[Sticky] New Results Categories! Introducing DQ and Rejected With Comments

@axeminister 

Wow! Time sure flies! Likely an attribute of the Copernicus Time Compression Principle we’ve all been experiencing inside the gravity well of the Covid Wormhole. 

Posted by: @axeminister

Extra! Extra! Read all about it:

https://www.writersofthefuture.com/writers-of-the-future-taps-kary-english-as-new-first-reader/

(I'm not really so old I remember those times or anything. Just sounded like a fun thing to write)

Thanks! Good choice on the extra extra

I'm sure I'm dating myself, but I did stand on a street corner and yell those words over and over until I ran out of papers.  

They were a nickel apiece at that time.

@storysinger Well, the good thing about dating yourself is that you don't have to worry about you running around behind your back.  

Gotta say, even a general idea as to what's wrong with a story is a pearl of great price to people trying to figure out where the hiccup in a story is.  Being able to focus on Failure to Launce, for example, is tremendously helpful.  Appreciate the extra work you folks are putting into providing that sort of help to new writers.

Repeating my offer here - if anyone with a RWC would like feedback shoot me a DM and I’ll take a look. 

@storysinger 

Posted by: @karyenglish

Hey, all,

Q1 results will be coming out soon, and I'd like to make you aware of two new categories for WOTF judging.

 

Disqualified - We've instituted this category to let entrants know when they've submitted something that we can't consider because it violates the contest rules. Since this is our first trial of the DQ option, we're only using it for the following situations:

• You left your name on your entry.
• Your entry exceeded our length limit.
• Your entry was not in English, or was in a format or genre that the contest does not accept. Mostly this means poetry, screenplays, scholarship essays, erotica, excessive profanity, children's stories, or stories that don't contain a speculative element.

 

Rejected With Comments - One of the most frequent requests we get from entrants is that they want more feedback. They want to know why their entry was rejected, or why it stopped at HM. We've heard you, and we'll be rolling out a new Rejected With Comments category, starting with Q1 and progressing over the next several quarters.

 

If you receive a Rejected With Comments letter, it means your story showed promise, but was held back by one or more issues mentioned in the letter. You will not receive comments specific to your story. Instead, the letter will contain a list of things that hold stories back, and you'll need to evaluate your entry to determine which item(s) may have affected your story.

The current RWC categories are:

• Failure to Launch - your opening went on too long, was too unfocused, or did not engage us
• Didn't Stick the Landing - your ending was weak or didn't fit the story
• Content issues - too much violence, sex, or profanity
• No speculative element - your fantasy or sci-fi element was not present, introduced too late, or was insufficient
• Your story was for children - We're OK with YA, but you sent us something for middle grade or lower
• Politics and Religion - Your story depended too heavily on real-world politics, was better suited to a devotional market, or spent too much time trying to advance a particular religious or political agenda

You may have noticed some overlap between DQ and RWC, so let me unpack that.

 

RWC means "We liked it, but..."

DQ means "Absolutely not."

 

RWC means "Ok, a few too many f-bombs here," or "please scale back that sex scene."

DQ means "Do you know any words that don't start with f?" or "0.o - WTH did I just read? Whatever it was, don't submit it again."

 

RWC means "You sent us a nice haunted house story for 4th graders."

DQ means "You sent us a picture book for four year-olds."

 

In short, RWC is fixable, for the most part. DQ is not.*

 

In terms of quality, RWC stories are somewhere near the border between HM and R. If you've been getting straight Rs, RWC will help you fine tune your craft so you can hit that HM mark. If you've been frustrated that you can't get more than HM, RWC will help you figure out why.

 

For Q1, the RWC category is small, fewer than a hundred stories, and mostly for Failure to Launch. We expect to use RWC more heavily in future quarters.

Cheers,

Kary

 

* Except for your name. If you get DQed for leaving your name on it, fix it and resubmit it.

I haven't been on the forum in a while and just noticed this. I'm excited about it because it helps to know whether your story is fixable or not. 

I'm curious about the various categories.  I've looked around a bit, but I'm not sure I have a full grasp on things.  I'm new here, so I apologize for the somewhat naive question.

From looking around, it seems the categories are:

1.  Disqualified,
2.  Rejected,
3.  Rejected with Comments,
4.  Honorable Mention,
5.  SHM, which I think means Silver Honorable Mention?
6.  Semi-finalist, and
7.  Finalist

Is that correct?  Please let me know if I've gotten something wrong.

Additionally, I understand that thousands of submissions are made every quarter.  And I believe I read that there are eight finalist stories that are chosen.  Is there a rough number that fall into the other categories?  For instance, is there a particular number of Honorable Mentions or an estimate of how many are typically handed out each quarter?

Thank you for any help.  I know all of this information is probably available somewhere; I just haven't managed to find it while browsing around.

Posted by: @jo-b

Additionally, I understand that thousands of submissions are made every quarter.  And I believe I read that there are eight finalist stories that are chosen.  Is there a rough number that fall into the other categories?  For instance, is there a particular number of Honorable Mentions or an estimate of how many are typically handed out each quarter?

Honorable Mentions are 5-10% of entries. As a very rough explanation, it means a story was good enough to finish (most aren't), but there were issues that kept it from being a Finalist contender.

Silver Honorable Mentions are rare. They're extremely close, probably publishable, but a flaw holds them back.

A Semi-Finalist is a story that Jody believes is good enough to win; but she only gets to pick 8 Finalists, and there are 8 better stories this quarter (in her opinion). As compensation, she writes a critique, explaining how she thinks it could be even better. (That means you can't resubmit this story.)

A Finalist is one of the top 8 for the quarter. A Winner is one of the top 3 from these 8.

That was a wonderful explanation, thank you.

Here's to next quarter and hopefully I'll at least earn some comments. 

@james1721 I hope you do even better than that. You never know - bottom line is, keep writing, keep learning, and have fun.

When you get a non-acceptance email, how do you know the difference between a disqualification, a rejection, and a rejection with comments?  

The reason I ask, is that I received a rejection email that included a general list of reasons why a story doesn't make it.

In some ways, I'm encouraged that this might be an RWC.  It is a rejection, it does have comments, and has an encouraging tone.  Then down at the bottom it says, "... see if you can revise it to suit the Contest's guidelines."  That makes me think it is a disqualification.

Any guidance on how you know where a story rates in the non-acceptance categories?  I didn't know, until recently, that you can revise and resubmit a story in a subsequent quarter.  I'm trying to decide if this one is worth revising.

Thanks,

Mark

@markwilx what was the exact wording? Feel free to DM me if you don't want to share it publicly.

@ease Thanks.  I'll send it to you DM.

Posted by: @martin-l-shoemaker

↑

Honorable Mentions are 5-10% of entries. As a very rough explanation, it means a story was good enough to finish (most aren't), but there were issues that kept it from being a Finalist contender.

Silver Honorable Mentions are rare. They're extremely close, probably publishable, but a flaw holds them back.

A Semi-Finalist is a story that Jody believes is good enough to win; but she only gets to pick 8 Finalists, and there are 8 better stories this quarter (in her opinion). As compensation, she writes a critique, explaining how she thinks it could be even better. (That means you can't resubmit this story.)

A Finalist is one of the top 8 for the quarter. A Winner is one of the top 3 from these 8.

That is extremely helpful to know.  Thank you for the detail and estimates.

Thank you @karyenglish for letting us know about these changes. Having had great success  in MA creative writing classes, some of the stories of which I submitted here only received rejections. I haven't submitted since 2020 until recently and I look forward to either winning 😀 or reading what I am missing for this contest (general sense). Thank whoever is responsible for these changes.

~ LoyalRam