A large percentage (probably in the order of 90%) of the stories don’t get past the first paragraph or so. Kathy has confirmed this on a number of occations. Most of the time she knows quickly.

Honorable mention means it was a contender but there were enough other stronger entries that the story got bumped to HM. There are only 16 finalist stories per quarter. Of these she has to rank them so that the bottom 8 become Semi-finalist and go no further beyond a personal critique. The remaining 8 move on to be judged by celebrity (at least in the literary world) judges and Kathy has no more say in the results. The celebrity judges pick the top three by consensus.

A strong start and rich story are your best friends in a competition such as this.

Tracy

If I were judging Chopin's Heroique by its first fifteen seconds, or the Mona Lisa on just the upper left corner, I might toss them into the garbage as well.

As in submitting to any publication, there's no guarantee the slush pile reader (in this case KD Wentworth) will read past the first line, let alone the first page.

She has been kind enough to let people know what she looks for--a hook and a speculative element and good clean writing. That'll get you past page one.

However, the hook doesn't have to be action you know. The hook in my last one, which many people thought was quite good, well, I can't say what it was, but it was the first line and had nothing at all to do with action. But it stirred the readers curiousity.

However, let me tell you that I have had many conversations with Gary Cuba who is a slush reader over at Baen's Universe. He says that ALL slush readers look for SOMETHING to hook them within the first 150-250 words or so of a story. It doesn't have to be someone being murdered, but it has to show there is a story to be told here. He assures me that all the major publications simply receive too many submissions for this to not be the case.

If you feel that you're betraying your art by doing this, there still might be a slush reader out there somewhere who will read on, but we live and publish in the real world where competition is fierce for the few fiction slots out there. So... *shrug*

You have to do what's right for you. Personally, you bet I tailor my work to try to meet what the editors or judges want.

Edit: Incidentally, you might want to keep in mind that Mona Lisa was a work comissioned by a customer.

So the question is, what hooks the slush reader(s)?

Besides, if you're not acquainted with Baen's Bar I always suggest going there anyway. It's an education.

It's one of the few places on earth where slush writers actually get to talk to editors.

Edit: The hook in that story--well... you decide. But I'm absolutely sure it has one. My other story posted over there, Seeds of Healing has a more obvious hook. You know from the get-go that she's being pursued.

Further edit: Oh, I also have a short story I actually SOLD (yes I sometimes sell something lol) over at http://sorceroussignals.com/CurrentIssue.html but I don't think it's that great. It was one of my early short stories and I was a bit -- dumb. LOL

And I have a short story I sold to an anthology called Arcane Whispers (published by the same company by the way) on Amazon. But it's an early story too, and I'd do better now. I kind of cringe when I read some of my early work.

[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited July 21, 2008).]

I don't remember any first person, and I consider that evidence of Eric Flint's contention that first person is hard to do well. I don't see any reason one couldn't win if it were good enough. I'm sure some have that I just haven't noticed. The time issue -- I think time was handled very interestingly in Shroedinger's Hummingbird. I don't think it would make winning impossible.

Present tense is in the now moment of the dramatic action. Logically, there's little time for introspective reflection upon events except after the event unfolds. The limitation of present tense is from relating action in the now moment. Reflection slows down and might intrude into action scenes. Do warriors think about their dinner while they're engaged in combat? Reflection scenes might be used as intercessions, between battle scenes, before or after a battle, and so forth.

Per a recent thread here, reading about the weather doesn't generally constitute a hook, but reading about a character faced with challenges the weather presents can.

Then again, you can follow the "rules" (whatever they are - LOL, not sure there are any actual rules) and write a beginning where there is a sympathetic character in the middle of something active and facing some kind of challenge, and still write it terribly such that nobody would want to read further.

As others have pointed out before, the first lines of a story are a contract to the reader. "Here, Reader, come spend some of your time with me. I'll tell you a good yarn. You'll be glad you spent the time." That what those first lines should say, regardless of who the reader is - a contest judge, a slush pile reader, your best friend, your dog, etc. We should commit to the readers that we'll tell them a good story, then deliver on that promise. That's our job. And as our Hatrack KDW posted today on writing genius - telling a story in a simple way is more indicative of art/genius than anything else, at least that's my perspective.

It shouldn't be a gimmick. It should just be something that promises a story. After all that's what our readers are looking for, right? They have a right to ask us to promise them that. It doesn't really have anything to do with whether the story has a fast or slow start. You can hook the reader with a slow start that still promises a good yarn.

Edit: As far as the PoV question, since I had Volume 22 next to my keyboard, I double checked my memory. I didn't recall any first person stories in it. Actually there are three first person stories out of the twelve stories in the volume--25%. I'd hardly say they predominate but one obviously has a chance.

I have a few other volumes but I'd have to manage to locate one so that's as far as my research will go. I suspect it's probably fairly typical.

And consider. There were, from what Chris is saying, a lot of first person in 23. There were few in 22. That probably indicates that they don't care whether it's first person or not but whether the choice fits the story.

Make sense?

quote:

---

I'm soaring over the snow-tipped peaks, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my wings, when the call comes in from Andrew. It's been three years, four months, seventeen days, five hours, forty-seven minutes and twelve seconds, simtime, since I last talked to him, so immediately I fork my consciousness and slow one of me down to realtime.
I answer the call in video mode, using my human appearance. "Hey, buddy. Long time no see."
Andrew jerks slightly, then shakes his head with a smile. "Can't you at least wait for the phone to ring before answering, like a normal person?"
"Sorry. Was just glad to hear from you."
His voice is thoughtful. "Just got back from your mom's

---

What's the hook here? It's not action or violence, obviously, because it's basically just a guy taking a phone call from a friend. The hook is intriguing elements like the "sun on my wings," the extreme accuracy as to time, and "fork my consciousness and slow one of me down to realtime." Those bits (A) make clear that the story is speculative fiction, (B) promise that there's an unusual setting for the story, and (C) introduce a character who is obviously not a normal human.

Oh, and note that it's first person present tense.

The first 13 lines of my 2nd place story "Betrayer of Trees":

quote:

---

Some of the younger stoneworkers in the guild called him Janal the Stonemage, but he knew there was no magic in his work. It was merely the skills he’d learned over nearly fifty years of carving that allowed him to turn rough-hewn stone into delicate beauty. His wrinkled hands were no longer as strong as they had been, and his pace had slowed, but when the townsfolk of Capeton wanted stonework of the highest quality, they always asked the guildmaster to assign Janal.
Word of his work had spread far enough that several times he had been offered a commission in one of the nearer cities, especially in the fifteen years since woodcarving had been outlawed by Imperial decree. But Janal always turned them down. Capeton was his home, he would tell them, and he never wanted to

---

What's the hook for this story? Again, no action or violence. There's a hint of magic, and a bit of mystery as to why woodcarving has been outlawed, but the hook is probably the character: we tend to admire people who are very good at something, and based on the admiration of his peers, Janal is obviously a great stonecarver.

When I expanded the assignment into a story, I consciously decided to stick with first person because I liked the narrator's voice.

It isn't that Mr. Flint or anyone is arguing that you shouldn't use the voice that is best for the story. However, I think he had a good point that generally close third is best unless there is a reason for using another.

So people here have cautioned against posting the title of your WotF in the fear of compromising the anonymity of the judging, especially for someone like me whose handle readily suggests my name.

But wouldn't just posting the first 13 at all compromise that, assuming you don't end up changing a lot of it?

I suppose there could be a small small chance a judge would remember a handle, connect it with a person, remember the first thirteen and feel the anonymity was compromised. Seems quite a bit of a stretch to me though.

But first the judge would have to read the first 13. I suspect they would avoid doing that for the same reason, to protect the contest -- in the unlikely event they were tempted.

Edit: By the way, my likely next entry was posted on Baen's in full with my name. I honestly didn't worry about it at all.

I can't imagine an author like KD Wentworth going over there to browse. She no doubt gets enough painful entries in WotF. I doubt she looks for more. *grin*

I suspect she would have second thoughts about the possibility of seeing a future entry there if she considered it. The judges must be as concerned about protecting the contest as we are, probably more so. So I think some of the concerns really are being overly cautious.

I am not at all suprised at her taking the contest that seriously. It's exactly what I would expect of her and the other judges as well. I suspect they all avoid seeing work that might be a future contest entry such as is posted at Baen's or the First 13 here.

Thanks for mentioning that. I think it may ease some fears on the subject.

Edit: My own reading of Joni's comment in her WotF blog was that she was concerned about authors posting on public forums or their own blogs that they were finalists without thinking that that might break the anonymity. I really don't think she seemed concerned about workshopping which doesn't go onto search engines. I'm not saying a little care hurts, but really that shouldn't keep us from workshopping our stories to improve them. That is counterproductive in my opinion.

Arriki, that's up to you. From what Rahl22 posted, I would say that KD Wentworth would certainly not take a chance on reading anything on a site such as this. In the mentioned link Joni never said don't workshop your stories.

She said the FINALISTS shouldn't go around posting the title of their stories on PUBLIC forums--which this is not. A public forum is on that does not have a password.

Here is what she said: "NOTE TO Finalists - feel free to spread the word of your status, however DO NOT mention the name of your story. The reason is: this contest is judged anonymous..."

That's all. If someone posted say on their on blog that "MY story "The Great Science Fiction Story" is a finalist at WotF" that could easily be googled and be something that a contest finalist judge could see purely by accident.

To imply that this means that the judges go around reading workshops for story titles so they can disqualify people is a huge stretch.

That's an interestng point. I have never checked to see if our posts here end up on google.

If it's something that concerns you, I'd take Chris's advice and use a working title or post it as untitled. I wouldn't let it keep me from workshopping a story though. I think that is not at all what Joni had in mind when she made the post on her blog.

You'll get disagreements like this where some people consider all forums "public" and some consider that if you don't have full access except through use of a password that it isn't public. Obviously, I'm in the latter group.