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Writers of the Future Contest – 3rd Quarter 2017 Winners

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The judging results are in! And here are the 3rd Quarter 2017 Writers of the Future Contest winners.
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Roberta and Jerry Pournelle

Jerry Pournelle Leaves a Legacy of Helping New Writers (1933-2017)

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L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest Pays Tribute to Jerry Pournelle (1933 - 2017). Jerry leaves a legacy of helping new writers.
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Now, back to the story.

Back to the Story

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What defines "good" writing when it comes to a story? That's a question I have to ask time and again as I'm judging contest entries.
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Emily Goodwin, Pat Henry and John Goodwin

Dragon Con 2017 – Day 4

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And here's the final wrap up from Dragon Con 2017.
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Illustrators of the Future panel with Ciruelo, Echo Chernik, Stephan Martiniere and Larry Elmore

Dragon Con 2017 – Day 3

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We are now over the halfway mark for the Atlanta Dragon Con and things are still going at high speed.
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Battlefield Earth characters in the Dragon Con 2017 parade

Dragon Con 2017 – Day 2

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Another great day at the Atlanta Dragon Con! It all started with the Dragon Con Parade and our entry featuring Battlefield Earth.
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Galaxy booth at Dragon Con 2017

Dragon Con 2017 – Day 1

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Today was the first day of Dragon Con in Atlanta, GA and it was…
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Orson Scott Card

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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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
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Larry Elmore & Rob Prior onstage painting a dragon at the Writers of the Future Vol 33 awards ceremony

Can You Draw a Dragon? How Illustrators of the Future Inspires Students

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I am teaching in a home school environment and have students who are artists at heart.  Each week I teach an art class that focuses on specific skills as well as ideas that inspire. 
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Magic keyboard

“Boosting” Your Prose

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I earlier mentioned that when I used to write for competitions, I would make lists of ways that judges might look at my work in order to grade it. For example, some judges might look for an ending that brought them to tears, while another might be more interested in an intellectual feast. A couple of you asked what my list might look like. So here is a list of things that I might consider in creating a piece.
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Orson Scott Card

Are We at the End of Science Fiction?

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In 2006, Writers of the Future judge Orson Scott Card addressed a very simple if not vital question which was published in Writers of the Future Volume 22. These aren’t the best of times for science fiction.
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Orson Scott Card

Multidimensionality: The Value of Subplots

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Very often when reading slush for the Writers of the Future contest, I come upon stories that at first glance seem to be perfectly acceptable. They presented a protagonist who had a problem to overcome. The setting was reasonably well defined. The story proceeded at a good pace, with the problem escalating nicely. Often there was a surprise twist at the ending, and the conclusion seemed appropriate. Yet when I got done reading the story, it just lacked ... something.
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