Guest Post by Jordan Ellinger

The Writers of the Future Contest, more properly known as “L Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future”, is quite simply one of the largest, most well-respected short fiction writing contests in the world. By some accounts, it has the fifth largest purse of any contest, and is one of the only ones without an entry fee.

When Joshua Essoe, the managing editor for Fictorian guest posts, asked me to write an article about the Writers of the Future Contest, I started out with the title “How to Win the Writers of the Future Contest”. But that article has been written before, a couple of times, by previous winners of the contest. So I scrapped that idea, and instead decided to write about the experience of winning. But that article has also been written. Dozens of times. I used to even maintain a page linking to them.

So what could I cover that hasn’t already been discussed? Well, the contest has helped to shape my career almost from the moment I decided to write seriously, so I thought I’d write a little bit about what it has done to help me succeed professionally.

I discovered WotF back when I first started writing short fiction. I’d found a battered copy of Writers of the Future Volume 9 at a used bookstore, and the title intrigued me. “Writers of the Future”. It was an anthology for undiscovered talent. I was undiscovered and, hopefully, talented. I was excited.

It was encouraging that I recognized some of the writers within. Sean Williams was a #1 NYT Bestseller and Star Wars author and appeared in the table of contents alongside noted Baen author Eric Flint (1632). So that table of contents told me that some of the authors who won the contest went on to have great careers. I wanted in.

Unfortunately, the book was old. The spine was lined with cracks and calling the cover “dog-eared” was generous at best, so I Googled the contest and, impressively, it was still going. They’d just released volume 20. Longevity is a very good sign in short fiction, and twenty years impressed the hell out of me.

The first story I submitted was called the Autobomber, which was about a robotic suicide bomber. Looking back, I can see the story’s flaws and I eventually retired it to the trunk, but at the time it was the best I could manage. Encouragingly, it won an Honorable Mention.

Honorable Mentions are something I think the contest does right. Fully 10-15% of entries will receive HMs. Though the number of entries is kept a strict secret, internet gossip places it at around 1500 a quarter, which means that some 100-150 writers receive one. This is enormous encouragement. Often it’s the first bit of positive feedback an author has received at that point in their career.

While some writers win the contest on their first attempt, it took me seven, and I was able to mark my progress by the awards that I won. At first it was Honorable Mentions, then a Semi-Finalist, then another Semi-Finalist, and then eventually my Finalist story “After the Final Sunset, Again” won 1st place in Volume 25. Because there were so many tiers of prizes, I could actually see myself improving as a writer, and that was all the encouragement that I needed.

The prize for placing as a Semi-Finalist is a critique of your story by the contest administrator. In my case, that was the late K. D. Wentworth. I’d submitted a story called Mannequin Empire, about a hot shot engineer who figured out how to transfer the consciousness of a real dog into a robot body. Now, this guy was a bit of a jerk. Think Tony Stark without the redeeming qualities. When the critique came back K. D. explained that, though the writing was good, I had written an unsympathetic main character. Because she had no reason to like my protagonist, she had no reason to read further.

By the time I received K. D.’s critique I’d already submitted my next entry to the following quarter and it too placed as a Semi-Finalist. Guess what my critique said? Unsympathetic main character. Now, this contest is judged blind, so she had no idea that the same person had written both stories. What she’d done without realizing it was to identify a major weakness in my writing.

Armed with that knowledge, I set out to create the most sympathetic character I could. A mother who fights for the life of her unborn child. “After the Final Sunset, Again” was the result and it ended up winning first place.

I’m not going to talk about what the workshop or awards ceremony was like. Google “Writers of the Future Resources” and you can find dozens of workshop blogs, my own included, that cover the experience in more detail than the space allotted to me here. Instead, let’s talk about what happens immediately after you get home from the workshop week.

One of the best kept secrets of the contest is that Author Services Inc., the people who administer it, will keep in touch with you after you win, and continue to support you in any way they can, including getting you a spot on the 2nd most watched morning show in America. They have a vested interest in helping you to succeed. The better their contest winners do, the more the contest gets a reputation for picking winners. And they’ve picked some doozies. Patrick Rothfuss, Karen Joy Fowler, David Farland, Jeff Carlson, Stephen Baxter, David Zindell…the list seems endless.

I met several pro-writers at the workshop weekend, one of whom got me my first novel contract (coming out in November. No, I can’t talk about it yet. But it’s coming). Since then I’ve been developing a close network of friends who are neo-pros and we back each other up. We share opportunities with each other and recommend one another for writing assignments. Winning the Writers of the Future contest was my entry into the world of the genre writing, and for that alone I’m grateful.

Now, no article about the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest would be complete without a short paragraph on Scientology. Roy Hardin was asked about it on NBC Daytime, and I’m frequently asked about it at cons. I have no feelings about Scientology either way, or any religion for that matter. However, I do believe it’s wrong to discriminate based on one’s religious preferences–no matter what they are. “Nuff said.

The fact is that, to my knowledge, everyone at Author Services Inc. (the agency that administers the Contest) is a Scientologist. However none of the judges are (or have ever been), and no Scientologist has ever been included among the winners. There are rumours of a “firewall” between the contest and the religion L. Ron Hubbard founded, and in my experience it could very well exist.

No one ever mentioned Scientology when I was down there. No one. Not even the guests at the various events we were invited to. Whatever else he did, L. Ron Hubbard was a writer first and foremost and he enjoyed paying it forward. The folks at Author Services say that they recognize that and are paying it forward in his name, and I believe them.

So, to sum up, the contest has been the gift that keeps on giving. It encouraged me with Honorable Mentions when I was just starting out, rewarded me with a win when I’d reached a certain skill level, and has helped me develop a robust network of neo-pro and pro writers who’ve become my friends. It’s more than just a writing contest, and I encourage anyone who is reading this to enter. Hopefully it’ll help you to develop your writing muscles and launch your career the way it has mine!

Guest Writer Bio:Jordan Ellinger is a Writers of the Future winner and Clarion West graduate. His story “Kineater” recently made an appearance in Warhammer:The Gotrek & Felix Anthology and has work upcoming in Hammer&Bolter as well as World’s Collider, a new anthology from Nightscape Press. In his spare time, he helms Every Day Publishing, publisher of Every Day Fiction, Every Day Poets, Flash Fiction Chronicles, and Raygun Revival. To read more, visit his website www.jordanellinger.com or follow him on twitter @jordanellinger.

Sunday Reads: 22 July 2012

July 22, 2012

KylieQ

10 reads worth your time:

Ryann Kerekes has some tips for getting a first draft down fast in How Long Does it Take to Write a Book?

On the other hand, KM Weiland suggests some novels can’t be written quickly in Are You Writing Your Novel Too Fast?

Jeffe Kennedy talks about When To Stop Revising and Move On.

And when you do move on to revising, Matthew Salesses has some tips in A Month of Revision.

Matthew Iden examines Kobo as a competitor to Amazon in Kobo: The Heavyweight Challenger?

Jane Friedman has some e-publishing basics in The Best E-Publishing Resources.

Marcy Kennedy talks about increasing your blog’s audience in Four Little-Known Factors That Could Destroy Your Blog’s Chances of Success.

Victoria Strauss details one writer’s nasty shock in Editing Clauses in Publishing Contracts: How To Protect Yourself.

Bob Mayer recommendings letting go of bad reviews in How Should Authors Handle Book Reviews?

Finally, check out a unique advertising campaign from Mignon Fogarty (aka Grammar Girl) in What If Grammarians Had Their Own Magazine?

Missed any Fictorians articles?

Ann Cooney – Writing Stillness

Ann Cooney – Critiques Part 1 – Understanding the Process

Mary Pletsch – Filing Off the Serial Numbers: Part Two: Real Life

Filing Off the Serial Numbers: Part Two: Real Life

July 20, 2012

mary

The Writing Life No Comments

I have writer friends who have characters based on or inspired by real people. I had a good laugh when I finally met some of these folks in person, after previously meeting their fictional incarnation, and much to my surprise, none of them were really aliens from outer space… Other writers strictly avoid direct imports from real life.

As with my previous post regarding characters and stories inspired by fan fiction, I’m not a legal expert and can’t comment on the limitations of the statement “Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is strictly coincidental.” Translation: naming fictional murder victims after the grade school bullies might not be the wisest course of action.

Importing a character from real life might seem to have some benefits-it’s a ready-made personality, and when you’re writing, you need only ask yourself “what would my friend do?” to have an answer. It can be a fun tribute to people you know to give them a fictional incarnation. But bringing a real-world personality into a fictional story carries some pitfalls as well.

History. Events can profoundly influence the course of a person’s life: upbringing, schooling, jobs, illnesses, relationships. This rule is even more important for fictional characters: would Bruce Wayne have become Batman if his parents hadn’t been murdered? What would Mal Reynolds have been like if the Browncoats had won? How would the group dynamics have changed if Xander, not Buffy, were the Vampire Slayer? Experiences that happened to the characters before the story even starts have shaped who those characters are when the story begins.

With a newly created fictional character, a writer can “work backwards” to construct a logical history that will explain the character’s motivations, goals, and behaviours in their story. With a real person, the history that formed their real-life personality might not work with the role their character plays in your story, particularly if there’s an issue with…

Setting. Your brilliant Physics PhD best friend might not have gotten a chance to become a scientist if she’d been born in the Wild West, which is where your story happens to be set… Once again, the writer will need to tinker with the person’s life experiences to make the character “fit.” Then, if the character’s present doesn’t logically reflect that past, the character comes across as contrived, wooden, or just plain not making sense. And the past isn’t the only problem…

Character development. The best characters grow and change over the course of a story. The story gives them new experiences which shape their goals, beliefs, motivations, and outlook. Nobody can survive a genocide unscathed; nobody can become a movie star or president or superhero and remain the same person they were when they worked at Burger Queen. But as fictional experiences shape your character, they either grow away from their real-life counterpart or else leave readers wondering why the character is mysteriously unaffected by the events they’ve survived.

There are writers who have successfully blended characters based on real people into their fictional universes. Personally, I’ve find it more effective to draw inspiration from real people-a trait, an outlook, a belief, a past event and their response-than to import exact copies. This approach has allowed me to put my observations of real life into my fiction, creating characters that feel authentic and act in realistic ways, without slavishly adapting real-life personalities into fictional settings where they don’t quite fit, or cooking up convoluted backstories to justify why my Wild West housewife thinks and acts like a Physics PhD. And since the characters aren’t copies of real people, I don’t feel badly if they develop in different ways then the real-life person who inspired them, particularly if some of those ways aren’t entirely flattering.

If you’re thinking of basing a character off someone you know from real life, think carefully. How will this person’s history have to change to help the character fit into the fictional setting and fictional role? Perhaps it’s best to keep real life people as cameo characters in your story, or use select traits or personalities from real people as a jumping-off point to build a character who is wholly their own person.

Critiques ““ Part 1 ““ Understanding the Process

July 18, 2012

Ace Jordyn

Ace Jordyn Craft & Skills Critiques Rewriting The Writing Life The Writing Process 2 Comments

Recently I gave a presentation to a local writers’ group on the art of giving critique. To fully understand and engage in the critique process we need to first understand why we write, what a critique is, how an author can help the process and how to give a critique. In this blog, we’ll talk about why we write and why receiving a critique can be so difficult.

Why do we write?

When we understand why and what makes us so sensitive to feedback, it actually becomes easier to absorb the information we receive in an impartial way.

I, like many of you, write because I’m miserable when I don’t. As others need to breathe, so I need to write. We all write because we are story tellers – we have something to say, we see worlds and creatures and characters the average person does not, we give commentary about the human condition, our politics, our society, our values, our relationships – we are observers with a unique way of expressing ourselves – BUT most important, for us, writing is fun and it is who we are.

We have an idea – that is personal. We think. We sweat, we write and rewrite hoping that the story we tell is understood by others. The crux is that we, the writers become so intimate with the process and the material that it feels personal – and it is because every fabric of our being has been poured into the story.

So when someone doesn’t like what we’ve done and how we’ve done it, it feels personal even when it isn’t. But, when we focus on the need to express the characters and world we see, it becomes much easier to accept feedback.

This is not dissimilar to mining for gems. We find the diamond. It is rough. It is uncut. We cut. We polish. We wanting to reveal the heart of the stone – the heart we know is there. We work with experts who can help us get the angle just right on every facet. Then we polish until it sparkles.

Writing is no different. We have a gem stone of an idea. We hone our tools. We dig. We scrape. Sometimes we cut and reshape, making every facet as stellar as it can be. And then we must ask if others see what we do.

The critique process should help us polish our gems, to make the story stronger, to make its heart shine brighter. And, if you have a good critique group, they’ll help you do just that.

When we understand that our goal is to express an idea, to create a story which is both entertaining and enlightening, the feedback feels less personal, more constructive because we know that everything we do makes our gem shine brighter.

There are two other things to remember:

1) learning that the gem we polished isn’t as bright as it can be, hurts. And it can hurt a lot. That’s part of being human. Part of being a writer is understanding that and gracefully going forward by thoughtfully considering the comments.

2) the person giving the critique can get it wrong. As the writer you must also figure that out. But generally, most don’t get it wrong if there are problems with grammar, structure, story arc and character development. And let’s face it, if we don’t solve these problems before submitting, no editor will read the story, let alone help you polish your gem.

The next time we meet, we’ll talk about what a critique is and how to give a good critique.