Are you still longing for a first sale, and wondering if it will ever happen? Membership in Romance Writers of America is invaluable to anyone hoping to become published in romance fiction someday. Local chapter meetings, regional and national conferences, and the organization's monthly magazine, "Romance Writers Report" are wonderful sources of education, networking, and industry information. Another significant benefit is the opportunity to enter writing contests sponsored by RWA chapters across the country.
There are a number of good reasons to enter contests.
1. If your critique partners have seen your work over and over, they may not catch details that have been inadvertently lost during your repeated revisions. Contest judges are "fresh readers", and will stumble over these confusing aspects. Their scores and comments can help you correct such problems before you submit your work to an editor.
2. Contests can help you identify specific weaknesses, set goals and then monitor your improvement. For example, if your scores are generally low on "point of view", you can study those principles, revise, and strive for higher POV scores in your next contest. Setting such smaller goals helps you see satisfying progress, when your first sale--or even a contest win--seem far away.
3. Through entry preparation, you will learn professional presentation of your work.
4. If you final in a contest with an editor as the final round judge, you are guaranteed a prompt read by her. If she likes your work, she may request the whole ms---and thus you've sped the entire submission process along. No query, no proposal!
4. When you do start winning, the success and name recognition you achieve will help you market yourself to editors...and to your fellow romance writers, who may buy and read your books some day.
5. Finally, contests will help you learn to accept criticism, learn to revise, and learn to accept rejection. Throughout all of this, you can gain better perspective about your work.
There are many contests listed in the RWR each month. How do you choose which ones to enter? Look at the
number of judges-- generally speaking, the more the better, because you will receive more feedback. Will judges do critiques right on the entries, or will they do written critiques?
This is very helpful. You’ll get some line edits, and very specific comments.
A contest offering at least one published author per judging panel is a good choice. Do you have a complete, polished manuscript, and are you on the verge of selling? Pick
contests with your target editors as final round judges. Do you still need to develop good synopsis-writing skills? Or would you like to have your entire story critiqued before you write any
more chapters? Enter a contest that requires a synopsis with the entry. These contests are quite a bargain, because the judges will be evaluating your whole story idea.
The Romance Writers of America offer the biggest unpublished contest of all—-The Golden Heart. This contest offers a golden opportunity for the finalists to be judged by three editors, and can be a definite boost toward a first sale. For more information on the benefits of entering the Golden Heart, look for the articles "The Golden Heart Contest--Take Heart" in the RWR, Nov-Dec, 1994, and "The Golden Heart-—14 Karat or Brass Plate?" by Roxanne Rustand and Tracy Cozzens, The Romance Writer's Report, October 1998.
PREPARING AND ENTERING A WINNER
Polish your entry until it shines, and follow the contest rules carefully. Some specific hints:
1. Start with an outstanding hook. Startle, amuse, or raise a question that forces the reader to go on. End each scene with another strong hook that grabs the reader by the throat. Make her desperately want to find out what happens next. Don’t ever end a contest entry in mid-scene, mid-paragraph or mid-sentence. Entrees that end this way seem anticlimactic and flat. A great hook at the end will help make your entry stand out.
2. Make sure you’ve strongly established the goal, motivation, and conflict for your characters. If you aren’t certain about what this means, buy and study Debra Dixon’s outstanding book, GMC: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict (Gryphon Books for Writers, ISBN 0- 9654371-0-8).
3. Make sure the judges can feel the romance elements building in your entry. The general rule is that the more the hero and heroine are together, the better. If they don't meet, or are together very little, some judges will take it on faith that the romance will build. Some judges won't—-and they'll score you lower.
4. Be sure you have clearly included the basics of "who-what-where-why-when" in your story, or the judges may be confused, and will score you lower.
5. Check and re-check basics like punctuation, grammar, and spelling. A manuscript with such basic flaws isn't likely to get a serious read by a contest judge or an editor.
6. Read and re-read the contest instructions, because the rules will not be the same from one contest to the next. Don’t take a chance on being disqualified. You will lose your entry fee, postage, and copying costs, but worst of all, you'll lose the opportunity to be judged in that contest. Courier font and double spacing are standard.
7. Don't try to cram more text into your entry with smaller font size, excessive lines per page, or smaller margins than specified in the contest rules. Even if your entry gets past the contest coordinator, judges notice this sort of thing right away. I tried this just once, and a judge wrote, "This makes me angry. You must think I’m too stupid to notice these margins!" Needless to say, she gave me a low score.
8. Bind the entries only in the manner requested. Generally, binder clips are the rule, with a colored sheet of paper between the synopsis and the chapters. Include a stamped, self-addressed postcard, so the coordinator can let you know that your entry arrived safely.
9. Finally, prepare your entry early. Set it aside for a while, then go back and look at it again. You'll catch surprising mistakes! Ask a friend to go through it, too. Rushing to make a contest deadline can mean exorbitant mailing costs, and result in a flawed entry that won't have a chance of making the finals. And speaking of mailing—-be sure to send your package in a way that will not require a harried contest coordinator to sign for the package. If she isn't home to accept it, your entry may not make the deadline.
Once you finish your entry, keep working on that manuscript. Get it done, polished, and ready to submit. If an editor requests your ms, follow through. Be prompt, but don’t send in anything that isn’t perfectly polished. Rushing to get your manuscript off and sending it with glaring mistakes is like shooting yourself in the foot.
INTERPRETING RESULTS
1. Go through your score sheets and copies of your entry, and look for problem areas on which the judges tended to agree. Are there confusing passages? Problems with point of view? Weaknesses in internal conflict? Don't discount one lone judge's opinion, though. She may have been the only one to catch a particular problem.
Remember, though, that judging is subjective, and not every judge is going to be astute, or fair. Don't be discouraged by a one scathing score sheet! Though the temptation may be great—don't pitch a "bad" score sheet in the trash. Later, you might find valuable nuggets amongst the comments that hurt so much the first time through.
2. Now, go through your ms and revise, if you agree. Perhaps bring those score sheets to your critique group for additional input. Still, be careful not to re-write endlessly, trying to please everyone. You may lose your own vision or your special voice.
AND FINALLY...
Mention your contest accomplishments in query letters. If you final in a major contest such as RWA's Golden Heart, send a note to any editor to whom you have sent a submission.
Finally, send thank you notes to your judges. Few judges sign their score sheets, but the contest coordinator can forward your envelopes. Most judges try very hard to be fair, and also try to help contestants through providing extra comments on score sheets. They've taken a lot of time from their own schedules to judge the contest.
Someone once told me, "A good manuscript doesn't always win, but a bad one never does!" We all had to start as beginners. No one writes perfectly the first or even the fourth time through a manuscript. If you've been down some rough roads on your journey toward a first sale, just remember: no one was born published. Many of our favorite authors were rejected for years before finally they finally sold. The only way to guarantee failure is if you give up!
So—are contests are freeway to success? No, but they can help you perfect your work, give you valuable experience in revision, provide helpful contacts with editors, and help you on the road to your first sale. Best wishes for success in the future!
Written in preparation for a workshop on contests, given at the 1998 RWA conference in Anaheim