Discussion: Q1 Volume 39

@craydimensional Yes, I just double checked and you are a RWC. Hoping the additional details help you on your future submissions

Posted by: @jason

@craydimensional Yes, I just double checked and you are a RWC. Hoping the additional details help you on your future submissions

There are 2 categories that come to mind. Thank you.

I got an email but it seems to be giving me every reason for rejection, including inconsistent ones. Failure to launch, needs more science fiction or fantasy, not sticking the landing, too much violence, too much sex . . ., children's story, devotional or political content.

Is that a glitch or is it really possible to have all these reasons?

What's funny is this story was previously an SHM

@chuckt As I understand it, the comments are a general list and not exactly story specific. There's a pinned topic here https://www.writersofthefuture.com/forum/the-contest-quarterly-topics-and-other-items/new-results-categories-introducing-dq-and-rejected-with-coments/#post-45339 that covers it.

@babooher AH! I misunderstood. So it could be any of the general list of comments that was the problem. You have to decide if it was one of them and, if so, which one(s).

@chuckt correct. When the judging is being done we added this RWC, Rejected With Comments, to help people that fall into these listed categories to help you isolate why the reject versus just a blanket reject.

RWC for me. The letter was very nice and did make me feel good about my writing effort. It gives me things to think about for sure. Thanks @empressed for taking the time to look it over and offer comments.  

I have another Honorable Mention. Is this the first with the new head editor? 

Been reading some of the posts interesting with the new two categories and still having the standard rejection. So the RWC one is slightly better than the standard rejection? Dq is worse. Interesting to see which one I get for Q2. I assuming it will not be dq.  

Congratulations to those who received SHM, Semi-finalists and Finalists 

And to Samuel Parr, Spencer Sekulin and L.H. Davis 

Not even an RWC. I hope I can find a Dumpster tonight, so I can sleep where I belong. 

Just kidding. Tomorrow's my wedding, and then it's back to work.

@chezecaek Congratulations on your wedding tomorrow!

Enjoy the day and I am sure your new adventures will spark many future stories ideas.

Given that I got a straight R with no comments, that doesn't give me a lot to work with, but I can at least speculate a bit. This particular story's biggest weakness is that it has a few pages of relatively unexciting buildup before getting to the meat of the thing. I spent a lot of time tightening that part, adding more interesting details while at the same time making the whole thing shorter, and I hoped it was enough...but perhaps it wasn't. If it was one page of slow buildup, maybe then I'd have gotten an RWC for failure to launch, but it's more than that, so R. Since David gave this same story an HM, my suspicion is that he may have been a bit more lenient on slow beginnings than Jodi. I don't know that for sure, of course, but I like to think that if Jodi got through the start, my characters and their dialogue would've won her over enough for an HM at least. So yeah, if there's any takeaway here, it would be what you've no doubt had hammered into you a thousand plus times by now: Make your beginning not suck.

(@chezecaek) I'm inclined to believe rejections never get to Jody. Kary is first reader for a reason, to send the most promising stories to the stack to be read, and the rest to the rejection file.

I had the impression that the stories that get past Kary aren't at all guaranteed to place higher than R -- I have an old response from Joni somewhere for an older entry that says that I'd cleared the first round, but that doesn't guarantee placing HM or higher -- but if you don't get past Kary, an R (or some flavour thereof) is definitely what you're getting.

Posted by: @chezecaek

Given that I got a straight R with no comments, that doesn't give me a lot to work with, but I can at least speculate a bit. This particular story's biggest weakness is that it has a few pages of relatively unexciting buildup 

The WotF workshop, and many other writing blogs, stress how important it is to hook the reader in the first page, even the first paragraph. Most editors won't read past the first page if they haven't seen something to interest them. (For novels, they might give you as much as five pages.) I think a slow build-up in a short story would be a kiss of death.

If you haven't gone through the WotF workshop yet, it is truly a great help.

Posted by: @ehonour

 

If you haven't gone through the WotF workshop yet, it is truly a great help.

I've been going through the workshop recently. I was feeling like I've kind of plateaued, and I was having trouble with my current WIP. I'm also not too sure on the difference between my HMs, SHMs, and my SF (as in why some work better than others). Well, I'm not done with the workshop, but I think it is already helping (although, I'm still not too sure about HM to SHM). In any event, I second your assessment that the WotF worshop is a great help.

Edited to add that Wulfmoon's Super Secrets are a great resource as well.

Posted by: @babooher

I'm also not too sure on the difference between my HMs, SHMs, and my SF (as in why some work better than others).

I think, at the level of HM and above, much of the difference may be personal preference (of the judges and editors). I've not judged fiction, but I was for many years an associate editor for a technical journal. I was amazed how different reviewers could have wildly different scores for the same item.

As an example, I've just finished reading the 2011 Hugo-winning novel(s), a two-book novel that was voted to the highest award in scifi. I was distinctly unimpressed and had to push myself through tedium at times to finish it. Near the end, I was speed-reading instead of enjoying it. Personal preferences. (Oops. Yes, I did just check that the author is NOT one of the WotF judges.)

Wulf actually didn’t seem to think my beginning was majorly problematic after I followed his suggestions. Someone judging thousands of stories could easily feel differently. Like I said, I can only speculate about what might be a problem for someone else--being that personally, I like my beginning. I maintain it’s justified based on the particular story, but there is that matter of execution. What Wulf told me is, “Dave has specific elements he must see by page five: setting, character, problem, and the hero about to go on the journey.” I did manage to wrangle it all into that space. Just not well enough this time. And of course Dave is no longer judging.

@chezecaek Dave had a five page rule he judged the opening scene by, and he wrote about it in one of his daily tips. I’m sure someone will post it after I mention this. Jody will, of course, have her own parameters of what she expects to see to read on, but I don’t think you can go wrong following Dave’s guidelines. Unless Jody posts hers somewhere. Judges do have their own personal tastes. It’s wise to at least be aware of them if you can find out what they are. Dave won so many contests in his early days because he didn’t just write a great story, he also learned everything he could about a judge’s expectations, style, and tastes. I recommend attending any Zoom interview with Jody, taking her workshop she conducts at DragonCon, and reading her stories. You’ll see what she likes, because she’s writing what she likes. 😊

Is there a count of how many entries were submitted for Q1?

This may be the accountant in me that loves statistics, but it would be nice to have a breakdown.

• 3 winners
• 5 finalists
• 10 semi-finalists
• 128 SHMs
• 283 HMs
• and ?

Sorry if I missed this.

Posted by: @toddjones

Is there a count of how many entries were submitted for Q1?

This may be the accountant in me that loves statistics, but it would be nice to have a breakdown.

• 3 winners
• 5 finalists
• 10 semi-finalists
• 128 SHMs
• 283 HMs
• and ?

Sorry if I missed this.

We can't really be certain, as the Contest doesn't share submission figures (few markets do, really, so they're not any exception there), and with the change in judging and no knowledge of any internal guidance or rules, we can't necessarily judge the percentages for the last Quarter that made HM and above based on our guesses and inferences (historically, though, I believe HM and above was somewhere between five and fifteen percent of entries, depending on the specific quarter--so if your inner statistician wants to play with those numbers, have at it).

What we are certain of, though, is that the Contest receives thousands of submissions every Quarter.

Posted by: @doctorjest

Posted by: @toddjones

Is there a count of how many entries were submitted for Q1?

This may be the accountant in me that loves statistics, but it would be nice to have a breakdown.

• 3 winners
• 5 finalists
• 10 semi-finalists
• 128 SHMs
• 283 HMs
• and ?

Sorry if I missed this.

We can't really be certain, as the Contest doesn't share submission figures (few markets do, really, so they're not any exception there), and with the change in judging and no knowledge of any internal guidance or rules, we can't necessarily judge the percentages for the last Quarter that made HM and above based on our guesses and inferences (historically, though, I believe HM and above was somewhere between five and fifteen percent of entries, depending on the specific quarter--so if your inner statistician wants to play with those numbers, have at it).

What we are certain of, though, is that the Contest receives thousands of submissions every Quarter.

My inner nerd says HM's and above represent roughly @ 10.175893486% of all entries in the quarter. So if we take the numbers above, that gives us 4,290 entries in the quarter. Roughly. I may be off by a few decimals. I'm not really a mathologist or anything, or a numberosopher, or a numeralistician. I'm only good with words, obviously.

Mathologist,  numberosopher,  numeralistitian.  Wait a minute, I think you made those words up. Websters might be contacting you in the future about these additions to the English language.

@morgan-broadhead   Going to the 9th decimal place is a great rough guess. 

I was estimating from some post I read from a couple years ago that HMs were roughly in the top 10%.

We could then surmise that SHMs would be roughly in top 4%.

@toddjones 

I have it on good source that the actual number of entries for the quarter was @ 4,074. This means SHM's comprise the top 3.1419% — a number that is suspiciously close to pie. A coincidence? I think not. Anyone who finishes in the top 10% deserves a heaping slice of pie, which is what Joni used to mail us along with our certificates, you know, back in the day. Life was better back then.

@storysinger 

"Mathologist" would fit nicely just before "Muggle".

@toddjones Hi Todd - we don't give out the numbers, we did in the first few years of the contest but it started to intimindate some writers so we've made a rule not to give out the full numbers.  - Joni 

@toddjones Very roughly, yes.

Posted by: @chuckt

I got an email but it seems to be giving me every reason for rejection, 

Is that a glitch or is it really possible to have all these reasons?

What's funny is this story was previously an SHM

Ctrl-z, perhaps?

But seriously, don't start sentences with conjunctions too often. Plus, the "with comments" is a cut-and-paste of all possible issues, yes. Up to the author to examine their story and figure out which area(s) need work.

Posted by: @morgan-broadhead

roughly @ 10.175893486% 

...is hilarious -like I'm waiting for Harrison Ford to shout at C-3PO