The Importance of Writing Contests to Emerging Writers
Thank you for the opportunity to share a few words on writing contests and the emerging writer. While I can talk about different types of writing competitions, I am going to focus on the short story in this discussion. I have judged a few writing contests featuring both unpublished and published entries. One of my earliest judging assignments was in 1996, for the Budding Writers Association of Zimbabwe (BWAZ), the English short story category. I remember that the winners were Memory Chirere (open category) and Wilson Mutingwende, a high school student Ndima High School in Chimanimani. Winning a prize in a writing contest boosts a writer's productivity and exposes their work to publishers and readers. Below is a point-by-point coverage of some of the things I have learned as a judge of different contests.
1. Participating in writing competitions can potentially lead to your being discovered by publishers and readers. Competitions encourage a spirit of competitiveness which helps you to challenge yourself and produce some writing on demand. You will be exposing your work work to judgment. Sending your work away like that may create a provisional vacuum that challenges you to create more work...while you wait. Continuing to write (a defensive act sometimes) while you wait is important in that it enables you to face loss better (if you don't win or even make the long list.) The truth is you have not lost anything; you have just not won in the particular contest, and sometimes it's best that you haven't won.
3. Besides challenging yourself, participating in contests helps with an awareness of what the market is looking for. Some contests are driven by specific themes or issues. It could be a contest featuring stories on the theme of Boundaries, in which the writer is open to interpret the theme as they see fit. The process gains a focus and helps the writers try issues that may have been outside of their interest, and by exploring the specific theme, the writer may become aware of other issues they could explore. This is the joy of creativity: using writing as a discovery process.
4. Not all competitions are created equal. There are many categories to consider, but it is important to locate competitions for various reasons, such as ease of submission. It is important sometimes to focus on more local contests, even they may not give a lot in terms of prize money. I remember a competition I won once, run by Lion Press, which was based in the UK, but it was a contest for Zimbabweans. I submitted my short story "Call Centre" and it won the first prize, which was $200, but that story got the kind of exposure that got it selected for an anthology of short fiction by African and Asian writers.
5. Free entries versus paid submissions: Most emerging writers can benefit from competitions that do not require entry fees. Most American writing contests require submission fees of between $10 and $25 dollars per story. This is definitely an obstacle for someone who may not have made any money from writing. But others view it as a worthwhile expense, an investment; after all, perhaps that $10 could have gone to a bottle of whisky or several beers, or even Chicken Inn! It's important to note that these entry fees are paid using credit or debit cards and systems like Paypal. I imagine that it is easier for Zimbabweans with the cash to process these entry fees. If that's the case, and you can spare $10 or so dollars, you will have access to a lot of international short story competitions.
6. In defense of entry fees. A lot of contests are run by non-profit organization or small presses. They use entry fees to cover costs such as paying the judge, building the prize money, and covering other costs. An organization I work with, the Sacramento Poetry Center, used to run an annual book competition in which the writers paid an entry fee of $25. While the board members did the work of screening entries and selecting a shortlist, the final judge was paid a fee and the rest of the money went towards processing costs and paying for the publication of the winning manuscript.
7. I have been involved in the different stages of the short story competition: mentoring, screening submissions, judging, editing, and publishing. In working with Uganda-based Writivism , for instance, I worked with emerging writers from different English-speaking and French-speaking African countries. I have come to understand that only a handful of African countries do participate, with the most participation coming from Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Uganda, and Kenya. Just a few Zimbabweans have been featured, and I have assumed that perhaps emerging Zim writers were not aware or not interested. I recommend that you make occasional searches for contests that you can participate in. Most of the new ones serving African writers, such as Writivism and Short Story Day Africa emphasize serving the writers living on the continent. These are the best pathways to exposure and competitiveness.
8. The specific rules of a competition matter. Treat them like the instruction of an examination (O-Level, A-Level, SAT, etc). While the rules are useful as part of the industry's standard, they are used as part of the screening criteria. On nearly all contest entries, the author's name should not appear on the manuscript itself. This means manuscripts that show names will be disqualified immediately, even in contests where the entrant has paid a fee (the fees are always non-refundable).
9. Related to the issue of submission guidelines is the issue of formatting. The organizers are often clear on how the manuscript must be formatted. Many writers, because they are in a hurry to submit the work, or because of an impatience with such instructions, will turn in sloppy, unprofessional work. Such entries will not be taken seriously and will be screen out of the pool. You will be surprised at the overwhelming number of stories that get disqualified even when they show great potential.
10. Clean copy. While a journal or magazine editor may accept a story based on potential, and is willing to help the writer edit the story to its full potential, a story submitted for a competition should be the best its writer can make it. It is best to think of the story as perfect, which means revision, editing, and proofreading have been done. If the story grabs the attention of an early reader (the one who screens story for advancement to judging), then it will remain on the pile to be forwarded to the next step. So a clean copy which grabs the reader's attention is highly likely to be put under consideration.
11. As I stated earlier, most contests will pay you some kind of prize, and a few will include your work as part of a publication that results from a longlist or shortlist of the competitors.
12. As you participate in a writing contest, take it seriously; it is a competition, and there will be hundreds of other writers entering that contest. Organizers of competitions often have overwhelming submissions, so weeding out works with obvious weaknesses is not a difficult part of their process.
1. Participating in writing competitions can potentially lead to your being discovered by publishers and readers. Competitions encourage a spirit of competitiveness which helps you to challenge yourself and produce some writing on demand. You will be exposing your work work to judgment. Sending your work away like that may create a provisional vacuum that challenges you to create more work...while you wait. Continuing to write (a defensive act sometimes) while you wait is important in that it enables you to face loss better (if you don't win or even make the long list.) The truth is you have not lost anything; you have just not won in the particular contest, and sometimes it's best that you haven't won.
3. Besides challenging yourself, participating in contests helps with an awareness of what the market is looking for. Some contests are driven by specific themes or issues. It could be a contest featuring stories on the theme of Boundaries, in which the writer is open to interpret the theme as they see fit. The process gains a focus and helps the writers try issues that may have been outside of their interest, and by exploring the specific theme, the writer may become aware of other issues they could explore. This is the joy of creativity: using writing as a discovery process.
4. Not all competitions are created equal. There are many categories to consider, but it is important to locate competitions for various reasons, such as ease of submission. It is important sometimes to focus on more local contests, even they may not give a lot in terms of prize money. I remember a competition I won once, run by Lion Press, which was based in the UK, but it was a contest for Zimbabweans. I submitted my short story "Call Centre" and it won the first prize, which was $200, but that story got the kind of exposure that got it selected for an anthology of short fiction by African and Asian writers.
5. Free entries versus paid submissions: Most emerging writers can benefit from competitions that do not require entry fees. Most American writing contests require submission fees of between $10 and $25 dollars per story. This is definitely an obstacle for someone who may not have made any money from writing. But others view it as a worthwhile expense, an investment; after all, perhaps that $10 could have gone to a bottle of whisky or several beers, or even Chicken Inn! It's important to note that these entry fees are paid using credit or debit cards and systems like Paypal. I imagine that it is easier for Zimbabweans with the cash to process these entry fees. If that's the case, and you can spare $10 or so dollars, you will have access to a lot of international short story competitions.
6. In defense of entry fees. A lot of contests are run by non-profit organization or small presses. They use entry fees to cover costs such as paying the judge, building the prize money, and covering other costs. An organization I work with, the Sacramento Poetry Center, used to run an annual book competition in which the writers paid an entry fee of $25. While the board members did the work of screening entries and selecting a shortlist, the final judge was paid a fee and the rest of the money went towards processing costs and paying for the publication of the winning manuscript.
7. I have been involved in the different stages of the short story competition: mentoring, screening submissions, judging, editing, and publishing. In working with Uganda-based Writivism , for instance, I worked with emerging writers from different English-speaking and French-speaking African countries. I have come to understand that only a handful of African countries do participate, with the most participation coming from Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Uganda, and Kenya. Just a few Zimbabweans have been featured, and I have assumed that perhaps emerging Zim writers were not aware or not interested. I recommend that you make occasional searches for contests that you can participate in. Most of the new ones serving African writers, such as Writivism and Short Story Day Africa emphasize serving the writers living on the continent. These are the best pathways to exposure and competitiveness.
8. The specific rules of a competition matter. Treat them like the instruction of an examination (O-Level, A-Level, SAT, etc). While the rules are useful as part of the industry's standard, they are used as part of the screening criteria. On nearly all contest entries, the author's name should not appear on the manuscript itself. This means manuscripts that show names will be disqualified immediately, even in contests where the entrant has paid a fee (the fees are always non-refundable).
9. Related to the issue of submission guidelines is the issue of formatting. The organizers are often clear on how the manuscript must be formatted. Many writers, because they are in a hurry to submit the work, or because of an impatience with such instructions, will turn in sloppy, unprofessional work. Such entries will not be taken seriously and will be screen out of the pool. You will be surprised at the overwhelming number of stories that get disqualified even when they show great potential.
10. Clean copy. While a journal or magazine editor may accept a story based on potential, and is willing to help the writer edit the story to its full potential, a story submitted for a competition should be the best its writer can make it. It is best to think of the story as perfect, which means revision, editing, and proofreading have been done. If the story grabs the attention of an early reader (the one who screens story for advancement to judging), then it will remain on the pile to be forwarded to the next step. So a clean copy which grabs the reader's attention is highly likely to be put under consideration.
11. As I stated earlier, most contests will pay you some kind of prize, and a few will include your work as part of a publication that results from a longlist or shortlist of the competitors.
12. As you participate in a writing contest, take it seriously; it is a competition, and there will be hundreds of other writers entering that contest. Organizers of competitions often have overwhelming submissions, so weeding out works with obvious weaknesses is not a difficult part of their process.
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