Comments on: Contests: Give ‘Em Your Best Shot

By: Mozart? or Salieri? | Texty Ladies

Mozart? or Salieri? | Texty Ladies — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:18:59 +0000

[...] Comments Contest-Gal on Contests: Give ‘Em Your Best ShotSarah MacLean on BB’s Review: Paradise by Judith McNaughtM. L. Kiner on BB’s Review: [...]

By: Contest-Gal

Contest-Gal — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 03:28:21 +0000

Thanks for the guides in entering a contest and for starting a contest…It can be a great help to anyone who want to start a contest in their blogs.

By: Jacquie Rogers

Jacquie Rogers — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:30:58 +0000

Sherrie, I so agree. I’ve gone to many dinner meetings where the speaker droned on and on. Oy. You’d think they could recognize the problem.

Mercedes, I think you must be talking about the published book contests you judge. I think it’s even worse when these same problems end up in a published book.

Cinde, good luck with your submissions. I hope I helped you out, even if just a teensy bit.

Judith, let me know when you’ll be presenting the Sales Busters class and I’ll announce it on Texty Ladies.

I don’t care for contests, either, Eilis, but we’ve both entered when it was the right thing to do. I remember one of your stories receiving an abysmal score because the paranormal and inspirational were lumped together, and you got an inspirational reader to judge your paranormal. That didn’t work out so well, and looking at the scoresheet wouldn’t have helped, either. Sometimes you just have to take your lungs.

Jacquie on myspace

By: Danielle Ferries

Danielle Ferries — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 22:22:03 +0000

Thanks heaps for the tips, Jacquie. I’ve had a couple of rejections lately so will go and give them a bit of a workover.

By: Eilis Flynn

Eilis Flynn — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:20:11 +0000

If I’d had a useful set of dos and don’ts back when I was entering contests, I would have used these. And considering how much I hated contests in general, that’s saying something!

By: Judith L

Judith L — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 18:21:54 +0000

You made some great points, Jacquie. By the way, though, I don’t think my Sales Busters are actually available any where at the moment! I’m going to be pitching them for some online workshops, though.

Another surprising problem I see frequently is loads of typos, grammar and punctuation mistakes. I can’t emphasize enough that, just as a carpenter’s knowledge of how to use the tools of that trade are essential to doing the job, a writer’s tools are the English language and you need to master them before you try to communicate!

By: Cinde Morris

Cinde Morris — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:37:12 +0000

Thank you so much for the advice! I’m going to enter my first contest in a month or so and this was greatly needed.

By: Mercedes

Mercedes — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:36:18 +0000

I have judged entries as well that did not seem to fit the category that they were entered in… I am reading a western category and they are in space…. I guess Space is the new west right throws the reader off and I Hate head jumping especially when the POV jumps multiple times in the same scene.

By: Sherrie Holmes

Sherrie Holmes — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:00:28 +0000

Jacquie, I am so glad to see you do this! As a veteran contest judge, I see these problems all the time. I absolutely agree with you about backstory. This is also one of the biggest issues I encounter with my editorial clients. They all argue most sincerely that they need to set up the story, that the pages and pages of backstory are all essential.

The fact is, in 99.9% of the cases, it is NOT essential that you feed the backstory up front in one huge chunk. Get to the meat of the story right away, and then you can dribble out bits and pieces of the backstory here and there in a more appropriate (and palatable) way.

Have you ever listened to someone drone on and on, taking ten minutes to get to the purpose of their story? Sometimes don’t you just want to grab them by the shoulders and shout, “Get to the point!” *g*