Tips on entering a writing competition
Recently, I entered the Women's Writing Competition for Mslexia Publications. I'm afraid I didn't make the long-list, but I thought I would share their comments on the genres submitted and common errors found in a story.
'Some genres were especially well represented. In previous years crime and romance were the favourites. This year, by contrast, an unusually large number of historical novels were submitted – mainly Medieval and early 20th Century – perhaps resulting from an upsurge of interest in the genre following the success of authors like Hilary Mantel and Philippa Gregory. But this meant that it was harder for a historical novel to stand out, and some otherwise powerful extracts were regretfully set aside because a vivid historical setting rather dwarfed the characters in the story, who were rather two-dimensional in comparison. The judges also noted that dialogue can be especially challenging in a historical novel – speech needs to sound natural as well as ‘historical’, a balance that is very hard to achieve.
‘Travelogue’ novels were another big category of entrants, with the Middle East, Africa and India the most popular destinations. With these books, too, there was a tendency for the setting to dominate, and the judges asked me to say that although an exotic setting does grab the reader’s attention, their interest will be short-lived if they can’t engage with the people in it.
Another major trend in this year’s submissions was YA novels – inspired we assume by the huge popularity of Hunger Games and Divergent. The judges commented that the YA submissions were particularly impressive, with writers well versed in the conventions of the genre – in a good way! Where some fell down was explaining too much about the fantasy world they had created, rather than showing characters grappling with it directly. The best entries in this genre opened with the protagonist right in the midst of the action – it may be that simply discarding the first three chapters and starting later in the plot is all that’s needed to bring these novels to life.'
'Some genres were especially well represented. In previous years crime and romance were the favourites. This year, by contrast, an unusually large number of historical novels were submitted – mainly Medieval and early 20th Century – perhaps resulting from an upsurge of interest in the genre following the success of authors like Hilary Mantel and Philippa Gregory. But this meant that it was harder for a historical novel to stand out, and some otherwise powerful extracts were regretfully set aside because a vivid historical setting rather dwarfed the characters in the story, who were rather two-dimensional in comparison. The judges also noted that dialogue can be especially challenging in a historical novel – speech needs to sound natural as well as ‘historical’, a balance that is very hard to achieve.
‘Travelogue’ novels were another big category of entrants, with the Middle East, Africa and India the most popular destinations. With these books, too, there was a tendency for the setting to dominate, and the judges asked me to say that although an exotic setting does grab the reader’s attention, their interest will be short-lived if they can’t engage with the people in it.
Another major trend in this year’s submissions was YA novels – inspired we assume by the huge popularity of Hunger Games and Divergent. The judges commented that the YA submissions were particularly impressive, with writers well versed in the conventions of the genre – in a good way! Where some fell down was explaining too much about the fantasy world they had created, rather than showing characters grappling with it directly. The best entries in this genre opened with the protagonist right in the midst of the action – it may be that simply discarding the first three chapters and starting later in the plot is all that’s needed to bring these novels to life.'
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