Where's the sci-fi/fantasy?

In addition to Rejectomancy — where you drive yourself crazy trying to figure out why someone rejected your story — I believe there is also Market Mania — where you drive yourself crazy trying to check every box hoping this guarantees that someone will accept your story.

My best advice is to write the story you want to write in the way you want to write it. For you, first and foremost. Certainly keep the contest guidelines in mind. Certainly give your story the best chance possible for placing in the contest. But there are no winning formulas or guarantees. And for every rule, there are at least a hundred exceptions.

Writers of the Future is awesome, and we put a ton of pressure on ourselves to try and win this thing. But in the end, it's also just one of many potential markets to submit to. And if your story doesn't win here, there are lots of other places to try. Experiment and have fun!

@morgan-broadhead while I agree in principle, I think there are valid reasons to write specifically for the WotF contest.  The foremost is that the criteria for having you story selected is rather minimal and target the bare essence of good general writing practices -- introduce your character, conflict, setting early -- no poetry, English language, properly formatted to their preferred standard, etc...  It's like writing a paper in school.  While what you write is paramount, so is the ability to follow instructions.  I admit, I have found some of the criteria has been hard for me to incorporate into my story.  It would have been easy for me to just defer to my personal artistic integrity and call it a day.  But I also have to admit, when I overcome those challenges, I find my story has also improved as a result. 

Again, I do agree with you.  But as a beginning author, there is so much guidance, consistency and community support from other contestants like you, that it doesn't compare to competing on the open pro market.  If I can write my story AND do it within the relatively loose demands of WotF, then it's a great exercise even if I don't win HM.  Winning is secondary to learning, for me.  You never fail to challenge (as well as support) us.  I really appreciate that!

I think delaying the sci-fi could be problematic. Maybe the slusher would flip to the end and make sure. Maybe not. They generally don't read the whole story (I know, cries of agony lol).

However, I would agree 100% with pretty much everything @morgan-broadhead said. Write the story you want to write. At the end you need to make yourself happy first. And in the most likely scenario - given only 3 people can win out of thousands of entries - its going to be sent to other markets not just WotF. So you should write it as you want it to be.

That is what I normally do, and then I go back and see if its a good story for the competition (and if its not, can it be adapted, and am I willing to change it to make it fit - sometimes the answer to that is 'no'). Not everything I have written as an 'entry' has ended up that way. I wrote a fantasy story last summer that ended up dark fantasy. I ran it past two people on here, not telling them I was concerned if it was a fit for the contest - the feedback I got was "too dark for WotF" from both people, without me even asking. I never used it, but I will send it somewhere else eventually (it was reviewed in draft form, it needs polishing before sending out, and I didn't do it at the time as dropping it as my WotF entry meant I had to start from scratch so focussed on that instead).

@gideonpsmith How dark is 'too dark?'  Is there some standard for that?  The reason I ask is that my WIP is more like 'despair sci-fi,' which could be interpreted as 'dark.'  It ends with a message of hope at it's core, but I think some people will miss that.  Now, THAT is something I'm not willing to compromise for this story.   If I can see a reasonable path to tell the story I want to tell and have it simultaneously meet the demands of the contest, then I owe it to myself to strive for that.

@abeona so theres no measure of darkness but thats why I had people critique my draft - I knew it was dark, violent, and honestly a depressing, end 

so why did i write it? because it said something that i believed in/made a social commentary. It just wsn't a good fit for the competition. 

Depending on how far you want to get into the project before deciding you could run a few questions or an outline or a draft or a finished story with that specific question past a critique partner but keep from posting too many details directly on the forum as its against rules given judges read here

Posted by: @abeona

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@gideonpsmith How dark is 'too dark?'  Is there some standard for that?  The reason I ask is that my WIP is more like 'despair sci-fi,' which could be interpreted as 'dark.'  It ends with a message of hope at it's core, but I think some people will miss that.  Now, THAT is something I'm not willing to compromise for this story.   If I can see a reasonable path to tell the story I want to tell and have it simultaneously meet the demands of the contest, then I owe it to myself to strive for that.

The target market for WOTF is middle-grade to young adult. Think PG-13.

There are no hard and fast definitions for content. So much about writing and publishing and judging and coordinating for the anthology is purely subjective: how does your particular story affect that particular reader/judge on that particular day? Also, how does your story compare to other similar stories they are seeing?

Its all very touchy-feely and involves lots of chemical reactions in the heart and brain!

How dark is too dark? Avoid anything that could be read as an endorsement of suicide. Despair is going to be a problem. Not impossible, but a problem. There are markets for that, but this ain’t one of them. “Everybody dies” isn’t going to fly here. “Everybody dies, and thus evil is defeated” will work. “The protagonist dies because he brought it on himself despite clear warnings” can work. (See Sean Hazlett’s story, I think it’s V33.)

As for how early to introduce the spec: Give at least a hint within the first 500 words. And even the title can be a hint. If your title is “The Thing from Mars”, the slush reader is going to give you more time to get to the spec; but if your title is “Why I Hate My Life”, that doesn’t hint at anything.

This is absolutely a matter of pragmatism: The Contest gets too many non-spec stories. Slush readers are looking for reasons to winnow the pile down to a manageable count. Give them a reason not to winnow yours.

@martin-l-shoemaker Thank you.  That was perfect.  "Despair" might have been a little strong.  If I do this right, everyone will find it uplifting, but the cynic in me says that some people may find it depressing.  Hopefully, just enough to make it thought-provoking.  Nothing so dark as suicide or gratuitous violence.  The 500 word limit you suggest is kind of what I was thinking.  But Dave Farland said "10%" of the word count to get to the character/setting/conflict.  I thought that seemed like a stretch.

I hadn't expected the title to carry much weight.  I have an idea that might solve the problem, but even the most vague way I can imagine to disclose it may DQ the story.  I'll propose it to our Discord group.

The late K.D. Wentworth said she liked tragically beautiful endings, where someone paid a tragic cost because it was the only way to achieve the final goal.

Not to take anything away from Devon Bohm's skillful writing, but I'm curious what everyone thinks about Kitsune Vol 39 wrt the delayed spec intro.  I'm 10 pages in and still not seeing it, though there was an allusion to "magic" at the 10 page mark.  Does a peculiar, inexplicable event qualify as an intro to spec as far as the slushers are concerned?  It seems to defy conventional wisdom where the contest is concerned.

@abeona Hi there,

It's there in first paragraph.... she mentions that the foxes went extinct, but all of a sudden, different species of foxes showed up and even new species with rainbow colors, etc.

Also, how she grabs you for the story and takes you to the end to find out what is really going on.

And here’s a secret (not really a secret): If something is really well written, slush readers and Jody will give it more of a chance. If they’re caught up in the characters, the descriptions, the tension, the action, etc., they might overlook that the idea hasn’t popped in yet.

Might.

”Put the spec in early” isn’t a Rule, it’s just a powerful Tool. It’s good advice, but a story might succeed without it.

(And besides… Rainbow foxes…)

Posted by: @abeona

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Not to take anything away from Devon Bohm's skillful writing, but I'm curious what everyone thinks about Kitsune Vol 39 wrt the delayed spec intro.  I'm 10 pages in and still not seeing it, though there was an allusion to "magic" at the 10 page mark.  Does a peculiar, inexplicable event qualify as an intro to spec as far as the slushers are concerned?  It seems to defy conventional wisdom where the contest is concerned.

I hope subtle introduction of the speculative element is OK, because I do that sometimes. I recall reading somewhere that the speculative element better show up on the first page or two, because the slush pile readers need to know that the story submitted is speculative.  Some of my favorite stories leave the audience wondering if there is magick or not.