Thanks to our good friend, award winning, hatrack colleague Ben Mann, not only do we have a copy of the fresh off the presses Writers of the Future Vol 27, we have one that is signed by every author in the book and Kathy Wentworth herself. I would like some help before I announce the trigger and start this years contest.

I am guessing we will get a record number of participants, which means the chore of reading and criting could get quite daunting. With that in mind...

1) How many triggers?

I am thinking one will do. Last year we had two. For sure, I want to use Ben's title...

Unfamiliar Territory

...which I think is just beautiful for a trigger challenge. Pat Sullivan's (the other writer with hatrack connections) story isn't as friendly for a challenge.

Maddy Dune's First and Only Spelling Bee

See what I mean? So what's the consensus? One trigger or more?

2) Story length

The rules are writers will need to judge to play. If the contest gets large, I will break the entries up into groups. Still, make the word counts too large and you could be reading a novels worth of writing.
I am thinking 2500 words should be the limit. Not too long to make you groan to read, not too short to create a compelling story. Sound about right?

3) The final round

Last year 3 WotF winners graciously volunteered to judge the last round. I tried to convince Ben to be the lone judge but he wasn't going for that, but said he would if he got a little help from other hatrack winning authors (hint,hint).
But if we can't get more judges, would you be all willing to read the finalist and help pick the lucky slob?

4) 13 line openings

We always included them in the judging. Would you like to continue to do so? I have awarded points to early entries so I could post them to entice more to enter. Nothing like seeing competition to spur writers to create. Should I keep this practice in place?

5) Time frame

We'll need to set deadlines for entries and judging. The important question is how long do you need to get something written? I am toying with June 19th. It is a sunday and won't conflict with the Q3 deadline. Sound good?

Need answers. The sooner I get them, the sooner Shimiqua can curl up to her autographed book.

Sounds good, even though I think 3,000 words would be okay. But is that the Max or does it have to be that long?

And if we had more than one trigger do we get a choice of which one?

The spelling bee one could be mophed into something like a contest in general or a similar type of contest.

And how about one week later for the deadline? My vacation would be starting then and it would give me a day to work on it if I need the extra time

Also just to be clear...no one answered this question last time...but is a trigger the same thing as a premise? That's second word that is used here I'm not used to.

A trigger would be more of a starting point for an idea. Your entry would have to reflect what the trigger is about. So trying to insert Maddy Dune's First and Only Spelling Bee into an idea would be so difficult you would be in danger of plagerism. After all a 'spelling bee' wouldn't be enough. The spelling bee would have to include 'Maddy Dune' and it would have to her/his/it's first and only one.

There is far more to work with in Ben's title, and yes, you would be able to chose the trigger you want.

Brad Torgersen
Ben Mann
Adam Colston
Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
Eric James Stone

and
Dan Smyth

Word length, I'm finding it harder to keep it below 4000 these days, so that would be my vote. At least 3000. You could always split it into three groups if we got more than 12 entries.

As some of these entries end up as WOTF entries too, you could well not do the openings. But it does help keep the game going to see other starts, so up to you about that.

As for Shimiqua settling with the book, I'm sure that Ethereon may have something to say about that.

I like a 3000 word limit, the 'Unfamiliar Territory' trigger and prefer a first 13.

Last year we used two triggers, skadders and the winning entry. Can anyone tell me what the title of that one was?

3000 words is looking like a good compromise/consensus - any objections?

Is that normal?

The title of Richard Johnson's grand-prize winning story is, "In Apprehension, How Like a God."

snapper, last year's first prize winning title was "Living Rooms" by Laurie Tom.

quote:

---

WotF winners I know of who have poked their noses in here this year.
Brad Torgersen
Ben Mann
Adam Colston
Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
Eric James Stone

---

I may have seen most of of those names at one time or another.

Louis, I believe posulliv (Patrick) needs to be on your list.

And didn't John Brown win as well?

Didn't mean to come across as WOTF police! I just had a vague idea about your sales, but I admit I have no real idea of the actual number.

Anyway WOTF rules are up to WOTF to enforce...

Trigger: Unfamiliar Territory

Word limit: 3000 max

Deadline: June 19th

"5. The Contest is open only to those who have not professionally published a novel or short novel, or more than one novelette, or more than three short stories, in any medium. Professional publication is deemed to be payment, and at least 5,000 copies, or 5,000 hits."

Note there's nothing about the value of the payment in there, so I guess even a token market would count here (as oppposed to SFWA payment rules - I've been paid at 5c/word or more for several stories, but enough of them have been flash that I am still not SFWA-eligible to my knowledge). But "at least 5,000 copies/hits - it's very difficult to know whether I have or have not reached that or not. As far as I know, the biggest circulation magazine I've published in is Black Gate which has around 4000 subscribers (I believe). So despite having sold three dozen or so stories, I am still an amateur in both SFWA and WOTF terms.

Tough business, this.

I posted this in the wrong thread earlier. Sorry.

If by chance you extend the deadline, then possibly I'll have a story to submit. If not, likely not. Either way, I thank you for the inspiration.

http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum7/HTML/000194.html

I hope this isn't out of line but I have two things to say about the openings,

Interesting, interesting, interesting, interesting.

After a second look I found one funny character. I hope this translates okay "movement…I " .