Wulf Moon's SUPER SECRETS Workshop & Challenge!

BEHOLD! Moon's SUPER SECRET #12: MAGIC UP FRONT!

Okay, the correct way to say that would be: Speculative element obvious in the first two pages. BORING. But MAGIC UP FRONT sounds so much cooler!

Can I get a ruling on my story for Q1? The title includes the speculative element, but it doesn't appear in the story until page 4.

My semi-finalist didn't have the speculative element show up until page four, and in Dave's critique he said that was one of the things that kept it from going finalist. If you can find a way to work your speculative element in earlier, I recommend it.

BEHOLD! Moon's SUPER SECRET #12: MAGIC UP FRONT!

Okay, the correct way to say that would be: Speculative element obvious in the first two pages. BORING. But MAGIC UP FRONT sounds so much cooler!

Can I get a ruling on my story for Q1? The title includes the speculative element, but it doesn't appear in the story until page 4.

My semi-finalist didn't have the speculative element show up until page four, and in Dave's critique he said that was one of the things that kept it from going finalist. If you can find a way to work your speculative element in earlier, I recommend it.

And there's your proof. Thanks, Liz!

Thanks for this! This last point has just prompted a complete rewrite of my opening, but so far I like the new version a lot. I lose a lot of nice details from the original, but those don't necessarily add to the story anyway.

And there's your proof. Thanks, Liz!

Jus' doin' me duty, cap'n. *salutes*

Thanks for this! This last point has just prompted a complete rewrite of my opening, but so far I like the new version a lot. I lose a lot of nice details from the original, but those don't necessarily add to the story anyway.

Glad to hear it. I had to rewrite my opening last month when someone pointed this out to me. I practically facepalmed because, even though I know getting the speculative element in early is important, it's really easy for me to miss this one in early drafts (especially with urban fantasy, which my semi-finalist was).

Moon’s SUPER SECRET #13: DON’T OVEREDIT!

This one is going to be controversial. I have friends that have won WotF by rewriting and rewriting and rewriting the same story and taking it from rejection, to honors, to a contest win. Congrats and good for them, I’m proud of them. But this is *Moon’s* super secrets. I’m telling you how I won. And maybe, just maybe, there’s some wisdom in my method.

When we’re really in touch with our subconscious, our writing flies. It’s filled with energy and excitement and even otherworldly brilliance. How this beautiful baby came about, we don’t quite know. We were there. We know the act that brought about its genesis. But it’s still a miracle. Think about it. We strung together some symbols trying to convey what was inside of us, and those symbols, executed properly, are going to ignite thoughts and feelings and visions in another human being. We can transport a reader from their world into another world. Our world. And if we’re really good, we might make them laugh, or cry, or hope, or dream, or maybe even help them look on their own life or the world around them in a whole new way. Some readers have even said a story saved their life in their darkest hour. Your transcribed code, touching people like that? That’s real magic.

But our story never gets that chance…because we think we can make it *better.* And so we move our front to the back, the back to the front, we play with each sentence, we pull up our thesaurus to hunt for bigger words, better words, than the words our subconscious just gifted us with. We think we’ve improved our story, when in fact, we’ve just diminished it.

I teach watercolor. I used to have my own public studio. Today, I teach now and then, when people ask. I’ve watched artists make beautiful paintings—myself included—and then think if they just touch this up or that up, add a few more strokes here, a new color there, the painting will be perfect. And then they scrutinize it so much they see more things to fix, and more and more, and suddenly, they went one stroke too far, and the painting is ruined. They may not even know it. But it is.

I teach my students to use the creative energy that got them excited about creating the painting to have fun. I always tell them just have fun, because if they don’t, it will show up in their work. I also tell them to stop when their vision materializes on the page. Try to do it with the least number of brush strokes, and walk away from the painting as soon as you have accomplished your vision. And then I tell them after letting it sit, take a cautious look at it. Be very careful about going back in, because it’s a house of cards, and adding one more card, one more stroke, can make the entire construct tumble…

It’s that way with writing. We bring all this energy and excitement into the creative process, and our words sparkle with the power of creation. And then we think, “I know just how to make this better! And this, and this, and this!” And guess what happens? All those pretty washes in our painting, all those creative flourishes, they get turned into mud because we overwork them. We keep adding layers, more and more and more seeking perfection, and the fact is, perfection is the enemy of good. We wipe out all that excitement and spontaneity in the story. What was raw and filled with wonder is now bland and pedestrian.

I’m not saying you can’t rewrite. We all have rewritten stories, or find a scene doesn’t quite have the right elements in it. What I’m saying is *beware* the rewrite. You can ruin a good thing, so decide whether you really and truly need to go back in. What I’m also saying is that the more you write, the less you will feel it necessary to redo what you have created. You’re going to understand there is raw power here, even creative bursts that cannot be duplicated. You’re going to see the beauty in the rough gemstone, which can be even more stunning than the cut and faceted gem every jewelry store on the planet carries in their shiny halogen-lit display case. You’re going to be writing so well, you don’t need to go back.

Shouldn’t that be the goal? To get so good at your writing, you don’t have to spend hours and hours on rewrites? Writing fresh will teach you that. You’re going to naturally employ skills without consciously thinking of them, the more you use them. Writing becomes so intuitive, you can actually create finished product in your first draft. But to do that, you have to write a lot. You have to have faith in your abilities. And you have to let go.

I can only tell you this secret, like Dean Wesley Smith (now a WotF judge) told me this secret decades ago. When you go back in to rewrite a story, you change it. You lose the energy of creation that clings to those original words.

Don’t overedit. Avoid rewrites. Write fresh stories.

Hi all!

Been away for awhile - did several writing courses this year to hopefully up my game.

Just submitted a fresh Q1 entry, decided to check out the forum, and this thread caught my eye.

This challenge is perfect! It perfectly aligns with my personal WOTF goal to submit a new story each quarter!!! Serendipity!

Please add me to the challenge.

M-O-O-N! That spells MOON, yessiree! Much thanks for organizing this.

There's plenty who say humour is the exception and needs treble the editing to tune every syllable.

There's plenty who say humour is the exception and needs treble the editing to tune every syllable.

There will always be exceptions to every rule, but jokes can definitely be overwritten.

Welcome back, OldDarth. The Force is strong in you! But may I suggest you get an inhaler for that wheezing?

TimE, like Disgruntledpeony says, there's exceptions to every rule. And yet, I stand by mine. I wrote a fantasy humor story over a weekend at a writers' retreat called Rockaway on the Oregon Coast over 20 years ago. Nina Kiriki Hoffman was there (she's now a WotF judge). Jerry Oltion was there (most published author in Analog). Bruce Holland Rogers was there (he's won every prestigious award in our industry). There was no time to edit. We checked in on Friday, wrote on Saturday, read our stories on Sunday. I wrote fast and furious, and gathered in the common room with around twenty to read what we had written. As I read mine, people were laughing at all the right places, and by the end, all were laughing hysterically. A hearty round of applause and even a few cheers told me I had hit the mark--and this was no easy group to please!

After, Bruce came up to me. He's a a very quiet man--his river runs deep. His eyes were sparkling, and he was still chuckling. "Moon," he said, "I hope you find a market for that story. It deserves to be published." My first draft had earned the highest praise from a guy that had won the Nebula, the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo, the Stoker.

That story has remained virtually unchanged since I wrote it. It got honors from every coordinating judge in the history of WotF. It was held to be published at Black Gate, and then there was an editor swap and the new one said he didn't have room for it for some time to come and felt he should hand it back to me, as it was unfair to keep holding it so long. I finally lowered my search to pro pay, but not SFWA qualified. BAM. Sold that story to Third Flatiron Publishing's STRANGE BEASTIES anthology. Soon, I had a book in hand, and I was hired to do the podcast as well. It was also purchased for reprint in their BEST OF 2017. I then used that podcast as my audition tape, and was approved as a narrator for Apex Publications, PodCastle, Escape Pod, Gallery of Curiosities--I've done a bunch of narrations for them. Then, Alex Shvartsman of UFO Publishing fame listened to my story. He asked if I'd like to be his director of podcasts at a new pro 'zine he was starting--Future Science Fiction Digest.

All that, from a humor story I wrote fast and furious, and UNEDITED, at a little weekend getaway on the Oregon coast.

Again, others will tell you different. But this is "Moon's SUPER SECRETS." I paid dearly to learn them. And I'm giving them to you for free.

If you'd like to see what a writer can do when he's up against a deadline, and doesn't have time to go back and mess things up, check out my podcast.

http://www.thirdflatiron.com/beastofthemonthclub.mp3

I certainly appreciate all free tips. If this is the link you gave a few weeks back (different thread?) - it's very good.
I'm an incredibly slow writer. Wish I could speed up, but I'm one of those who edits as I go along - continually. Write a story in 24 hours when the winners meet up - frightening!
Writer's retreats with writing stars, eh? Not only do I not move in the write circles, I don't know where such circles are!

Keep the tips coming, please!

I certainly appreciate all free tips. If this is the link you gave a few weeks back (different thread?) - it's very good.
I'm an incredibly slow writer. Wish I could speed up, but I'm one of those who edits as I go along - continually. Write a story in 24 hours when the winners meet up - frightening!
Writer's retreats with writing stars, eh? Not only do I not move in the write circles, I don't know where such circles are!

Keep the tips coming, please!

Tim, the more you write, the faster and hopefully, better it gets. It's like exercise. Do a hike up a steep grade once a year? You'll be huffing and puffing and stopping all the way up. Practice regularly, climb increasingly steeper trails, and you go back to that tough one and it becomes much easier. It may not even be a challenge any longer, and you start eyeing grander peaks.

But we all begin somewhere, and don't have the right muscles developed when we begin. It's said it takes 10,000 of practice to become a master at something. Sturgeon's Law, which was likely Heinlein's Law, says we have to write a million words of crap before we can write something that's publishable.

That's a lot of words. But watch the ones that are doing fresh words in this contest. They move from hit or miss over the years, into hitting an honor almost every time. They're doing the work. They're exercising the right muscles. They are training to win the Olympics of speculative fiction.

Keep exercising those writing muscles!

~Beastmaster Moon~

I'm in with my single rewrite of the year.

I submitted and actually went with a fresh instead of a canned. The planned canned still needs so much work so we'll see if the rewrite will go in this year or not. Already thinking of Q2's story.
And my fresh for Q1 was mostly a first draft except for the ending which required two big edits.

I certainly appreciate all free tips. If this is the link you gave a few weeks back (different thread?) - it's very good.
I'm an incredibly slow writer. Wish I could speed up, but I'm one of those who edits as I go along - continually. Write a story in 24 hours when the winners meet up - frightening!
Writer's retreats with writing stars, eh? Not only do I not move in the write circles, I don't know where such circles are!

Keep the tips coming, please!

I read a piece on Dean Koontz. His writing style? He writes a line. He rewrites the line. He rewrites it again. Twelve or thirteen times until he feels it is perfect. Does that all the way through his manuscript, every single line. When he types THE END, his first draft is his finished draft. But he actually rewrote it thirteen times, line by line by line. It's crazy. He knows it's crazy too. But it's the only way he can write. You can't argue with his success. But it does sound like a tortuous process.

Like I have said, my tips are what have worked for me. Take from them what works for you.

And keep writing.

~Beastmaster Moon~

For Michael and SCA Fontaine,

Good you are in, and ahead of schedule. Congrats! Your heart will thank you! Brittany will register your entries on our challenge sheet once she's got her entry in. I know she's still working on hers, and will update our illustrious records after the 31st.

And I've still got some tips to come for Q1. Trying to give some space between each so you can soak them in. Q1 tips are primarily about how you open your story. Q2 tips are going to be about the elements of a winning story, and how to reproduce that yourselves.

Don't miss deadline, everyone! But you do have until midnight on December 31st, so use it if you need it! I know I have over the years, and am relishing watching the New Years parties on TV for the first time in years without slaving over my keyboard! FREEDOM!

I am in. I sent a fresh story for Q1 of v36.

On to work on Q2's submission.

Hey, Superstar Mark! Welcome to the hallowed halls! He's in for four fresh, Brittany!

Help yourself to what's boiling in the cauldron. We'll leave the light on for ya!

~Beastmaster Moon~

I'm going to be trying a more wing-it approach to this submission. I do layer my stories a little, so the edit cycle has value, but I think it's definitely worth keeping in mind the energy of the first version -- I know when I've lost writing in the past and tried to reproduce it, I've never been able to get it quite right the second time around. I would think it's probably true of over-editing too. At any rate, this'll be the least revised story I've ever pushed out to WotF, one way or another, so I'll at least get to see how it works for me, and if it nudges the needle one way or the other.

Dr. Jest, well done. There is a secret here. Some call it their muse, but here's what it is: Your subconscious is trying to talk to you. And when it's excited about something, we need to listen. We need to put our butt in the chair, fingers on the keyboard, and capture every word of drama our subconscious is sending up like we're the court recorder in a Perry Mason courtroom--yeah, I go back that far.

How do we get into this dream state? Routines can do it. Rituals around the keyboard--hey, I'm going to patent that! Mine is the teapot going off. That sound is my signal a writing session is about to begin, and my subconscious stirs like a thoroughbred hearing the shot go off that starts the race. The sooner we can get into that state, the better our writing will be, and the faster we will write. When we're thinking about how to employ every one of Dave's tips, how sentence structure and grammar works in a sentence, how can we max the word count to get maximum money to pay our rent, we're not listening to our subconscious. The logical mind has taken over, and it's a drooling idiot compared to our subconscious. Therefore, I unveil the next Super Secret, just for you, Doctor Jest.

Moon's SUPER SECRET #14: Do not overthink your story!

"What?" you say. "Moon has cracked his crock with this one!" No, I haven't. Think about it. Each night, your mind, without conscious thought and without a director, produces full length motion pictures, complete with settings, characters, dramatic scenes, monsters, and near death experiences! You don't direct any of it, it just happens, and I'll bet some of your nightly shows are way better than Home Alone 3.

You already have stories within you. You stuff yourself with the raw materials to make them every day of your life. You just have to get out of the way and let the fat lady sing...because she's beatiful, and she can do magic.

Some of you have asked for the story on my winner. I promised I would tell you the tale. This secret I just told you is how I believe I finally won after 25 years of trying. So, without further ado, I give you the tale of how I wrote "Super-Duper Moon Girl and the Amazing Moon Dawdler."

It was a dark and stormy night...

We come to the end of WotF’s last quarter in 2018. It was a bad month for my wife's health, and left me only two days at the very end of the quarter to write a story to submit. I had no ideas except a one page opening I had written six months ago that I thought would make a cute start to a story. My wife had been begging me to tell that tale. Now I must confess, in my frustration at having so many honors but not making finalist, over the more recent past quarters, I had been trying curve ball stories on the judge. Perhaps something quirky might make the story stand out and propel it to the top. I tried horror, surrealism, high seas adventure, space opera, alternate history, comedy, and this time, I decided to write a story to touch the heart. I only had time to write 1000 words the first day, and I wrote 5000 words on day two, which was the last day of the year end quarter. Contest closed at midnight. Submit a second later, and it's all over, you're not in. As the last quarter of the contest year, that meant another long year of entering once again if I failed, and believe me, that was the hardest thing to shut out of my mind. At 11:15 p.m., I handed the finished first draft to my wife to proof for errors, and went to the kitchen to find something to eat. At 11:45 p.m., I came rushing into the room to see if she was done reading. I was out of time.

She was *bawling*.

I began laughing hysterically.

She snuffled and glared at me. "Why are you laughing? I'm CRYING!"

"Because it WORKED!" I said, still laughing hysterically. I snatched the manuscript from her, raced to my room, corrected marked typos. I pulled up the submission portal, punched like a madman the data they required, jabbed SUBMIT. I made it. My time stamp? 11:56 p.m. And then I went back with tissues to apologize to my wife for being so abrupt, but hey, deadlines make you crazy, as any writer will attest.

I had spent the entire day writing right up to the deadline, no chance to see if it all connected, no second draft, no rewrites. I just wrote like crazy, constantly pushing out of my mind that I wasn't going to make it (the logical mind speaking, which you have to shut off). I would not allow myself to give in and give up, but I must admit, I was scared, because I knew I had something special here. I have never been so in touch with my subconscious as when I wrote that day. I was actually seeing visions of the scenes, and my fingers were flying to get it all down before it vaporized. I have only felt something close to this one other time before. It was when I wrote the story that won the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds contest. This was a breakthrough moment in my abilities, just like back then, twenty years ago.

I’ve played a lot of fantasy games. You know in a game when you’re leveling up. You’ve devoted hundreds of hours and worked hard for it. The game notifies you when you’re close in earned points. When you finally hit the mark, something amazing happens. Fey lights swirl around you, the heavens open in stellar symphonies, and your character shines with new power. Same thing in your writing. Perhaps without the frosty +10 Sword of Ice Bane, but something equitable in the real world.

This is the gift of listening to your subconscious. This is the power when you let go and trust your instincts, instincts you've been training for years because you, my friend, have been WRITING FRESH STORIES!

Best of success,

~Beastmaster Moon~

I'm in for the quarter. I almost completely rewrote a former piece, and added about 4k words, but still counts as revised. Best of luck to those of you writing up to the deadline - I think this is the closest I've ever come to the cutoff. Thanks to all who helped with swaps.

Yeah, I'm thinking there'll be no swaps for me this time around... 😀

There is something about over-thinking a story. I've done that with the original idea a lot, but having put myself close to the deadline (I'm working on my first proper draft right this minute) I'm just writing it, and hell, whether or not it ends up being everything I might have thought of, I'm having a hell of a lot more fun writing it this way than I've had working on this story in any of my previous attempts. It's completely different. The character is different, the story is different, the ending will be different, and only the core premise, along with a detail or two, will actually survive the cut-over, and I have no idea how good this thing will be by the time I'm done. But regardless, this will be the most fun I've had working on a story in...well, years, at the very least.

As such, regardless of the outcome, thanks for the nudges that made me decide to try leaning this way and see what happens. It's been a revelation in, almost by definition, quite unexpected ways.

Rats. You overheard. Now it's not a secret! Well, as long as you're eavesdropping...
So here's the challenge: A new story. For each quarter. In Volume 36.

Are you in?

~Moon~

Hey, all. First time on the forum. Nice to meet you.

A new story each quarter? Well, I just found out from a friend that it's permissible to revise and resubmit a story as long as it didn't make finalist. Or semifinalist? Or something? Which I guess means I've been doing the SUPER SECRET Bonus Challenge for a while now.

So am I in this year? Hell, yes.

Hey, all. First time on the forum. Nice to meet you.

A new story each quarter? Well, I just found out from a friend that it's permissible to revise and resubmit a story as long as it didn't make finalist. Or semifinalist? Or something? Which I guess means I've been doing the SUPER SECRET Bonus Challenge for a while now.

So am I in this year? Hell, yes.

Welcome! And, yes, anything except a semi-finalist or a finalist can be resubmitted. I've done it a couple of times. The first time, I turned an R into an SHM. The second time, I turned an SHM into... another SHM. Both my SF and F entries were first time submissions. Fresh stories do seem to have done better for me overall.

There is a secret here. Some call it their muse, but here's what it is: Your subconscious is trying to talk to you. And when it's excited about something, we need to listen. We need to put our butt in the chair, fingers on the keyboard, and capture every word of drama our subconscious is sending up like we're the court recorder in a Perry Mason courtroom--yeah, I go back that far.

Moon's SUPER SECRET #14: Do not overthink your story!

Wonderful! Thanks for sharing.

Oy!

Put me down for the full challenge. Fresh stories all the way through.

I started writing my Q1 story a couple days ago and I am working hard to finish it right now. I took a break to read the story of your winning sub Moon, and its beautiful. I hope I get to experience something like that one day. I am having fun playing Q1 fast and loose we will see if Dave has as much fun lol.

Well that was an interesting experience! I just completed the first draft, and...well, it's not the story I expected it to be, even half way through, and I think that's a really good thing in the end. I'm curious to see how well it fares -- I normally give my work a lot more TLC in the weeks before submission, let it rest a week, return for a revision, and so on. This is real seat-of-the-pants flying for me with this kind of thing...but it makes me really keen to kick off on the next story!

Last day! Lots in, I see, but more to go. As Tim Gunn says on Project Runway: "Make it work!"

My story is complete. One more pass and I'll submit it.

My story is complete. One more pass and I'll submit it.

Go go go go go!

You have until midnight. I might add the submission form takes a few minutes to fill out, so don't work to the last minute and think you'll get in. But if you are working up to the last, do your spellcheck carefully (it likes to change words on you if you aren't careful), and triple check your name is off the title page, the headers, the file name, and even check your "properties" on your file to clean your name out of there as well. It's not likely the first reader or judge will go in there, but it's a blind contest, you don't want anything left that *could* get you summarily rejected without comment. Make 11:30 or 11:45 pm your max so you have time to get it in. And that's worst case scenario--the system often locks out in the last hour of a quarter.

If that does happen, email the story immediately to contest coordinator Joni, with a brief explanation and a request to be emailed confirmation you are in. Your email will have a time stamp, proving you would have had it in on time. She is aware when the system locks up and is always ready to help. The address is [email protected]. And please don't abuse the privilege to personally contact Joni. She is very accessible, but she has so many duties--especially this time of year--that excessive emails can delay her from accomplishing her contest duties. Help her by only contacting her with necessary business.

Log in on the main page when you've submitted, and do post an "I'm in" message in here so we know you're completing this challenge. Have the tips helped you? I have focused my tips on getting past first reader Kary and into Dave's selection pile in this first quarter. You cannot win if you can't get past Kary with her Whack-A-Mole club. More to come.

Tick, tock. Tick, Tock....

Fortune favor the brave!

~Beastmaster Moon~