Yes, I was a pre-judge for a writing contest in a local paper. In less than a week, I had to read almost 750 entries that included everything from How-to guides to Science Fiction. There was a ton of sci-fi, many of it written by children (the better stuff anyway), and a lot of writing for therapy (or self-self-help).
How did I do it? Well, we did only have to read the synopsis and a submitted excerpt. Some people did't even bother to submit an exceprt - for example, in one entry the would-be author wrote "I haven't had the time to write a chapter yet". So why are you entering?? Some other entrants thought that they could only enter what fit in the tiny textinput box on the website, even though it cleary stated up to a maximum of 2000 words below it.
(enter up to a maximum of 2000 words, unless you think we can judge your writing style with two sentences)
It was still somewhat fun to read through most of the entries. My favourite line was "Bob was a volatile explosives expert". My favourite synopsis was "It's a thriller version of Lord of the Rings with a gothic twist". If you get a chance to read the final 10 I'll let you know which one is my pick for publication.
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5 comments:
I wish I'd known about this contest (both time-wise and before I knew you were a judge)... I would have submitted an excerpt from my book. Maybe if I'd been selected it would have been sufficient motivation to finish it (and find an editor, because dear god do I ever need an editor... wordywordywordywordy)
it all happened so fast, at least the finding out about the pre-judge part (I thought I was going to be one of the celebrity judges - but I guess I'd need to be a celebrity).
ps. gina is an amazing editor.
I knew about the contest, started writing for the contest, and then found out that chapters employees can't enter the contest. grrrrrr!!
Maybe when the contest is over, dave, I could give you my excerpt and you can let me know if it had merit.
sure thing - it isn't sci-fi is it?
I don't think that it is, others say it is, but I don't think it is. It's more of a chuck Palahniuk style of writing,
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