Discussion: Q1 Volume 39

Posted by: @bethpowers

I tried something new with this one by significantly revising a SHM, and as it turns out, it is still a SHM! I'm not sure what to make of this yet, but I have my next few quarters planned out with other stories, so I'll be sending this one somewhere else in the meantime!

Hi Beth!

Is this the one I think it is? This quarter's subs were long ago... I believe I re-read the opening and found it still quite good, so I can see the Silver coming up again. And that two judges felt that way is saying something.

Posted by: @prestondennett

My pleasure, Doc Honour. I love looking at the entrants' contest history in their signature lines. BTW, I think I hold the record for most entries before winning. I kept hitting HMs, but couldn't get past it. But on my 46th entry, I finally made finalist. And it won! The trick is definitely persistence. If you're making HM or higher, you are in the consideration pile. Keep at it. You'll either win or pro-out. Either is awesome. 

Thanks, Preston. This quarter was my third successive HM in three entries. Not only from WotF, but also from other sources, I know that I'm doing things right. I'd hoped this one would make it higher, but I'm still encouraged.

I'm hoping NOT to break your record.  

Posted by: @cube

It just appears to be unsuitable for this contest.

It's hard sci-fi which means that even with uber-tech, the social problems don't magically go away. Most humans just choose to behave like trash even when presented with an alternative, people with power are still machiavellan by neccessity.

Hi, Jess. Glad to have you here. Your description of your universe doesn't sound inappropriate for WotF at all. It's not that dissimilar to my 900-years-future universe, in which humanity keeps destroying its worlds because the biggest issues are those of people. (See the blogs on my website link below.)

High-tech alone doesn't make for good SF, because ANY story needs the human element to be interesting. To get past those R's, I'd suggest you sign up for and take the WotF online workshop. It helped me a lot to take my ideas and turn them into better stories.

If anyone with a RWC wants to send their story my way, I’d be happy to work with you to see if we can’t figure out which comment might have been meant - what was working and what wasn’t.

Super happy! The score for me is 2R and 3SHM. Congratulations to my awesome writer friends and colleagues on their levelings and wins! Over the moon!

I read through other Comments this morning. Here's my experience from last year. I had a SHM and I decided I wanted Dave's direct feedback, even though it would forever DQ that story for resub. He reviewed and edited it for me. He said the writing was good, no errors or elements missing. He enjoyed it BUT that for him as judge, he would not select it as a finalist/winner for WotF because it was "unrelentingly grim." If I rewrote it, it would just be a different story. When I sent in my next story, I did my level best to have a redeeming climax. When I read the anthology, I have to imagine how my story feels and fits with all the rest. If I read story A, B, C, and D and then read mine and it feels like it should be in a horror or dystopian anthology, it's highly unlikely to fit well in this one. I hope this explanation of my personal experience is useful to someone. The takeaway: imagine where your story will go in the book.

EDIT: There are dark stories in the anthology for sure and they are SUPERB. They hit exactly the right note with other elements as well. It can be useful to examine those for the symphony of elements that propel them to the win.

Again congratulations to all!!!

@rschibler If I get RWC I will let you know. Waiting for email to see.

Posted by: @cs_hadebe

Thank you @spencer_s and @scott_m_sands ?? It feels so surreal to have gotten so far in such prestigious writing contest.  ? I feel truly honored. I didn't even get the time to celebrate yesterday because I had an avalanche of writing and editing to get done, so I only did a little booty shake and got back to work. But this means a lot. Already thinking about Q3! Let's keep writing, good people! ?

That’s the beautiful thing about this Contest—even if you don’t win in a quarter, you can get strong signs that you are on the right path. When we’re just starting out, those signals can be hard to come by, and some quit, never knowing how close they were. Regularly submitting to Writers of the Future can help you see where your skills are at, give you indicators of your progress, and help you stay the course. Congratulations!

@babooher 

(The Before-Time: Beginning 6/29/2013) HM, R, HM, R, HM, HM, HM, R, R, HM, R, R, R,

V34 - HM, R, R, HM,

V35 - R, R, HM, R,

V36 - R, HM, SHM, HM,

V37 - R, R, HM, F,

V38 - SHM, R, SHM, HM,

V39 - SHM, Pending

I've never posted my trajectory on the forum because I've never believed that the data had value. Your point that a long-term trajectory may be valuable to newer contestants is valid, so I've provided it.

I would stress that no trajectory is better than writing one thousand words of good copy every day. Three thousand words of good copy every day puts you into the realm of the pros. Learn to write with crispy adjectives. Figure out where a story begins and open it there, giving the reader a solid grounding in milieu, character, goal, and conflict. Write with sensory input in order to immerse the reader in each scene. Get real feedback from trusted writers.

Learn about writing like your life depends on selling your next story!

Have fun,

Kent

p.s. Eat more fiber.

Posted by: @kent

I would stress that no trajectory is better than writing one thousand words of good copy every day. Three thousand words of good copy every day puts you into the realm of the pros.

@kent this is an interesting take on writing. I just don't understand what you mean. Would you mind expanding on the concept for me? I'd really like to know what you mean in the truest sense. ?

@prestondennett Thank you, Preston, I appreciate it!

Even though my story didn't place I still feel good seeing the success of all the writers that frequent this forum. Huzzah!  

Posted by: @cs_hadebe

Posted by: @kent

I would stress that no trajectory is better than writing one thousand words of good copy every day. Three thousand words of good copy every day puts you into the realm of the pros.

@kent this is an interesting take on writing. I just don't understand what you mean. Would you mind expanding on the concept for me? I'd really like to know what you mean in the truest sense. ?

Prateworthy stuff, C.S. Hadebe,

Good copy (A.K.A. "clean copy") is basically error free writing. No misspellings or typos; no incorrect homophones (though correctly spelled) in place of the proper word. Correct sentence structure, no matter how complex the sentence. Correct paragraph structure describing a single idea per paragraph. If the writing has a chronological order, that order should be clear and correct: even in stories that jump forward and backward in time, the chronology should be clear, or eventually made clear to the reader.

Writing one to several thousand words a day may sound daunting, but it can be easier than you think. I type forty words per minute, so I can write one thousand words in twenty-five minutes and three thousand words in an hour and fifteen minutes (Doesn't happen, but I try). Consider it practice. When I practice golf, I go to the range and start with stretching, and then work on specific areas of my game. The same general idea is true of writing; warm up and then exercises. I warm up with character studies, story history, and descriptions of planetary flora and fauna, ship's drives, types and construction (Milieu work and world building). These exercises allow me to write clean copy while familiarizing myself with both the grander tapestry surrounding a story and specific little details that the characters might notice.

Specific exercises involve tone and mood. Fight scenes require words and sentence structures that are entirely different than romance scenes. What is the feeling of a formal meeting from the point of view of the speaker, a mother in the audience with two bickering children, a recent graduate who has a hot date later, a colleague who thinks the speaker is full of crap but is required to be there, a bomber with his finger on the button? I like to think of everyone who might attend that postulated meeting and write about what they are feeling, their angst, their anticipation, their joy and their determination. I will come up with random characters and their reasons for being there and then go into detail about the most interesting ones.

While writing a story, the above exercises make it easier for me to determine the POV character for a story, to know how secondary characters will think and react to the action in a story, to understand how the world I'm creating works and how the characters negotiate it, and to write it all with a minimum of post-writing correction.

In the final analysis, writing a lot of clean copy every day makes a writer fast. Fast means money. Slow, even if a writer is good, means less money. When one's writing finally sells, publishers will want a lot of it - NOW! Writing clean copy fast is preparation for success.

And, oh yeah, have fun.

That's good stuff there, Prate Gabble. My recent sub was a DNP. I wrote a 9,000+ story and mined for gold to form a story I deemed acceptable for WotF. In the end I would have been better served to write clean copy instead. The nuggets I found were fool's gold when all was said and done. The final cut was under 4,000, an interesting experiment that failed.

@kent Well, I've just done 2800 words while my son watched the FA cup final and the only squiggly lines were the words Word doesn't know I just made up.  

I finished the story too, in three sittings. I love it when that happens. I'm buzzing.

Have the emails gone out? I haven't received one.

@kent wow, thank you for that. I actually write 2000 - 2300 words daily, then I take Sundays off. It's good to know I've been doing something right all these years!

I'd love to write that much every day, but with multiple chronic health conditions, let's just say there are good days and bad days. Still, I don't mess around. I do the work. 

@chezecaek sorry the emails are still in programing land... We are adding two new categories to help give better direction, which is taking a little longer than expected.

You will all still hear from Joni soon, but my guess would be early in the new week...

Here is a link with more information about these new categories: https://writersofthefuture.com/forum/the-contest-quarterly-topics-and-other-items/new-results-categories-introducing-dq-and-rejected-with-coments/#post-45339

@jason Thanks for the update.

Posted by: @rschibler

If anyone with a RWC wants to send their story my way, I’d be happy to work with you to see if we can’t figure out which comment might have been meant - what was working and what wasn’t.

That would be awesome. Still waiting on that email to let me know if I got an DQ/R/or RWC... I'm guessing it must be quite a big issue with sending them out... computer issues/bugs are most frustrating so I can commiserate. 

Hmm.

Am I the very first to attain the accolade of taking a story that got an SHM (38Q3), making it that little bit better (cleaning up a continuity error) and turning it into a 'did not place' ??

How does that even happen?

any speculative thoughts, my dearest fellow forumites?

Then again, I haven't even received a notification of the dreaded 'R' yet (Am not listed in the list of winners blog). So my typical paranoia is telling me it wasn't even registered, for some bizarre reason (and i do have an email receipt for 'thankyou for your submission for 39Q1' etc.)

We have absolutely entered the zone of the marmite-flavoured sticks from my youth...

@jonilabaqui That's a v cool avatar pic thingy. You should endeavour to stride through the streets of LA looking like that all the time.

You'll be engaged to G Clooney or somesuch before you know it.

Isn't that what everybody wants?

@physa Me neither, about on any list. Am thinking maybe they have an issue with the new tech thing? My entry was a slightly reworked SHM, so it makes no sense that it would get an R or similar. Am going to have to check whether they even received it...

@chuckt damn, so i'm not the first then. pish. i had a SHM, reworked it, now no mention for Q1. They have been changing the tech stuff though, so maybe we are the casualties?

I think i'm going to format it into an ebook and offer it for free, just because i can. And just out of bedevilment, you know...

@chezecaek you are absolutely not alone with those thoughts, believe me. I turned an SHM (38Q3) into an even better story (sorted out a silly continuity error) and have not even placed it for 39Q1 (having said that, no notification of even a R or anything yet).

Last year, with such rejections, i got so 'grrr' that i decided to self-publish some of those 'rejections' along with some other stuff (see my signature) because the truth is, i KNOW how good my stuff is. I don't need others to tell me. Truth is I'm confounded I only got SHMs for those two stories - only found out later when perusing the forum that the final (ist) selection is seemingly based more on 'putting together an anthology' than 'what are genuinely the best stories in any genre' etc. (by the time of Q3 the theme has already been decided, so my epic and beautiful 17k word masterpieces are never going to get more than an SHM - I only recently realised that).

In other words, in order to win this competition one needs to write something that fits in with the specific subgenre. Which is why having a look at the workshop stuff makes a difference, I guess. it's the same with submitting to all these different sci-fi journals. As a committed socialist, I guess that's why each time I get a rejection for something I know is brilliant I simply put it into my list of stories for a future self-published collection, and wish that everyone else like me would do the same, eschewing the mainstream and taking the punk ethic and banding together in solidarity and I don't know, creating a new publishing company or something! Partly my point is that if you are a truly great writer then you don't need other people to tell you how good you are, you know it yourself. But in this capitalist era, the only way you'll ever make a living out of it is by convincing other people how good you are. Hence the idea of 'PR'.

unfortunately, most beautiful creative types are - almost by definition - rubbish at marketing. Self included!

Hope these thoughts help xx

@cube I am ABSOLUTELY in the same universe as you. I could rant on for ages but I don't think it's necessary, because you already know. But what upsets me the most is how other people - that's to say most people - are so dumb, or dumbed down, even - that they can't even recognise brilliance and truth when they see it (conversely, propaganda) - they would prefer to indulge in trivialities. they let that win, not depth. Put a human being in some futuristic setting, give them a problem and 'oh' what do you know! they're not emotionally mature enough to solve it, ooh that's a drama! if they were emotionally mature they wouldn't have even been in that situation in the first place...

i hold out little hope for the human species... speaking as an outsider, that is...

@ehonour when you talk about the 'human' element - are you talking about humans-as-they-are-now? have you factored in the psychosocial evolutionary influence into your +900 years humans?

Here's a suggestion - take an ice age human and transport them into your world. trust me, they would be horrified. in ancient times, humans looked after each other in their dunbar's number social groups and they ostracised narcissistic psychopaths before they ever got into any positions of power. the problem with the modern world is that normal humans, being trusting, lovely souls, simply can't understand that psychopaths could get into power, and so they believe their lies and propaganda and keep incessantly voting for them - if you vote republican or democrat, for example, then you are voting for a narcissistic, psychopathic corporate-sponsored, imperialist warmongering puppet.

if this doesn't change in the next 900 years then i'm sorry, but the ETIs out there are going to continue to quarantine humans, and prevent them from leaving this system and threatening other lifeforms.

That's what my own writing is about, by the way - that's why it's so important. i don't, however, hold out much hope that current humans-as-they-are-now will listen, let alone understand or act on it...

and so the quarantine will continue...

In his letter on the Voyager probe President Carter wrote 'we hope to one day join a community of galactic civilisations' - whilst at the same time he signed executive orders to the CIA to go and kill other human beings who had the temerity to choose a different social system for themselves. Would you let someone like that join a galactic community? or would you intervene?

I would say there's a story for you - but i already wrote it...

@eviekb Just as I see you are a very enthusiastic person and wanted to give you some info on the Q1 Volume 39.

The emails are still in programing land... We are adding two new categories to help give better direction, which is taking a little longer than expected.

You will all still hear from Joni soon, but my guess would be early in the new week...

Here is a link with more information about these new categories: https://writersofthefuture.com/forum/the-contest-quarterly-topics-and-other-items/new-results-categories-introducing-dq-and-rejected-with-coments/#post-45339

I did confirm it was in the system still... Your story was marked as a RWC. With the above link I am thinking this might give you some insight into how your story was reviewed in Q1.

I also see you have Q2 in as well so you congratulations on that one too.

Best, Jason

@eviekb Awe...thanks, but George Clooney is married and so am I! I do look like every day  

Posted by: @eviekb

@cube I am ABSOLUTELY in the same universe as you. I could rant on for ages but I don't think it's necessary, because you already know. But what upsets me the most is how other people - that's to say most people - are so dumb, or dumbed down, even - that they can't even recognise brilliance and truth when they see it (conversely, propaganda) - they would prefer to indulge in trivialities. they let that win, not depth. Put a human being in some futuristic setting, give them a problem and 'oh' what do you know! they're not emotionally mature enough to solve it, ooh that's a drama! if they were emotionally mature they wouldn't have even been in that situation in the first place...

 

i hold out little hope for the human species... speaking as an outsider, that is...

Well I'm not that desperate yet, but generally what I see in the mainstream successful stories is that they just revolve around one single strong plot device / idea, and everything else (good character arcs / dialogue / consitency / plausibility) is entirely secondary and of poor quality, but no-one seems to care, as they're just obsessed over the main plot device.

Maze Runner:
There is this huge-ass maze with mechanical stuff! The reason why it is there doesn't matter and turns out to be utter stupid nonsense later, but who cares, there this huge-ass maze and it's cool!!! Think about what you'd do if you were stuck in this huge-ass maze!!!

Hunger Games:
There is this battle royale thing to entertain the rich and oppress the poor! Ooohhh!!! That the rest of the story is pretty run of the mill and often downright contrived and silly, who cares, after all we got this battle royale thing!

The 100:
We gotta send 100 kids to a post-apocalyptic Earth and just throw random nonsense post-apocalyptic challenges at them, one season at a time!!!!

People are way too easily caught up by a concept and internalize it and let their imagination run wild with it, even when the promise is then not really delivered. people don't care as they'll readily discard it and occupy themselves chasing the next dream.

I think this is what my stories lack: This bite-sized dumbed-down hook that is delivered in the first chapter and makes people's imagination run with the idea, even if it is nonsense, contrived or not even delivered on. Since the average person's mindspace is quite small, they'll be too busy thinking about your hook that they won't notice the plotholes, terrible dialogue and other flaws.

Meanwhile the themes in my stories are philosophical, often take a while to explain, and often carry unpopular messages that bare some flaw or another in humanity, present drastic solutions no-one would really want to hear, or are just plain politically incorrect. Often there is not a single main plot hook but many smaller themes. People don't want that, especially not when the smaller themes are critical of humans in general and fly in the face of socially accepted norms.