The Great W1S1 Hey-Do-You-Know-About-This-Market Thread

PastyAlien

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LOVE my prompt. I'm 2100 words in and not quite done the first draft, so I see some cutting in my future. My eyestalks are SMOKIN. :aliensmile: I'm going to post my story in SYW tomorrow and grab some feedback before I sub. Sure, let's share prompts after the contest is over. :)
 

PastyAlien

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Interesting contest, and I like my prompt! I wonder how much the ownership thing has to do with the fact that they give you the three things to work with? At least not much time will be invested in this :)

Huh, I never thought about it like that, Phyllis, but you might be right, there.

I think we should share our prompts once the contest/judging is over! (I don't know the rules for this challenge, as I've only seen people sharing their titles.) I love my science prompt, and I think I can fit in my line of dialogue naturally, but the title is just...it's a struggle to work something in that will have the title make sense. Ice Cold Smile, yeesh.

I'm 550+ words into mine, so far...I quite like the direction it is going in.
I didn't make the shortlist, but it was tonnes of fun writing a complete story in a weekend. How about you two? Any luck?

Here are my prompts:

Title: THE TARRING BRUSH
Dialogue: That's it. I'm doomed to stay here the rest of my life.
Science (optional): Augmented reality becomes so good we neglect reality, when the system to fails, the decay is revealed.

My science prompt had an extraneous word and a comma splice. :)
 

fairphyllis

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I didn't make the shortlist, but it was tonnes of fun writing a complete story in a weekend. How about you two? Any luck?

Here are my prompts:

Title: THE TARRING BRUSH
Dialogue: That's it. I'm doomed to stay here the rest of my life.
Science (optional): Augmented reality becomes so good we neglect reality, when the system to fails, the decay is revealed.

My science prompt had an extraneous word and a comma splice. :)

I ended up not finishing or submitting mine. I liked my idea but had a little freakout about the rules, so I decided to sit on my characters and do something else with them. :)
 

Sara K.

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Those are some good looking prompts, Pasty! I got:
TITLE: Ice Cold Smile
DIALOGUE: Wednesday? How can it be Wednesday? Yesterday was Wednesday!
SCIENCE: Discovery that all human intelligence is due to infection - is there a cure?

As I mentioned in my last post, I really did no like my title prompt. I worked my dialogue in alright, but the title made it hard for me to work around - maybe that's the old "bad workman blames his tools" though :p


As for new markets, I came across Futurescapes Writing Contest today. The prompt is pretty cool, and I'm intrigued that we have to come up with a "solution" to how to get to their prompt. I'm gonna let some ideas percolate for now, but I love the idea of this contest. Really original!
 

PastyAlien

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As for new markets, I came across Futurescapes Writing Contest today. The prompt is pretty cool, and I'm intrigued that we have to come up with a "solution" to how to get to their prompt. I'm gonna let some ideas percolate for now, but I love the idea of this contest. Really original!
Sweet! Looks like it's right up my alley. And the great thing about these SFF contests is most of them don't have an entry fee (unlike literary contests). Thanks for the heads up! :)
 

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fairphyllis

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I'm going to start posting spec-fic contests here as I find out about them (I'll only post those with no entry fee and a reasonably-sized prize). Might be fun if more people did the same; we could enter them and bite our nails together. :)

Writing the Future - £10,000 top prize


Also a couple of anthologies:

Broad Knowledge: 35 Women Up To No Good Anthology

That Dammed Beaver: New Canadian Comedy
(Just for Canadians, eh)

Thanks for this!!

Obviously something with a £10k prize is going to be intriguing... Do you think the expectation is that the stories will be optimistic about the future? Seemed implicit but never stated...
 

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I'm going to start posting spec-fic contests here as I find out about them (I'll only post those with no entry fee and a reasonably-sized prize). Might be fun if more people did the same; we could enter them and bite our nails together. :)

Writing the Future - £10,000 top prize


Also a couple of anthologies:

Broad Knowledge: 35 Women Up To No Good Anthology

That Dammed Beaver: New Canadian Comedy
(Just for Canadians, eh)

Do you know about the Contests sub-forum?
 

PastyAlien

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Thanks for this!!

Obviously something with a £10k prize is going to be intriguing... Yep. Definitely going for that one! Do you think the expectation is that the stories will be optimistic about the future? Seemed implicit but never stated...
Hrmmm. Not necessarily. The books they listed were definitely dystopian. And I think SF often warns society where NOT to go:

“People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it." -Ray Bradbury
I usually end up writing about bad futures (because conflict), then make the MC work through to a solution. But there are tonnes of ways you could go about it. :)
 

fairphyllis

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Hrmmm. Not necessarily. The books they listed were definitely dystopian. And I think SF often warns society where NOT to go:

I usually end up writing about bad futures (because conflict), then make the MC work through to a solution. But there are tonnes of ways you could go about it. :)

Good point :D
 

JJ Litke

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Does anyone know anything about The Weekly Kn0b? There's a weekly prompt, then people write and submit stories based on that. No mention of pay, and they aren't listed on Submission Grinder. Someone I casually know it into it, and it seems a little fishy to me.
 

fairphyllis

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Does anyone know anything about The Weekly Kn0b? There's a weekly prompt, then people write and submit stories based on that. No mention of pay, and they aren't listed on Submission Grinder. Someone I casually know it into it, and it seems a little fishy to me.

I don't know anything about it except that the name can't be taken seriously by the British or those familiar with British vernacular...! I had to look at the website out of sheer curiosity. It's doorknobs, people. Perfectly innocent.

Speaking of, though, the website is very nicely designed, which bodes well, at least.
 

JJ Litke

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I don't know anything about it except that the name can't be taken seriously by the British or those familiar with British vernacular...! I had to look at the website out of sheer curiosity. It's doorknobs, people. Perfectly innocent.

Ha, I thought about that, too.

Speaking of, though, the website is very nicely designed, which bodes well, at least.

It's on Medium's blogging platform. But I wouldn't judge the value of a site based on aesthetics, or on where it's being hosted.
 

Sara K.

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Not sure if this is the best place, but Uncanny Magazine will be open for subs 3rd-10th June.

I'm still considering if I have anything that fits, or if I should try and write something new for them.

EDIT: And Liminal Stores is open until 15th June only.
 
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Liz_V

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AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review is relaunching after resolving some major website issues, and submissions are now open for the relaunch issue. They give preference to Canadian authors, but are open to writers from elsewhere, too.
 

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Factor Four Magazine just opened in April 2018 as a flash market, paying 8 cents/word. They're up on the Grinder.