The following information does not form part of the rules of the James White Award, it is simply intended as friendly advice for writers thinking of submitting a story to the competition.

Choosing your subject

1. Your story should be science fiction. We will define science fiction broadly and stories with fantasy and/or horror elements will be considered. But stories that lack the element of the extraordinary are unlikely to win the competition.
2. Stories must be strong – experimental fiction is fine but this is a short story competition, so work with a strong plot, a beginning, middle and end, is likely to be favoured.
3. It will help if you know the answers to the following questions (although you might not want to include all this information in the actual story) before you start writing your story.
   • Who is your main character (the protagonist)?
   • What does he/she/it want?
   • What happens to him/her/it?
   • How does he/she/it respond to what happens?
   • What does the world look like and how does it differ from our own?
   • What background information does the reader need to know for this story to make sense?
   • Can I tell this story in 6000 words?

If you’ve written something that has a protagonist that simply experiences events but takes no action and experiences no change then it probably isn’t really a story.

4. If you’ve written something that has a protagonist that simply experiences events but takes no action and experiences no change then it probably isn’t really a story.
5. No matter how strange or exotic the background, characters are important and stories that feature realistic people behaving believably stand a better chance of winning.
6. If you are going to include one of the following clichés in your story, think very carefully before submitting it: robots (or computers or monsters) that turn on their creators, time-travelling assassins, virtual reality, dinosaurs, abductions by UFOs, vampires, alien invasions, quests for magical items, Star Trek clones, god/s as alien/s, ultimate weapons, Elvis Presley, Adolf Hitler, Adam and Eve… you can find more examples of over-used story ideas at Strange Horizons (www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-common.shtml). It’s not that these ideas can never be the basis for good stories or even that they are bad ideas, it’s just that they are ideas that have been used a lot of times. If you think the way you’ve used them brings something new to the field or that your story is really exceptional, then by all means submit that story but be aware that the judges are likely to have read most existing variations of these ideas.

How to write it…

1. Don’t just start at page one and make it up as you go along. It’s important to plot out your story. You don’t have to go into incredible detail, just enough to ensure that you’ll never write yourself into a corner. Remember: it’s much easier to rewrite an outline than it is to rewrite a whole story.
2. Always know how your story is going to end before you begin (yes, this does sound like the same thing, but it’s such an important point that it’s worth mentioning twice).
3. Your characters are as important as the plot. Some writers design their characters first and then build the plot around them, others do it the other way around, but whichever way you do it, don’t neglect either.
4. Include a good balance of dialogue and prose: stories that are all dialogue never seem to go anywhere, and stories that are all prose can seem lifeless (no matter how action-packed they are).
5. Keep the story moving: your readers really don’t want to know intricate details about lampshades and how they were manufactured, unless it’s actually important to the story.
6. Don’t let your characters get too complacent: there should be something driving them at all times.
7. Experiment… Try different types of characters with different attributes. A good trick is to pick characters who are exactly the opposite of what the story seems to require.
8. Change is important – stories that end without significant change to the circumstances of the protagonists and those close to him are more likely to feel inconsequential. If the story didn’t matter to them, why should it matter to the reader.
9. Your protagonist should not be a passive observer. Actions they take should have an impact on how the story unfolds.
10. Choose words carefully. You can often have more impact with one or two well chosen word than a page of waffle.
11. When writing each scene ask yourself:
    • Why is this moment important for these characters?
    • How do the events in this scene take me closer to the end of the story
    • What important things change in this particular scene?

    If you can’t answer these three questions clearly, think about whether that scene really needs to be in the story – no matter how much you may like what you’ve written.

When you’re finished…

1. Once you’ve completed your story, set it aside for a few days. Then come back to it and try to read it as though it was written by your worst enemy: make a list of all the things wrong with it, and work out what you need to do to correct them.
2. Ask an impartial observer to read your story, and encourage them to criticise it. For this, you really will need someone who won’t be afraid to tell you if the story is utter rubbish. That said, your critic must also be able to tell you exactly what IS wrong with it. Don’t take such criticism personally.
3. Writers’ groups can be very useful for aspiring writers – especially if you haven’t shared your work with strangers before and if you are willing to take seriously the advice/suggestions of others in your group. The BSFA Orbiter groups are free for all BSFA members and are run by email or post and have helped many writers get their work published. Other local and online groups can be found using Google.
4. Don’t be afraid to rewrite… If you’re not happy with a scene, write it again. Still not happy? Write it from the point of view of another character. STILL not happy? Then you need to decide whether you need that scene at all.
5. If, when you get to the end of your story, you find that it’s far too long, there are a few tricks you can use to reduce the size… First, remove everything that doesn’t directly relate to the plot (detailed character descriptions, exposition, conversations about the weather, that kind of thing). Still too long? Then delete the first third of the story and see if it still works… You might find that it works even better than before.

A few important things about presentation…

1. Read the competition’s rules and heed them carefully. The judges will have a lot of stories to read, so the cleaner your manuscript is, the better. So: your story must be typed, double-spaced, on one side of the page only, with proper margins, a simple, clear font such as Courier or Times (most professional writers will use Courier at 12 point), left-aligned (which means that the right margin should be ragged), page numbers and the title of story at the top of each page. The rule here is that you don’t want the judges referring to your story as “the unreadable one”.
2. Check the spelling and punctuation at regular intervals. Poor spelling reflects badly on the story and the author. Your word-processor’s spell-checker usually won’t be good enough – you need a proper dictionary.
3. Some punctuation tips…
   • Ellipses have three dots, no more, no fewer.
   • There is no space before a comma.
   • If you don’t know how to use semi-colons either look it up or don’t use them.
   • If you’re not sure how to use apostrophes it’s long past time you learned.
   • In the old days some writers put two spaces after a comma, three after a full-stop (or period) – those days are gone.
   • Capital letters are for proper nouns only and do no make Ordinary Things More Important
4. If you’re not sure about paragraph breaks or punctuation, pick up the nearest novel and see how that author does it: the novel will have gone through several drafts, and been worked on by any number of editors and typesetters.