Contest Results

Entering contests is dicey. You never know what will happen. You set yourself up for a fall and potential depression. Contests are great chances to beat yourself up and lower your self-esteem. So why enter them? Why waste the time, effort and money? Because ....

There is always the chance that you'll win. Right? Well, ... yes ... there is a chance you'll win, but the odds are you won't. It depends on so many factors that you aren't in control over - the judges and their preferences, if you entered the right contest for your book at the right time, the number of entries you are up against, etc. I could probably list reasons for hours. But the real reason should be to get the critique. I only enter contests that promise a least a short critique.

Why? So I can get someone else's opinion of what I'm writing. Is it good enough? What stumbling points did the judge find? Am I getting the story told so that it is interesting and makes the reader/judge want to read more?

I entered my wip, Wyoming Wind, in the Red River Romance Writers 2007 annual contest a couple of months ago, in the inspirational division. The coordinator of this division announced the finalists last week - my name wasn't on the list. Was I disappointed? Yes, I had hopes, but ... I hadn't placed my whole writing career on this one contest.

Contests, like grading creative writing papers in elementary school, are subjective. In the judge's opinions, did my entry satisfy the requirements and the judges' needs? Apparently not. I allowed myself about 5 seconds to mourn and then got on with life. I didn't cry myself to sleep, I didn't wail against the unfairness of it - my story is the best thing ever written you know, I didn't thrown things against the wall, and above all I didn't declare my life as a writer over.

Today I got my entry back in the mail, complete with critique and scoring sheets. Interesting. Validation. My writing is good, according to these judges. I scored 89 and 90 out of 100. Not quite good enough to make the top three or five that went on to the final judging, but still my scores were respectable. The critique gave some valuable pointers for me to ponder.

The deductions in points were in an area I hadn't expected - my writing wasn't considered inspirational enough. In fact I was told I hadn't written inspirational, my writing was romantic suspense. I know it was romantic suspense. But I entered the inspirational division because I write Christian fiction, Christian romantic suspense.

I guess I misunderstood the category. I thought because my hero and heroine were Christians that I should entry the inspirational division. I didn't want my romantic suspense to be judged against secular romantic suspense - major difference in the way the romance is handled. I received a phone call asking me if I wanted my entry moved to a different category. Maybe I should have.... Nah.

What's funny about this contest is this version of Wyoming Wind is a revised entry of my wip. Last year I attended the ACFW Early Bird session of the 2006 Annual Conference. I was required to send a three-sentence hook, a one-paragraph blurb, a one-page synopsis, and no more than twenty-five pages of my wip. Two heavily-published writers critiqued each participant's submission and conducted the day-long workshop. One of the comments each of the women had was that I had too much inspirational element in the opening chapter especially. So I adjusted it, took it out, or toned it down. Back to what I said earlier - judging is soooo subjective.

The few errors the judges noted were absolutely on target. I thought I had a clean entry, but with new eyes, the errors popped out for me to see as well. Thank you judges. I appreciate your time and efforts. I've judged contests. I know how hard I slaved over them, and I know the effort you put into my entry.

This contest also required a synopsis to be sent along with up to twenty-five pages of the book. The judges were dead-on right about a flaw in my synopsis - it didn't indicate the inspirational/Christian elements in Wyoming Wind. I'll correct that. They're in my head; they just didn't make it to the paper.

Now, on to the next step - keep on creating and writing and finish this book.