Girl at typewriter

Avoiding Cliché Openings

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Many years ago, Damon Knight, a fine writer and editor, wrote a book on how to write short fiction. Damon talked a bit about avoiding clichés.
Will Eisner

The Illustrators of the Future by Will Eisner

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While my own career has been spent in the practice of sequential art, a form that arranges images and text in an intelligent sequence to tell a story, I have nonetheless always been professionally involved in the fundamentals of illustration. I, therefore, feel I have accumulated enough experience with which to endow my advice with some credibility.
Jake Marley being interviewed at LA Festival of Book

Persevere

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It's been nearly a year since I found out I was a finalist for L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future contest, and very nearly five months since I was announced as the 2017 Golden Pen Award winner. To say my life has changed feels like an understatement.
Ken Liu, photo by Lisa Tang Liu

Ken Liu on Writing a Star Wars Book

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So, the news is out: I’m writing a Star Wars book as part of the Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi project. Working with the team at Lucasfilm Publishing has been such a pleasure — they’re the best.
Frank Kelly Freas and Ray Bradbury at the inauguration of Illustrators of the Future

Pictures That Tell Stories

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This article was originally published in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XI. Mankind has used pictures to tell stories from the beginning of time. Recently, ancient cave paintings were discovered in France, and while cave paintings aren’t new discoveries, these are unlike anything seen before.
Anker Grossvater painting

The Problem of the “Told” Story

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I have talked about some of the most frequent problems that I see when judging for the Writers of the Future Contest, and today I’m going to tackle one of the biggest: the problem with “told” stories.
Lazarus with artist Mike Michera

How to create an award-winning illustration

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How does one actually create an award-winning illustration? Illustrators of the Future judges include some of the most famous illustrators of the 20 and 21st centuries—and are not easy to impress.
Agent man

Your First Five Pages

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A writer pointed out today that when you send a novel to an agent or publisher, they normally ask for the first five or ten pages, just so that they can gauge your writing skill. If those pages don’t grab the reader, it won’t sell. So, he wondered, what do I look for in those first five pages?
Jeremy TeG

Meet the Winners – Jeremy TeGrotenhuis – 1st Q 2017

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A couple of years ago I decided to stop blogging in order to focus on improving my fiction, and, well, I just won Writers of the Future, so that seems to have worked.
Frank Kelly Freas and Ray Bradbury at the inauguration of Illustrators of the Future

SF Illustration as Art by Frank Kelly Freas

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Frank Kelly Freas was the first coordinating judge of the Illustrators of the Future Contest. Already a well established commercial artist and having known L. Ron Hubbard and having observed first hand Ron lending a helping hand to aspiring writers