O | The Online Writing Workshop Newsletter, November 2000
W | sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com
W | Become a better writer!

| - - CONTENTS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

- Sponsorship Update: now sponsored through January 6!
- Workshop News:
  New review policy for more helpful reviews
  New navigation and How-to-Review FAQ
  Coming soon: new main page
  Reminders and tips
- Editors' Choices for October submissions
- Editorial Focus
- Reviewer Honor Roll
- Contest/Market Announcements
- Publication Announcements
- Workshop Statistics
- Feedback:
  Poll on revision notification
  Tips for fellow members
  

| - - SPONSORSHIP UPDATE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

The Online Writing Workshop is currently sponsored by Del Rey Books,
one of the leading publishers of SF/F.  This sponsorship has been
extended through January 6, 2001, so workshop membership will be
completely free through that date.  We will alert all members about 2
weeks before the end of the sponsorship, if no other sponsorship has
been lined up, and instruct you all in how to continue as paying
members if that's what you choose to do.

Visit the Del Rey Books Web site for sample
chapters of upcoming books, in-depth features, author interviews,
special offers, and more: http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey

Del Rey's featured title for November/December: REDEMPTION OF 
ALTHALUS by David & Leigh Eddings 

Mythmakers and world builders of the first order, David and Leigh
Eddings spin tales that make imaginations soar.  Readers have thrilled
to THE BELGARIAD and THE MALLOREON, magic-filled masterworks
chronicling the timeless conflict between good and evil.  But with
those sagas brought to their triumphant conclusions, fans were left
hungry for more.  Now at last the wait is over.  With THE REDEMPTION
OF ALTHALUS, the Eddingses have created their first-ever stand-alone
fantasy.  Boldly written and brilliantly imagined, this new novel is
to be savored in the reading and returned to again and again for the
wisdom, excitement, and humor that only the David and Leigh Eddings
can provide. 

Find out more about the book and read an interview with David Eddings:
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0345440773



| - - WORKSHOP NEWS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

NEW REVIEW POLICY FOR MORE HELPFUL REVIEWS

After polling our members about what you found most useful in reviews,
we've decided to require a text message as well as a set of numerical
ratings in each review.  This will emphasize to reviewers the
importance of explaining their rating numbers and providing more
detailed feedback to authors.  This change goes into effect this week.
 
Contentless reviews:  New members often are at a bit of a loss as to
how to review and critique submissions.  The workshop's administrative
staff is taking steps to contact members whose reviews are devoid of
useful content and point them on their way to more useful reviewing
techniques.  Our new "How to Review" FAQ, available by clicking the
"How to Review" button, will also be sent via e-mail to those members
who need help.  

If you receive a "contentless" review, especially if the reviewer
seems to have a habit of giving such reviews, let us know at
support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com and we'll see what we can do.  

NEW NAVIGATION AND HOW-TO-REVIEW FAQ

Earlier this month we redid the site's navigational buttons, putting
the members-only items on the left and the informational items at the
top.  We also added our "How to Review" FAQ, put together with the
help of some of you by Charlie Finlay.  Thanks for your help!  

COMING SOON: NEW MAIN PAGE

Before the end of the month we will unveil a new introductory page for
the workshop--one that explains its benefits to potential members,
including editors and agents, and is a little more zippy than our
current intro.  It will also include a list of top reviewers, updated
daily, and some daily statistics.

REMINDERS AND TIPS

Updating submissions:  If you want to replace a current submission
with an edited version, don't delete and resubmit--that will cost you
three review points.  Instead, use the "Edit this submission" link
that shows up when you view your own submission (no points necessary).

Using the "append text" form:  you need to submit your first chunk of
text via the regular submission form before you follow the link to the
"append text" form and submit the rest.

Can't paste into our submission form?  As far as we can tell, one out
of a hundred members has this problem, which is caused by a bug in the
particular browser version they're using (seems to be a version of
Internet Explorer 5 on a PC).  Let us know if you're having this
problem, and until we figure out how to get around it we are happy to
post your submissions for you.  Contact us at
support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com.

Formatting:  Check the formatting of your submissions after you
submit, and edit if necessary.  If your submission has no paragraph
breaks, it will likely have no reviewers!  Tips on italicizing,
boldfacing, paragraph and line breaks, etc. can be found in our
Formatting Tips, which you can also get to from the submission form.  

Formatting Tips: http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/formatting.shtml

Author tip from Helena Szczepaniak:

If you're (yore, yaw, your:-) not sure how a word is written or
punctuated, you don't need a textbook or a style manual, all you need
is just about _any_ professionally typeset book. If you flick through
a few pages of just about any novel, you're bound to come across
examples of the words/punctuation you're having difficulty with. 
Generally, no matter how crappy (or otherwise) the story may be, the
typesetting will usually be correct, so you can simply copy what you
see in the book. This applies to correct usage of apostrophes, colons,
semi-colons, ellipses and just about anything else.


| - - EDITORS' CHOICES - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

The Editor's Choices are the submissions from the previous month that
show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of our
Editorial Board.  Each gets a composite review by the Board, which is
published on the site and in the newsletter.  We usually pick one
fantasy chapter or partial chapter, one SF chapter or partial chapter,
and one short story. (The volume of short stories is much less than
that of chapters, so we're not going to pick a fantasy story and an SF
story each month unless that imbalance changes. Mixed SF/F chapters
will be considered under whichever category seems to predominate in
the submission.) We also list two  runners-up in each category the
newsletter, with our comments.

To view Editors' Choices on the workshop, go to the submission list
and click on "Editors' Choices" in the Submission Selector.  Six
months of ECs will be archived there, with their editorial reviews.

Our Editorial Board: 
http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/editorialboard.shtml

Congratulations to this month's Editors' Choice authors and runners 
up!


Editor's Choice, fantasy chapter/partial chapter:  SUNDRAGON RISING by
Marnie Goodbody

We liked this a lot!  The main character is Li, a small boy, and his
POV is skillfully handled, while the writing overall is extremely
strong.  The action of the marketplace play, where the magician Jian
Fei De goes in search of a peach of immortality, is nicely mirrored in
the action of the chapter, where an empress has sent the "demon" Quian
in search of an orchid. For the most part, the characters' dialogue is
convincingly done, but occasionally Li's father Yuei Fa sounds like
any 20th century middle-class parent who is displeased with his
son--watch out for slips in style.  Barry Hughart, winner of a World
Fantasy Award for his novel BRIDGE OF BIRDS, might prove a very useful
example.  You might also want to describe the village in a little more
detail--it was hard to picture how the houses, the market, and the
stage were arranged, and a little disconcerting to realize that the
houses were lifted up on stilts.  Describe them!  Occasionally,
metaphors run into each other--"musicians frantic as demented spiders"
and "actors explod[ing] onto stage like firecrackers" are both
terrific, but next to each other, a little distracting.  The
tubercular cough of the musician, and the percussive storm the other
musician conjures up to cover his cough, are fantastic details. So is
the fact that Li is distracted from the artifice of the play by the
boy actor's boots (even more than by his pockmarked face)--that's
wonderful!  You write that "a sunrise of interest came over [the]
whole body" of the monk who stops to talk to Li; one editor thought
this was a fabulous image, and another found it awkward.  You could
cut some of Li's internal thought processes in his discussion with the
monk, so that, for example--"Li swallowed, tempted to lie. [cut to] 'I
am... inauspicious,' he said at last." What isn't said is can be used
to greater effect than cramming in too much detail. Otherwise, there
are a few sentence fragments to clean up, and some of the dashes and
semicolons should be replaced by commas.  When Li thinks that the
priest Hao Sifu is "taking my funeral!" "taking" didn't seem quite
right. But on the whole, the writing was assured and lively. We did
think that the title was not as interesting as the actual story being
told, and one editor remarks that he has seen a lot of titles ending
with the word "Rising."  As a character, Li seems a bit more naive
than one would expect in a boy so beaten down by life and his
father--of course, over the course of the next few chapters, his life
is about to change drastically.  

Editor's Choice, SF chapter/partial chapter: THE HORSES OF ACHILLES 
by Marguerite Reed

We were pulled right into this chapter.  From the very first
sentence--"The second time I saw a Beast I was visiting Moira Ximenez,
the wife of the Governor of New Albuquerque"--the author knows how to
hook us. We want to know what a Beast was, what happened the first
time the narrator saw one, and where in the universe exactly is New
Albuquerque? As the chapter goes on, we get a lot more intriguing
details and hints about this world, and the background of the narrator
Vashti:  possibly a few too many.  For example, we aren't quite sure
what a Tilden is, or what exactly an "American" (this is slang,
right?) gene is.  And what's the Second Wave? We trust that the author
is intending to explain as she goes along, but it might be better to
begin with less.  Hook us with the big mysteries--too many small
confusions tend to irritate readers.  And yes, on the other hand, too
much explanation of too many details is equally frustrating--it's an
extremely hard balance to maintain in science fiction when you're
building a new world from the ground up. But on the whole, we trust
this writer's instincts. She has a gift for striking images: Moira, in
purple veils from head to toe; the turbines marching "in staggered
rows across the horizon, white as salt"; the client that Vashti thinks
of as a "tall bank"; the skeggox, or "bearded axes."  In a few places
the writing trips over itself: "the nature's imitations built by
themselves, perhaps, or by pertinent male relatives" is problematic--a
metaphor crammed into duty as a noun.  Also, all of the female
characters that we meet in this chapter seem perfectly capable of
helping a small child construct a glider--in fact, the only male in
the story thus far is a Beast under lock and key. A detail:
Selphanie's dialogue at first is vaguely Caribbean, and then flattens
out.  Don't let it flatten out completely! Later on, we get a little
confused when another character, Hoffman, seems to waver between male
and female--is this intentional, or just an early draft's confusion of
pronouns? The description of the hunt for the skeggox is wonderfully
vivid, and the transitions between skeggox, science, Emperor Penguins,
and pregnancy were skillfully handled. So is the mixture of friendship
and tension between Vashti, a Natch, and the other, Enhanced women:
Vashti's distrust of the Beast seems particularly interesting in this
context. Lastly, we like the small ways in which the author seems to
be playing with the fairy tale imagery of Beauty and the Beast--who
says fairy tales and science fiction don't mix?

Editor's Choice, Short Story: THE BOOK OF LESSER WARDING by Daniel
Goss

We thought this story was a lot of fun. In fact, who can resist a
story set in a city of thieves and magicians, where a recently
overthrown Governor has been ruling in the Unspeakable Name of a
Nameless King? There are nice echoes of both Tolkien and Fritz Leiber:
one editor points out that "Vlana," a character mentioned in this
story, is a character in Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories. 
Is this an intentional homage?  Pendra Sinclurum is a wonderful
character, both resourceful and clumsy.  We were a bit surprised that
she was so indiscreet with the Illusionist Maruk's name before an
interested crowd--it seemed out of character, and a slightly awkward
attempt by the author to set up a comic situation.  There are a number
of fantastic, evocative magical details: the Ring of Non, Quat the
troll, the Avenue of Broken Nails, the spirits guarding Gorsh's door
which the author describes as "the insects of the ether."  We do have
one suggestion for the writer--go back through the story, and consider
the use of adjectives and especially adverbs.  People say or do things
"enigmatically, imperceptibly, reverently, skeptically, thoughtfully,
abruptly, indulgently, indiscreetly, speculatively, raptly, cleverly,
numbly, resentfully"--the list goes on and on, unendingly.  Beware of
adverbs!  They clutter up your prose, and you don't need them--they
tend to distract more than they describe.  Try taking them all out,
and see if you really lose anything of significance.  When you
describe the transformation of the Book of Lesser Warding--the sexiest
book we've ever encountered, by the way--you say "He instantly became
diminished and considerably more rectangular in nature."  Instantly
isn't necessary--"all at once" might work better (although
"considerably more rectangular," in this case, is a wonderful
understatement.) One editor responds in the affirmative to the
author's query concerning the ability of this world to sustain a
fuller storyline--"I'd add my opinion that the story as it now stands
could only benefit from being included in a longer work." But even as
a short story, we thought this had a lot of charm.


Runner Up, fantasy: FEVER--SECTION I by Joshua Palmatier

We had a particularly difficult time, this month, picking between our
Editor's Choice in fantasy and the runners up.  One editor said, "The
three fantasy entries this time around were like apples and oranges
(and pears, I suppose) and very difficult to compare to one another."
This submission is almost entirely set-up, and yet nevertheless
manages to be suspenseful--a page-turner.  From the opening
sentence--"On August 17, 1965, at the end of a long, hot summer, I
killed Beverly Amanda Reeves"--we found the writing professional and
the premise utterly compelling.  We admire the way in which the author
gives us a historical context, concisely, quickly, and vividly,
snapping back and forth between the larger historic picture and the
particulars of the narrator.  Although nothing overtly fantastic or
supernatural occurs in this first section, the ominous hints of the
town history and the background of the assorted characters--Dr. Avery
Mills, who is leaving Pittsburgh for the small town of Coudersport,
the death of the boy in the tannery fire, the patient in
Pittsburgh--all of this is extremely enticing.  We did wonder if the
description of the boy's death might be a bit too melodramatic.  We
also wondered if Dr. Mills would really admit to the town board that
he had "personal reasons" for leaving Pittsburgh, and it seemed a
slightly too convenient coincidence that a stranger, Harold Reeves,
coming to Pittsburgh to recruit Dr. Mills, should have noticed so much
about an incident regarding Dr. Mills and the patient Richard Angstrom
(who will obviously prove to be significant to the back story). At
this point, you may be giving away too much to the reader, too fast.
There's a lot going on in this chapter already--don't let us (or the
characters, for that matter) figure out the back story too quickly! 
Some of the details are wonderful--the name "Irwin" stitched onto the
coverall of the man at the garage, for example.  Others are confusing
or even contradictory: the fields are parched and dry, but the air is
"heavy with humidity." Keep the images of heat and stickiness
constant--make us sweat while we're reading.

Runner Up, fantasy: SWEET ALIESSE: CHAPTER ONE by Roger Eichorn

Again, we have to mention that all three fantasy chapters were
extremely strong--much like the ongoing Presidential election, this
category was a tough one to call.  This chapter begins very
nicely--it's an excellent trick to open the chapter as the main
character (Joban Lagarty) jumps off a cliff. Not only does this create
a certain amount of suspense, but the author can then with great
plausibility present the character's life story in small, vivid
flashbacks. A small quibble:  when we are told that "a swarm of
butterflies rioted in his stomach" as Joban is jumping off the cliff,
this seems a bit of an understatement.  Butterflies in the stomach are
the sort of thing you expect to have when you're about to give a
speech; jumping off a cliff calls for something more dramatic.  This
world seems fairly familiar by fantasy standards--there are knights
and goddesses and all the usual kind of thing. But the writing is
strong and assured.  The revelation that Aliesse is the fiancee of
Duke Arnos is a nice surprise at the end, and Sir Demilio seems like
an interesting character. It remains to be seen what the goddess
Dionare (as well as Aliesse) sees in Joban, but obviously, he's a
talented painter. Perhaps the stylistic repetition of "It is not your
time" could be cut a bit. One editor was particularly interested in
the mention of purple as the color of death--it's a nice detail,
especially in a novel in which the main character is a painter. On the
other hand, the author's style, every now and then, lapses into purple
prose, as in the description of Aliesse: "like the ores of the earth
that men labor to maintain."  Of course, this is entirely a matter of
taste--the prose that one reader might find purple, another reader
might find voluptuous. 

Runner Up, science fiction:  THAT WHICH IS HUMAN by Bruce Davis

Despite the disclaimer at the beginning of this chapter, stating that
it was "for true fans of the genre only," we thought that this
submission was well written and not too bogged down in military or
technical detail. We hope that the author will find our comments
useful (although we might not be quite his intended audience).  A
small point first--occasionally, the third person narration needs to
be cleaned up. When the author writes that "Finally he [Lt. Arkady
"Ivan" Ivchenko] opened his eyes and looked up at the pilot," it's
awkward.  Ivan is looking at Mac--both Ivan and the reader are already
on a first name basis with Mac. Using "the pilot" instead of a
character's name is awkward (nobody thinks of a colleague/friend by
their job description). Also, once we're told that Mac has a radio
implant in his right mastoid, we don't need to be given its location
over and over again--just say "the receiver." We also wondered where
the female Marines, as well as the women fuel handlers, ordnance
workers, etc, are hiding. It makes the premise seem a bit
old-fashioned if all the characters (except for Linda, the girl back
home) are male. Joe Haldeman, Orson Scott Card, Lois McMaster
Bujold--even Robert Heinlein--have written some extremely interesting
military SF that managed to fit in both genders. The tensions and
complications that are introduced when men and women fight together
make for interesting reading. Also, Mac and Ivan could use a few
individual quirks of character--if we can see their relationship a bit
more clearly, the crippling injury to Ivan and its effect on Mac will
have more weight. The premise, that Marines are unhappily fighting
human colonists when they would rather be going after the reptilian
Rilz, is potentially stronger if we find out more about the colony and
the civilians on Olympia. One place to conveniently insert more
details is in the brief conversation between Mac and Ivan. It might
give us more insight into their characters as well.

Runner Up, science fiction:  THE FURY by Arnold Schwartz

We found this chapter reminiscent of the disaster movies/books of the
'70s. One editor said, "The story moves at a brisk pace.  That's good
in terms of keeping the reader's attention, but not so good in terms
of building interest in any of the characters." We wondered if it's
really meant to be part of a screenplay rather than a novel. 
Sentences like "Jim, Patty, and other workers at the Hurricane Center
crowded around the display" read more like stage directions than
prose. In other places, the writing seemed forced. For example,
"Beverly's body stiffened and her eyes opened so wide they seemed to
scream but no sound came from her frozen throat. A hundred thoughts
thundered in her brain and yet she recognized no single thought." It's
hard to picture eyes screaming, and thoughts thundering through
someone's head sounds a bit too much like a herd of cattle on the
rampage. On the other hand, "Washington and Baltimore felt the
intensity of Dolly as streets became covered in three feet of water"
could use slightly punchier verbs, or else Dolly ends up sounding more
like an interior decorator than an epic storm.  Watch out for sentence
fragments, accidental tense shifts, and cliched language--the
description of Walter and Cynthia's house as not "much to look at, but
it was a dream come true for the elderly couple" doesn't help us to
see anything new or particular about this house, or this couple.  The
more you can do to make your characters individual and unique, the
more we'll care when they're in danger.  Also, one editor commented
that constantly referring to new characters by their first names made
them sound like schoolchildren. The opening of the chapter, all in
dialogue, was awkward--keep in mind that a telephone conversation is a
very static set piece:  two characters, working together in Woods
Hole, and discovering the size of the disaster about to strike the
East Coast, might be more dramatic. On the other hand, the Reverend
Callahan's sermon, complete with the parting of the Red Sea, Grand
Canyon echo, and the superimposing of Michelangelo's Fall and
Expulsion over Callahan's pupils, was a very vivid scene, with
excellent near-futuristic details.  Again, a little careful setup
would help us realize right away that Callahan is not the director,
and one editor points out that Callahan probably begins his biblical
quotation with "Yea," not "Yeah." At the end of the chapter, the Adam
Sequence is mentioned briefly--it's a bit startling to think that all
this sound and fury might be, in the context of the novel, a piece of
misdirection.

Runner Up, short story: PROFIT AND LOSS by Alexander Gabriel

We thought this story was an extremely ambitious, not entirely
successful effort.  This was neither straightforward science fiction,
nor simplistic moral fable. It was reminiscent of the work of writers
like Le Guin, Tiptree, James Patrick Kelly, and Damon Knight. In
places, the writing is lovely, but elsewhere, it becomes awkward or
inappropriate to the tone of the story: when Darrow is suffering the
loss of his imaginary family, alone on his bunk, we learn that "He had
lost significant amounts of weight and his hair had all fallen out." 
This is clunky, and a little too clinical.  On the other hand, the
last paragraph is evocative of loss in a way that genre fiction rarely
manages: "Recently his dreams had begun turning odd. The family was no
longer his own and he himself was taller and stronger. The planet too
was foreign. A mass of impossibly tall trees and shifting colors. He
pursued someone's children through a vast snowy landscape, children
who when he touched them turned to light."  This is beautiful writing!
The author might want to cut back on adverbs, and replace some of the
speech tags like "sighed, ventured, muttered, demanded, quoted" etc.,
with simple "he said" speech tags.  The author skillfully details the
tensions and contrasts--and similarities!--between the two men, and
their yearning for family.  The Editor's Choice Administrator would
also like to note that two other October submissions by this author,
"The Harvest" and "Lost Stars," were also interesting and imaginative
stories.

Runner Up, short story: CAPTAIN ATOMIC'S LAST CASE by Steve Hallberg

It's odd but true that a woman named Buffy living in a retirement
community is just as science fictional as a retired superhero who can
shoot electricity out of his fingertips.  We thought this was a very
nice detail! Although the author doesn't specify the year, we assume
the action of this story must be taking place around 2050 or later,
and so we would like to see how the world has changed. The premise has
a lot of potential and Woody, Captain Atomic (or as he thinks to
himself, Captain Dumpling), has the potential to be an extremely
engaging character. However, too much of the energy of the story is
dissipated as it switches from the humorously poignant to Grand
Guignol, to stale noir, ending with an unforgivable one-line pun for a
punch line.  Charley Wong and his relationship with Woody works well at
first, but the banter gets a little tired as the story goes on. The
axe-wielding lunatic Leon Bunt might have escaped straight from the
pages of EC Comics. As for the villains, one editor says: "Tony, with
his 'big-time pimp' past and 'ever-present gray fedora,' could have
stepped from the same Forties-era noirish tale as the two
stereotypical homosexuals with their diamond pinkie rings and damp
handshakes. The author writes skillfully in many passages and this
story has a lot going for it--which serves to make the things it has
going against it all the more glaring.  The author has to decide if he
wants to write a comic and slightly poignant character study of a
retired superhero; a Forties-style world-weary detective tale in which
ex-pimps always wear gray fedoras and homosexuals are overdressed
oddities; or a macabre shocker where a thirteen-year-old girl watches
the decapitation of her naked grandmother and mother before meeting
the same fate herself." 


| - - EDITORIAL FOCUS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

The monthly article on writing by our editorial administrator, author 
Kelly Link, will appear later in the month and will be available from 
our new main page.


| - - REVIEWER HONOR ROLL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

We list in each newsletter the names of people who have given useful,
insightful reviews that have been appreciated by the authors.  After
all, that's what makes the workshop go, and we want to give great
reviewers a little well-earned recognition from the workshop
community. If you've received a review you really appreciated and
would like to the reviewer to appear in the Reviewer Honor Roll, just
e-mail the following information to
support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com:

Name of the reviewer
Title of the submission reviewed and author (your name)
Any comments you have on why the review was so helpful

This month's honor roll:

Reviewer: Donnamarie Theil-Kline
Submission: MERLIN'S CHILDREN, Prologue, by Michael McBroom
Author's comments: "Insightful and helpful."

Reviewer: Chris Clarke
Submission: "There's a Succubus Born Every Minute" by Sarah Prineas
Author's comments: "His comments were invaluable as I struggled to fix
a rather clunky ending.  He understood my style of writing and
plotting well enough to know what would work with my story and what
would not." 

Reviewer: Scott Anderson
Submission: "There's a Succubus Born Every Minute" by Sarah Prineas
Author's comments: "Like a fine-toothed comb, he helped to rid my 
story of nits."

Reviewer:  Daniel Goss
Submission: "There's a Succubus Born Every Minute" by Sarah Prineas
Author's comments: "'Vulture Boy' returned to pick at my story several
times, insisting it could be made better.  If it is, it's thanks to 
him." 

Reviewer: Lonnie Stanley
Submission: various submissions by Arnold Schwartz
Author's comments: "Lonnie Stanley has been of tremendous help to me.
He has read every one of my postings (even the ones that I have
revised heavily) and has made many suggestions for improvements that I
have accepted."


| - - CONTEST/MARKET ANNOUNCEMENTS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

The Long Fiction Contest (named for A. E. Coppard, one of the leading
British writers of the 1920s, whose first story was rejected only
because it was too long): the contest attracts writers from all over
the world.  Manuscript length: 8,000-14,000 words (30-50 pages
double-spaced).  Manuscript genre: Single story (may have multi parts
or be a self-contained novel segment).  Deadline: December 15, 2000
postmark.  Winner announced by March 31, 2001; prize consists of $500
and 25 copies, plus 40 copies sent free to book publishers/agents, 
plus 10 press kits to news sources of choice.  Entry fee: $15 US. 
Details: http://members.aol.com/wecspress/page4.htm

"Wielding Words in the Web World" contest:  Themestream will award 
$2500 to the winner and $500 to four runner-ups for essays about one 
of these topics:
  1. Getting Published: Horror story or happy hour?
  2. Traditional Publishing vs. Web Publishing: Grudge match or match
     made in heaven?
  3. Online Writing and Beyond: Where does it go from here?
Details: http://www.themestream.com/gspd_browse/contest/contest_writingdetails.gsp

_Strange Horizons_, a new weekly online magazine devoted to "quality
speculative fiction, poetry, artwork, and related nonfiction," pays professional rates.  Author guidelines: http://www.strangehorizons.com

| - - PUBLICATION ANNOUNCEMENTS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

Congratulations to our members who have recently made sales or
garnered other honors of various sorts!

Keri Arthur's novel DANCING WITH THE DEVIL will be published by
Imajinn Books in 2001.  Imajinn is a small press specializing in SF
and paranormal romance novels.  (Imagjinn: http://www.imajinnbooks.com/)

Jennifer de Guzman's short story "Men Like Air" appeared in the
Fall 2000 issue (#12) of _Dreams of Decadence_. (_Dreams of
Decadence_: http://www.dnapublications.com/dreams/DoDCurr.htm)

Amber van Dyk (Mek)'s short story "Seed" is in the Halloween issue of
_Dark Muse_.  (_Dark Muse_: http://www.darkmuse.com)

Dave Kuzminski's novel BEASTS ARE US (which some members may recall
reviewing on the original Del Rey workshop) was accepted by Hard Shell
Word Factory and should appear in both print and electronic formats.
CRYSTAL TREASURE was accepted by Silver Lake Publishing and should
appear in print and possibly electronic format. MARK II was accepted
for print publication by Ideomancer.  Release dates are pending. (Hard
Shell:  http://www.hardshell.com ; Silver Lake:
http://www.silverlakepublishing.com/ ; Ideomancer:
http://ideomancer.com)

Afifah Myra Muffaz's short story "Cherish" is forthcoming at
Gothic.Net.  This is an excerpt from her novel THE FLAWED PROPHETS. 
Afifah says, "I believe that the critiques I got for this chapter at
DROWW helped a lot in its acceptance." 
(Gothic.Net: http://www.gothic.net) 

Meredith L. Patterson's short story "Principles and Parameters" will
appear in THE CHILDREN OF CTHULHU anthology, published by Del Rey
Books, forthcoming in 2001.  
(Del Rey: http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/)


| - - WORKSHOP STATISTICS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

Number of members as of 11/20: 1110
Number of submissions currently online: 600

Number of submissions in October: 273 
Ratio of reviews/submissions in October: 3.77
Estimated average word count per review in October: 312

Number of submissions in November to date: 211 
Ratio of reviews/submissions in November to date: 4.23


| - - FEEDBACK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |

POLL: YOUR OPINION WANTED

Once you've reviewed a submission, would you like to know when/if that
submission is updated, so you can check out the new version and
perhaps revise your review?  Authors would clearly like this, but is
this a feature most reviewers would use?  We will possibly add this to
our future-feature list if enough members think it's a useful feature.
Let us know at support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com.

TIPS APPRECIATED

Got a helpful tip for your fellow members?  A trick or hint for
submitting or reviewing, for what to put in your author's comments,
for getting good reviews, or for formatting or titling your
submission?  Share it with us and we'll publish it in the next
newsletter.  Just send it to support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com and
we'll do the rest.

See you next month!

The Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction and Fantasy
sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com
support@sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com

| - - Copyright 2000 Online Writing Workshops, LLC - - - - - - - - -|

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