times that the most important thing in this contest is to have unique ideas in our entries. So, does this mean that the judges don't read King? Or what other options are there? This just boggles my mind and makes me more frustrated than I care to admit. Just get over it, Dan. The world is pretty dumb sometimes.
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Congratulations on the HM, Dan! Steve, good luck placing yours, though I've no doubt you'll manage that eventually. :)
Hm. Not sure I'll be able to make any writing happen by October 14th... I'll see if I can get in on it, though...
re: the most recent anthology: I haven't read it, but ugh, that's frustrating.
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WriterDan: trying to guess what WotF is looking for is rather self-defeating I've decided. After looking at my own stack of honorable mentions, I decided to look over a lot of them and start sending them out to other venues. I figure if it the story got honorable mention, it was a good story, it just didn't make through the group of stories submitted that quarter. It's a contest, which is actually a little more competitive than most short-story venues. (I'm also working on my next WotF entry currently.)
I've also read some of the stories getting published from WotF and I'm starting to question what they are thinking too. But there is no accounting for taste. What's brilliant and original to one person is bland and boring to someone else. It that weren't the case then getting published and writing best sellers would be a lot easier than it is.
So keep writing and keep submitting. And congratulations on getting honorable mention.
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Hmm... so the results for this last quarter of Writers of the Future should be appearing any day now, right?
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Hmm... so the results for this last quarter of Writers of the Future should be appearing any day now, right?
I don't think so. I'm thinking late January at the very worst, simply because it being 4th quarter, a lot more submissions will come in at the last minute, slowing everything down.
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Oh happy day. I checked December 2008 and they were pumping out results by early December. I wonder what's taking them so long this year?
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Unfortunately for us, it seems competition is the likely answer.
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Well, they started doing Honorable Mentions. Have you heard anything yet, Cynic?
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The fact that they're coming so late doesn't surprise me at all. After their 25th anniversary Gala, and the holidays, things were bound to be this way.
My name's not in this first bunch of HMs. Haven't heard anything yet either.
Got my entry in for next quarter by the skin of my nose.
Started my next entry over the Christmas break, but first I have to bang out an unrelated one-scener that jumped into my head over the break as well. Both should be good. Going for a humorous entry this quarter, and I'm hesitant but excited about it. Have read that it's easy to make people cry with your story, but hard to make them laugh. Believe that was Vonnegut I read it from. Going to give it a good try anyhow.
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My story got rejected :(. No honorable mention, runner up, nothing. Got the email yesterday.
Ah well. I need to get back to writing. I've been on "vacation" for awhile. I'm puttering around, looking for a new project. We'll see what pops up.
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My story got rejected :(. No honorable mention, runner up, nothing. Got the email yesterday.
Ah well. I need to get back to writing. I've been on "vacation" for awhile. I'm puttering around, looking for a new project. We'll see what pops up.
Boo. That sucks. But hey, the next thing will be better!
The fact that they're coming so late doesn't surprise me at all. After their 25th anniversary Gala, and the holidays, things were bound to be this way.
My name's not in this first bunch of HMs. Haven't heard anything yet either.
Got my entry in for next quarter by the skin of my nose.
Started my next entry over the Christmas break, but first I have to bang out an unrelated one-scener that jumped into my head over the break as well. Both should be good. Going for a humorous entry this quarter, and I'm hesitant but excited about it. Have read that it's easy to make people cry with your story, but hard to make them laugh. Believe that was Vonnegut I read it from. Going to give it a good try anyhow.
Well, that doesn't surprise me either. I'm just glad the results are coming.
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My story got rejected :(. No honorable mention, runner up, nothing. Got the email yesterday.
So, question. Would you be open to letting me have a read-through of this story? I'm curious. :)
Ah well. I need to get back to writing. I've been on "vacation" for awhile. I'm puttering around, looking for a new project. We'll see what pops up.
Definitely keep going. Write as much as you can. I've found that the more I write, the more my brain works to produce material that I can write about. Just keep at it.
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Sure WriterDan, I'll send it to you. Should be in the inbox for the email address you have listed on your profile.
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So. I sent off a story to Weird Tales (edited by Ann VanderMeer), and she sent be back an email passing on the story. However. She did really like the story and the writing--it just didn't fit with what they were putting in their releases. She asked me to write and send her another story that had other certain qualities in it. There are no guarantees (obviously), but when someone like Ann VanderMeer says, "send me something asap" you get cracking...and you feel good about yourself and your writing.
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Congratulations and good luck.
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Hey, that's the best kind of rejection letter. Write!
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Whoa. :o
Congrats, Steve!
My curiosity lead me over to their website. Don't know if I've ever come across them before, although the name VanderMeer certainly rings a few bells.
I wrote this short story a while ago and never knew where I could send it. It's just a bit...odd. :) Sounds like this place would be a good fit for it though. I might just have to polish it up and send it off.
And as this is the WotF thread, a query: On Ralan, this mag is listed as semi-pro--so a sale here wouldn't count as "one of the three", correct?
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Yeah, Weird Tales only pays 3–4¢ per word, so it doesn't meet SFWA's 5¢ threshold for a qualifying market.
http://www.sfwa.org/join-us/sfwa-membership-requirements/#shortfiction
However, last year Weird Tales won the Best Semiprozine Hugo, making it by that yardstick the most respected semiprozine out there. (And the perennial winner, Locus, doesn't print fiction at all, so Weird Tales is one of only two fiction magazines to win the award since 1984.)
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The WotF rules lay out their own qualifications for "professional". It's 5000 copies and/or views and payment. I'm unclear on whether that payment has to meet SFWA's "pro" threshold or not.
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HM list on Yahoo is longer than the one posted on the WotF blog.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Honorable-Mentions-Announced-prnews-447533415.html?x=0&.v=1
I'm near the bottom. Another HM. 8)
Anyone else see their name? Apparently, all the choosing is done. So, be looking for names very soon.
Theoretically.
I gotta get busy on my Q02 2010 entry...
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Good job, Dan!
My name wasn't on that list, and I've still yet to hear anything from Joni. Interesting.
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All right, so the blog says semifinalists and finalists come out tomorrow. This means they are all decided and everything. For me, in particular, I haven't heard anything from WotF at all. I think... I think this is an extremely good sign for me, right? Someone smack me upside the head and tell me I'm being silly.
I can hardly wait for tomorrow.
EDIT: Okay, results are up, and I'm not surprised in the slightest that I'm not there. It's just interesting however that I didn't specifically get a rejection email. Oh well! I can't let myself be cocky :P
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First off, could we get a sticky on this topic? It's one that will get used frequently I think.
Second, I've been doing some anthology reading for WotF, and while I've only read a handful of stories, I haven't found a single one that has any kind of violent content. I've read the synopsis for a lot of the other stories too, and none of them sounds particularly violent. This troubles me.
Is WotF pacifist in nature? I submitted my last story which happened to be about a futuristic SWAT team. It wasn't gory, but it was violent. People got shot and/or blown up. So my question to all the other WotF writer/readers is this: have you ever seen a winning entry/published finalist that had a militaristic feel and/or violence? I guess what I'm asking is whether I got screwed before I ever got out the gate. I had a lot of people say that my story was good enough to win, but I'm not sure if the content nuked it before it ever really got considered. If you do know of a winning story of a more violent nature, could you tell me the title and volume number so I can give it a read over?