Attending the Futurescapes SFF Workshop

Thoughts, musings, experiences, etc

In November 2023, I had the opportunity to attend the Fall Futurescapes workshop. Futurescapes is a Science Fiction and Fantasy writing workshop where you have the opportunity to get your opening pages, query, and synopsis workshopped live with agents. It’s spread over a few days and costs $344 for standard admission, and you do have to apply to participate.

I'm writing this in case anybody is interested in attending a future conference and wanted to hear how another attendee's experience was - but like any writing event, your mileage may vary! I'll add some disclaimers as I go!

I found out about the workshop via Twitter. At this time, I was unagented and was looking at potentially querying a new book in 2024, so I figured extra eyes on my opening pages and query letter couldn't hurt! But more importantly, I attended because I wanted the opportunity to connect with agents. I'm a little old school and really prefer talking to someone face-to-face, especially if I'm considering a business partnership with them. And frankly, a few of the agents in attendance had my full at the time, and I thought it could be a fun nudge to say "hey! You've got my full! And btw here's what else I'm working on!" and perhaps get bumped up the queue.

That didn't actually happen - I was lucky enough that I received my offer of representation a week (for a different book!) before the workshop.

Nevertheless, I was really excited to get feedback on this WIP, titled LEGACY. I knew I didn't want to shelve it, and no matter where you are in your career, being able to write a strong pitch, synopsis, and opening pages is an incredibly important skill!

The Cohort

Like any group activity or project, this is where your mileage will vary the most. With Futurescapes, you're assigned a cohort of 6 other authors writing in similar genres. I was the only horror writer in my group, but some other authors skewed a little darker fantasy, and I generally write speculative fiction, so I didn't have any issues with it.

About two weeks before the workshop begins, you share your query, synopsis, and opening pages (for us, it was 6,500 words) with your cohort so that you can read ahead. I'm so thankful for my cohort - all of the authors in my group came *incredibly* well-prepared. Everyone had clearly read everyone's work beforehand and had taken valuable notes, and our conversations flowed really well.

You move with your cohort for different sessions on the query, synopsis, and pages (more below). Each session is with a different agent, so you'll be able to work with three agents over the course of the workshop!

Workshop Structure

Futurescapes is spread over 4 days. The schedule is definitely subject to change, but when I attended in November 2023, it was:

Thursday: Query Workshop (2.5 hours), Social event (1 hour), Opening Ceremony and Agent Panel Q&A (1 hour)

Friday: Opening Pages Workshop (4 hours)

Saturday: Closing & Keynote (1 hour), Contracts Presentation (1 hour)

*Note - Futurescapes also offered an optional "add-on" workshop this day, which was 4 hours long

Sunday: Synopsis Workshop (1 hour), Opening Pages Follow-Up Workshop (1 hour)

The Workshops

Each workshop (query, synopsis, pages) followed the same general structure. The agent would open with their notes, usually lasting anywhere from 5-10 minutes, and then open the floor for your cohort to chime in. (Again, this is where your cohort plays a big role in your experience! I got a wealth of feedback from my peers - sometimes even a bit more useful than the agent's notes themselves.) The agent generally facilitated the discussion and kept time, and hustled discussion along when we started to go too far over time on one person.

To get the most out of the workshop, a couple things I'd definitely recommend!

1. Make sure you're aware of formatting and structure best practices for your query, synopsis, and pages. That way, you can avoid spending time on structural notes (for example - your synopsis is too long, you're missing a bio and comps, etc.)

2. For each workshop, have questions in mind that you want to ask. Are my comps effective? Do you think this story is starting in the right place? Is this a compelling character arc? What details can I cut in my synopsis, or what do I need to add in?

3. Read your cohort's work and be prepared to give notes! Lead by example - not being afraid to speak up in sessions will encourage your cohort to do the same, and you'll get so much more out of your time.

One of the upsides to having three different agents critique your package is obviously the breadth of feedback you'll get. Each agent will have a different take on the industry, marketability, comps, etc. Some phrases may resonate really well for one agent, whereas another may dislike it. (A fun example here: in my query, I used the phrase "the floral horror of Midsommar" as part of my comps. One agent had no clue what it meant and advised removing it. Another adored it and said it immediately painted a picture.)

One of the downsides to having three agents critique your package is that not every agent will have read your entire package. For example, the agent critiquing my synopsis hadn't read my query or pages. Ideally, these documents should all stand alone, but having the complete picture does help. This is where your cohort comes in - I got so many wonderful notes on my pages because they knew where the story was going.

The Presentations

I REALLY enjoyed the Futurescapes presentations. I've attended a couple other conferences and found the presentations to be so/so, especially for someone farther along in the querying journey, but I really liked the content Futurescapes put together.

Keynote: The keynote speaker was the illustrious R.F. Kuang, who spoke on the rising threat of AI. Her main point came around finding the beauty in struggling in your writing, because it means you're trying to translate what's in your head to what's on the page, and that's where the creative magic is. She obviously said it so much better than I have, and it left me feeling so inspired. Plus, knowing that an author that I admire so much also struggles? That really helped.

Contracts and Rights: Carlisle Weber gave a wonderful talk about publishing contracts. A little bit I already knew, but it was really helpful. She explained how foreign subrights worked, how to interpret Publisher's Marketplace announcement, what selling rights means, option clauses, etc. Honestly, I wish this presentation was given at any writing conference I've attended!

The Downsides and Some Other Perspectives

I had a pretty positive experience with Futurescapes, but there were a few downsides, of course. The conference isn't the most organized - there was a lot of conflicting information given in the lead-up on how long our excerpts needed to be, we weren't informed in advance we needed a synopsis (so I panic drafted one), group assignments came late.

I also wanted to get some other perspectives, so I asked two other attendees who weren't in my group for their thoughts!

In short, I met people I still correspond with so it strengthened my sense of community within the industry. I felt it opened doors for me to get my work in front of agents who were happy to allow use of preferred links to submit, even if they were closed, when it was ready. I did not feel like it was well organized at all. Correspondence was patchy at best, deadlines and dates were unclear/not firm and for a conference that spanned days - this could really put off participants who have families to manage, etc. For a paid conference, I expected it to be more tightly organized. But once the conference was underway, the folks in it did a great job of connecting with participants and supporting us through the process. Deliverables were received timely.

I do wish that each agent lead knew to record the sessions. Session feedback was mixed. One guy didn't know anything and had a bad attitude, they weren't necessarily knowledgeable about industry standards (one guy had a WIP 3x the size of any acceptable length). I got good feedback from two agents, one's was much more passive and that's the one who didn't record.

- Attendee 1

I really enjoyed Futurescapes! My cohort was all really nice and had some great feedback for me, and I got to read some really cool excerpts. I didn't particularly hit it off with anyone so I haven't kept in touch with them, but I did make one friend who wasn't in my cohort so that's pretty cool. I actually really love the agent I worked with, which I was surprised by. She gave me a lot to think about for revisions and made me feel more confident in the story I workshopped. I don't know if I'd do Futurescapes again because I'm not sure if it really helped me quite as much as I'd hoped, but it was overall a positive experience and I'm glad I did it.

- Attendee 2

Wrap-Up

Overall, I really enjoyed attending Futurescapes. I got some really great notes on the opening pages of my new WIP, the pitch, and the synopsis. The best part - my Futurescapes cohort has stayed in touch! We meet once a month to crit each other's work, and it's so lovely to see how their work has grown. Once again, this is another example of just how lucky I got with my group!

I will say - this is not a workshop to attend if your only goal is to get requests from agents. They're not necessarily there to request your full after critiquing your query or opening pages! Plus, if you're really far along in your querying journey, the notes you get on your pages simply may not be as valuable if you're already 50 queries deep. If you're looking to pitch agents, a better bet is to sign up for other pitch events, such as the Writing Day Workshops (check out my blog post attending this conference!).

That isn't to say that requests or connections don't happen from Futurescapes, however! I had shared in my later sessions that I was agented, but I didn't have a chance to mention that fact to the agent that critiqued my query. A few days after Futurescapes, she reached out to request the full! Another author in my cohort also got a full request (from a different one of our agents!), who then was lovely enough to offer a more detailed R&R and zoom call where they chatted through their future WIPs. Again, it's all about building the connections!

If you're considering applying for Futurescapes, or gearing up to attend, I hope my ramblings helped!