It's interesting what Kathy Wentworth said on the WOTF newsgroup: "Quaterfinalist means that I did get all the way through it, and it had one or more elements that I considered well done: setting, idea, characters, plot, prose, voice."

And QF isn't even an indicator of quality, since there is a huge difference between a story at the top of the pile (I sold one of those) and a story near the bottom (typically, the one that's gathering virtual dust on my hard disk after going through a flurry of markets).

I could have made this point by writing my message using words "shortened" in your style, but it would have been highly offensive and there would have been little chance that everyone would have gotten the joke. Even those that did get the joke would probably have found the method of illustrating the point unacceptable.

Yes, the contest is still sort of being facilitated by "the estate of L. Ron Hubbard". Which means- Scientologists.

That personally spooked me a little. I started talking to people on other writer's groups and looked up the websites from some of the past winners.

It turns out that WOTF is a completely legitimate, no upfront fee, no vanity press, no Scientology recruitment type contest. It is purely about "lets find the best amateur writers out there".

I meant no disrespect. The 'lol' was laughing at the joke you posted. Very cleverly done, I might add. The comment I made is response was not a retort, nor meant to be one. The ' ' at the end of a phrase is common netiquette meaning my reply was designed to be a return joke. Which makes any misconecptions about its meaning my fault, since I did not use common written etiquette - which I realize I should have for a writer's forum. For which I apologize if I made offense.

The definition at the end was merely there to point out the difference between script and manuscript for those who may not know the subtle difference, since most of the people on the forums are ametuer writers (myself included).

Jammrock

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I feel the need to add a comment on "shortening," for some reason. I've never gotten into the habit. Though I might abbreviate something, I generally try to spell things out thoroughly and completely. Probably because reading things like that tend to confuse me...I know most of the abbreviations in current use, but not all of them.

Jammrock

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If most of the people on this site were "real" writers, people would be coming to our websites instead of us coming here. But you have to start somewhere, and I've found the people who frequest the Hatrack Writer's Wrokshop to be very friendly and helpful. Welcome aboard!

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