Question: David, you won the top award in 1987, became a contest judge in 1991, and served as instructor at the annual WotF workshop for several years. What are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen in the contest over the last 30+ years?

Answer: The main thing that I see is growth—the contest has become bigger than ever and seems to keep growing every quarter. So we have more entrants, and tougher competition, and thus the quality of the stories is getting better. We keep rising higher on the bestseller lists as a result.

And of course, as we continue with the annual workshops, the productions tend to get sleeker and more professional every year.

Question: You have a reputation as the “author whisperer” and a “story doctor,” having worked with writers like James Dashner (The Maze Runner), Brandon Sanderson (Cosmere), and Brandon Mull (Fablehaven), all of whom sing your praises in helping to launch their careers. With your experience teaching writing and mentoring authors, what do you feel are some of the most valuable lessons new writers should take away from the WotF writers’ workshops?

Answer: L. Ron Hubbard felt that the winners would have already learned a bit about writing but wanted to help them transition from what I will call a “hobby writer” to a “working professional.” So the workshop focuses more on the business of writing and what it takes to write consistently, all day long, than it does on craft. If I had realized how valuable that information was as a young writer, I probably would have listened better.

Not only did we get great advice from Hubbard, but it was backed up by the counsel of others at our workshop. When I won, we had Algis Budrys, Orson Scott Card, and Tim Powers as instructors in our workshop, but we got to meet other pros—Isaac Asimov, Gene Wolfe, Fred Pohl—and so on, and getting the scoop on contemporary publishing practices was really helpful.

Question: Is there more to writing success than just good writing? How important is networking and self-promotion? And how does a new writer market themselves both successfully and gracefully?

Answer: How shall I say this: it all works together. Some authors get a great deal of value out of networking, others are huge on self-promotion, and some focus entirely on the craft of writing. But let me take an example:

Years ago I was writing some Star Wars novels for Scholastic, and the managing editor for the company asked if I would be willing to look at their books and help them pick one to publish big for the coming year. I picked a little-known book called Harry Potter, one that had been released only a couple of months earlier to lukewarm success. We planned a re-launch of it and invested heavily in in-store advertising with the major booksellers—and it quickly became the bestselling book of its time—even though it was a middle-grade novel and there had never been a New York Times Bestseller that was a middle-grade novel.

Now, did the book get any better? No. Did one word get changed, or the cover? No. All we did was advertise big—getting the book in the front of the store windows in bookstores, getting it behind the counters, and putting a nice display on the floor. Though the advertising campaign cost millions, the book made hundreds of millions for the company.

So in this case, promotion became indispensable. But your book can take on a huge life simply by word of mouth—having the right people (someone like Oprah Winfrey) talk about it. So networking can be critical.

The question is, how do you do that gracefully? I think that the thing to do is to focus on writing well, then being open about your work. You don’t hide in the closet. Once people begin to read your work with an open mind, the critics will sing your praises and the publishers will start promoting you heavily. So new authors need to figure out how to get on the fast track to become “lead authors,” those authors that are favored with the promotional budgets at big publishing houses.

As the “author whisperer,” that is what I try to teach.

Question : Before becoming a writer, you studied to be a doctor. I’ve read that you decided to apply a scientific approach to writing, including something you call the Stress Induction/Reduction Theory of Storytelling. In attempting to write commercial fiction, what do you think the balance is between natural talent and following an effective storytelling approach in achieving success?

Answer: Each of us as writers has talents. Some writers are great stylists or poets, while others are natural storytellers. I think that what I try to do is teach people how to do both. In my “Story Puzzle Workshops,” I teach writers how to look at plots, but once a writer has a good plot, then he or she needs to know how to capture and hold the audience’s imagination, so I focus then on writing techniques in my “Writing Enchanting Prose” workshops.

Question: In writing good fiction, which is more important, creating an emotional effect or developing an intriguing plot?

Answer: Ah, I’d suggest that they’re both the same skill. An intriguing plot is one that grabs the reader by the heart and pulls them into the story, and things like “curiosity, wonder, terror, adventure, and intrigue” are all emotions that we as writers learn to control.

Question: A win in WotF is an exhilarating event for a new writer. What is the one thing a winner can do to capitalize on their moment in the Writers of the Future spotlight?

Answer: Be ready. Start putting out good, high-quality stories as fast as you can!

Question: In welcoming a new reader to your fiction, which of your novels or short stories is a favorite that serves as a good introduction?

Answer: That’s a great question. Each reader is different. For fantasy I steer them to The Runelords series, but for science fiction I might suggest my novel On My Way to Paradise. I generally try to find out what they like, then go from there.

Question: What recent or forthcoming work would you like readers to look out for?

Answer: I have a number of irons in the fire. Right now, today, I’m most interested in finishing A Tale of Tales, the last book in my Runelords saga, but I’m excited about several other projects including a fantasy set in China called Pearls from the Moon.