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You might not want to take my advice as I've yet to have a Future Shock accepted but...

I've always followed the principle that a synopsis should be a pretty factual, almost dry, retelling of the story. This isn't an elevator pitch where the idea is to grab their attention, they just want to know the plot. so something along the lines of...

Out walking in the desert Billy comes across a crashed UFO. Inside he finds a ring which he steals. When he gets home he puts the ring on and finds he can shoot lasers out of his bum...

That sort of thing. I don't think you need to do a blow by blow/ panel by panel account, you just need to show the flow of the story from beginning to end. This doesn't mean you can't embellish a bit, or add in commentary about parts of the story but I think overall they want a nuts and bolts retelling that will inform whether they want to read the script.

I'd be very interested to see what others think however.

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned Dirty Frank's promotion, that did make me chuckle out loud

I must be the only person not fussed by helium, just felt Edington was sleepwalking through familiar scenarios, the creatures's faces in Dredd remind me of the phalanx from x-men . Nice to see the horse from the man comes around turn up and the creature behind Nixon's transformatio must be what dirty Frank encountered before he became Frank in trifecta. Maitland telling Dredd to protect chief judge was needless half expected some sarcasm back from Dredd.

See I didn't read that as Maitland telling Dredd to protect Hershey, quite the reverse. I could be mistaken though.

Encaladus continues to be excellent, though I hope there isn't just going to be a quick resolve with Judge Sam finding an off switch at the bottom of the pit.

The Alienist is fun, I'm suspecting there's something of a Remington Steele scenario occurring between the Alienist and his "assistant"

I've always liked Grey Area, but it does feel like they've been stuck on that planet for a long time now...

can't say much about the 3riller so far, although while I have no problem with using historical or future conflicts, referencing something that's still going on feels slightly wrong somehow.

Helium has been enjoyable enough, I just fear that I'll like it less and less as it goes on, which is what happened with Brass Sun.

Maybe, I notice the Past Imperfect in the last Prog was actually 4 pages long.

Well I got a new submission in a few weeks ago, I've now noticed however that they've amended the submission guidence to say they're now looking for 4 page future shocks, not 5 page ones. I'm not sure when this change came into play. Guess that's what I get for not checking first, I suppose I just didn't expect the 5 page format to change.

I wonder if this is a commercial decision or a creative one (ie a way to cut down on submissions because whilst not impossible trying to tell a story in four pages will be harder than telling it in five)

Well after waiting almost a year for one rejection I got the next in less than a month 

Oh well back to the drawing board. Luckily I have another idea 

Best cover in ages, I do need to go back and look at some old progs to see what impact inflation over the years has had on the Plutonian price of 2000AD though...

Yes Colin_YNWA, I was pleased to get the feedback, over the 6 or 7 submissions I've made over the years this is only the second time I've got any feedback at all (the first time was, oddly, my first submission).

Looking at the story again I can definitely see what they mean about it being far too exposition heavy.

Just completed the initial draft of the next one I'll be sending in  a lot less exposition this time!!

Well got my rejection from 2000AD yesterday, it did contain a smidgen of feedback however which is good. Too much exposition apparently...which I think is fair now I think about it.

ha ha this could be very true!

12 months eh? Well I sent my last submission in around a year ago so maybe I'll hear back soon (most likely with a rejection but you never know! )

My first ever submission I actually got some useful fedback on, but since then it's just been form rejections, which is fine, lord knows how many submissions they need to go though.

Worst rejection I ever got was from a publisher who didn't even deem me worthy enough to waste their own paper on (not even a post-it) they just scrawled all over my own letter!!!

I have a new future shock idea currently perculating in my brain so once(if) I get the rejection I should be able to get another submission in quite quickly.

By the way, does anyone know what tends to happen if your submision is accepted? I mean with regard to future submissions. Is it a case of having to get several Future Shocks accepted before you can submit a series proposal, and if this is the case does having one story already accepted add any weight to future submissions?

I've always felt that having a FS accepted would be getting your foot on the first rung of a ladder, but it's still a bloody big ladder I imagine--still, if you're going to climb a ladder the first step is to get on the thing!

Drat. Oh well I thought it was worth asking, thanks 

I'm glad to hear that it's not just me  I think I've sent six or seven submissions in over the last 2/3 years and the response time has varied greatly. With some it's been close to a year for the response, whereas others it's just been a matter of weeks.

In hindsight I had noticed that the ones rejected quickly were, in fairness, not as strong as the ones that seemed to be held onto longer...but this might be me trying to impose some logic on a process that's random and soley related to workload at any given time.

Hi, just wondering if anyone had heard anything regarding whether a similar competition would be run this year? 

Thanks for the update. Any chance of letting us know if the 2 runners up have been chosen, I guess what I'm asking is, have all three been notified or is there still hope