by Stephanie Morrill
Stephanie writes young adult contemporary novels and is the creator of GoTeenWriters.com. Her novels include The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series (Revell) and The Revised Life of Ellie Sweet (Playlist). You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and check out samples of her work on her author website.
Among writers, I’ve noticed two schools of thought about writing contests.
And my opinion is, “I agree.”
Writing contests can be extremely helpful. They can get your manuscript in front of great writers, agents, even editors. Even if they don’t do that, you can get great, unbiased feedback from published writers that will help strengthen your story.
They can also be a waste of time because sometimes (often?) big contests are desperate for first round judges and you wind up with someone who has no clue about your genre trying to tell you how to write your book.
So … what’s a writer to do?
This is purely my opinion, so don’t take this as industry scripture or anything, but I feel that if you’re an aspiring writer and you’re ready to query agents or editors, it’s a good idea to start with a writing contest. Here’s why:
- Writing contests scrub your name from the pages. Which means the judges know only your words and your genre. You won’t get special treatment because you’re young or because you’re a relative or because you’re friends. All biases are removed.
- If something isn’t working in your first chapters, your judges may have great advice on how to change it. Which might help you land an agent or editor. (This is what happened for me with my debut novel, Me, Just Different. I took the advice of the judges, and an agent who I’d previously queried loved the changes and wanted to represent me.)
- Contests are good practice for receiving, accepting, processing, and applying criticism. When Me, Just Different didn’t do so great in the contest, it was very hard for me. But handling that criticism was an important skill for me to develop.
- With big contests, there are multiple rounds. If your entry advances to the next round, your book will be in front of an agent or editor. This means you’ll at least be getting feedback from them, and you’ll possibly gain representation or a contract from it. (I’ve seen both happen – though I’ve also seen manuscripts win contests and never get published. So…)