If you’re a writer or a fledgling writer and you want to enter a writing contest and think you have a chance to win with your work and want to do it —- go ahead.
But I’ll warn you, I’m personally down on contests.
First of all there’s a stigma. If you’re a contestant, you must be an amateur, not a professional.
If your work is not a chosen winner it can lead to discouragement; and you don’t need any more of that in an activity (writing) that already can have a lot of discouragement.
For example, you’re attempting to write a novel and tell yourself it’s no good and give up. Or you look at the odds of getting published and decide your work (for which you are not getting paid) is not worth it—-and quit writing. Or distractions in your life (bills, work, or family problems) keep you from sitting down and doing it. There can be a million reasons.
Under one percent of authors make a full living from selling books.
You don’t need any more discouragement.
A rejection from a writing contest can provide it.
Let’s engage in brutal truth. Writing contests are often run by sponsors who are more interested in the money from contestant entry fees than they are in recognizing literary merit. The average fee for you to enter a contest is anywhere from $15 to $60. If there are several thousand contestants (including you), even factoring in the cost for cash prizes for winners and the administration fees for organizing the contest—we’re talking about a substantial amount of profit money for the contest organizers.
What do you think your chances of winning are?
A contest typically has three to five judges who pick the winner or winners. This is to supposedly prevent bias from the judging by having more than one judge. However, everyone has bias despite what they say or think.
One judge likes science fiction novels best, another mysteries, and another detective stories.
You submit a Western.
None of the judges read or like Westerns. What are your chances of winning? Not too good, even if the Western you write is the greatest since High Noon (the film High Noon was based on a 1947 short magazine story titled The Tin Star. The movie became way more famous than the original story).
The judges won’t pick your Western as a winner because they don’t like Westerns. The idea there is greater fairness in numbers (five judges instead of just one— and smaller contests often have just one judge), that idea is still flawed.
Chances are if you enter a contest and don’t win or achieve recognition and you believe in your work, you might become depressed but eventually get over it.
I once entered a comedy writing contest, paid a fee and failed to win a contest that had a single judge. What are the chances that what I find funny the judge would find funny?
Not very good….
In writing as in any art form, what is good is totally subjective, in other words influenced by the personal feelings, natural bias and interpretation of your work by a judge (or a reader). These can differ wildly. What one person considers gold, another person considers garbage.
Let me demonstrate with two non-writing examples. Let’s say you’re a standup comedian. I have been one. In standup comedy getting 30 percent of the audience to laugh (or at least chuckle) is considered good. A third of your audience laughs, a third think you’re dumb, another third don’t care and remain silent.
I did a routine at a comedy club on a Wednesday night and got 30 percent to laugh. This is really good because on a Wednesday night the only people in attendance in the audience were out-of-town business people needing somewhere to go on their (nighttime) off hours, a few stragglers and sad people with nowhere else to be.
On a Saturday night more people will laugh because they’re drinking more alcohol, they’re off work tomorrow (Sunday) and they came wanting to laugh.
Another example is the movie Academy Awards. Some people think this is a judged contest. It is not. It is simply an election in which 11,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) choose the winners.
Some terrible movies have won (The Greatest Show on Earth 1952, a boorish heavy-handed crappy film about a circus), while truly great films (Harold and Maude 1971 today a cult classic); weren’t even nominated.
The lesson here is that judging is flawed and what is good or bad is completely open to opinion.
As a writer you have to believe in your story, not in the personal favor of some naysayer who you have to pay money to in entry fees— only to ignore your fine work.
This is not sour grapes (not winning), but just being realistic about it.
I avoid writing contests like the plague.
John Sammon is a freelance writer and the author of 41 books, many of which can be found here on Amazon. He is a resident of El Dorado Hills. His commentary is the first in a series on the trip of self publishing.
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