Does my story have to be complete at 17,000 words?

It absolutely must be complete.

I’ve used this example before. Let me strip it down to the basics.

1. Rejected: We get together, we learn stuff, we meet the enemy, we set off on an adventure.

2. Accepted: We get together, we learn stuff, we meet the enemy, we set off on an adventure, we get our asses kicked, we figure out what we really had to learn, we go back, we kick their asses, lessons learned.

3. Also accepted: We get together, we learn stuff, we meet the enemy, we set off on an adventure, we get our asses kicked, we figure out what we really had to learn, we go back, we kick their asses, lessons learned. But we know we’ll face new challenges in the future.

4. Rejected: We get together, we learn stuff, we meet the enemy, we set off on an adventure, we get our asses kicked, we figure out what we really had to learn, we go back, we kick their asses, lessons learned. But we know we’ll face new challenges in the future. So we set out on a new quest to find the secret to our enemy’s power. Along the way, we face more dangerous foes.

4 isn’t a finished story. 3 is a finished story with more story promised. You have to reach an ending, not a cliffhanger. And I realize that’s a blurry line, but it’s important.

Without identifying anyone (because I can’t: the stories are anonymous, and I don’t remember details now), last quarter there was a really good 4 that ran to like 16,900 words and just halted. If the author had stopped with a 3 (I think it was around 13,000 words), I would’ve passed it up to Jody without hesitation. I’m pretty sure I gave it RWC. Didn’t stick the ending.

No, I’m not allowed to ignore the last 4,000 words.

No, I’m not allowed to tell you specifically this, or give you a specific reason for RWC. We’ll never finish our thousands of entries per quarter if we stop to give personal feedback. RWC is more feedback than we ever gave before, and it slows us down.

But I can mention this as a teaching example. And if it sounds like your story… Good luck!

Posted by: @zreich88

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left with a cliffhanger pushing the reader to want more

I'll answer your question with a question: where would they get more? There isn't a Writers of the Future Volume 42 Part 2.

If you have a story to tell, tell all of it. If it doesn't fit in 17,000 words, then consider selling/self-pubbing it as a novella/novel.

That's a great question.

Back when I was going to bookstores and picking random anthologies off the shelves, learning what I liked, I found the "Year's best" stories often had these ambiguous or even cliff-hangery endings. They frustrated me. But they were the year's best, so the problem must have been me, not them, right?

Then I found WotF and those frustrating-to-me types of stories were rare if not missing all together. These stories were satisfying. And the best part - for me - was that I could write for them. Like, whatever I wanted speculatively and send it in and try to get the types of stories I like to read in the anthology. (Mind blown, BTW).

So while a 17k or shorter or longer with a cliff-hangery ending, or a question, is perfectly fine, and it might even end up in the year's best, WotF prefers stories that come to a close. Stories that satisfy. The ending aren't always HEA (Happily ever after), but they conclude.