Short Fiction Contest Guidelines…Wow.
I mentioned last week I have been looking more seriously at short fiction contests between now and the end of the year. I’ve already submitted to two of them, one a flash fiction contest, and another for “regular” sized short fiction, if you will. Today I picked the next contest I’ll submit to, and which story I will polish up for same.
One thing that surprises me a bit as I research appropriate contests in just how specific they can be. In fact, guidelines of staggering specificity may just outnumber those that call for simply a genre, or simply a length.
I can understand genre and length. Those are basic nomenclatures that weeds out many possible stories from the start. Sponsors may only have expertise in such genre, or have time for such lengths of entries.
Other perimeters I found are almost as understandable to some degree. Contests accepting only Jewish-centric stories, for instance, or those limited to women authors. That’s a tad exclusive to me, but given the overall underrepresented status of many minorities in the fiction world in this country, I can sympathize. A leg up in potential exposure is understandable.
However, when contest start getting into say, five or more demographic requirements for one’s submission to be considered, I think it may do a bit more harm than good.
“The Jacques Noble’ Short Fiction Award considers the year’s best unpublished cozy mystery novella (minimum of 18,000 words and a maximum of 40,000 words) with a distinctly New England setting by Catholic authors.”
I made up that award to make a point, and so as to not mock anyone’s contest. Yet if you conduct your own search for fiction contests I’m confident that in a short time you’ll find some with guidelines very near that specific.
Is there an attempt here to represent the cozy-mystery writing New England Catholic population that is not well represented already? Or is that demographic so tiny when weeded down that far, it by definition it can’t be underrepresented?
Not that I have a great problem with fiction that checks so many boxes before one even reads a single word. There must be enough of such writers to justify the award’s existence. But I can’t help but wonder if by being so specific if the contests are consigning themselves to future oblivion. I also wonder if by doing this, contests for the best fiction are placing anthropology over quality of fiction, thus cutting qualified writers of excellent fiction out of consideration right from the start.
It also makes those who do not fit into so many boxes participate in, dare I say it, the “Everyone, everywhere” type of contests, which of course are the most populated, and probably least likely to be won.
Now, would I submit to a contest whose requirements stated that all entries must be set in the world of theatre, come in under 10,000 words and be written by Progressive Marylanders? Damn right I would. Me, and the other four. Yet I’d gladly do without such a contest, (and believe me, I do) if it meant a few more accessible and affordable contest that were far less picky about content before quality was even considered.
Opinion on Opinions.
I have an opinion on something.
Actually I have an opinion on many things. Believe or not, many of them are actually informed opinions. I wouldn’t have this blog if I didn’t want to share some of those opinions with the general public. As a writer, I do so in writing most often, I would assume.
Here on said blog, I usually write about writing itself, introversion, and a few other things here and there. I don’t think doing so has hurt my author aspirations. Some would, however, disagree with this opinion on giving opinions.
The argument goes that as an author who hopes to become successful, I should express as few opinions as possible about social or political issues. An author shouldn’t alienate and part of their potential fan base, and taking a public position on a matter, especially a sensitive matter, can hurt book sales, or turn people against you.
My first response to that is…too late.
In seriousness, I have via social media expressed already my opinions on various interests that are important to me. One of my jobs is to write a local opinion column for the city’s newspaper. Have I already ruined my fiction career?
I’ll say this; I understand the advice to keep quiet. The notion is not without some logic. There are people who are not going to buy my novel or read my articles once they know where on the social and political spectrum I lie. (If they haven’t figured that out already.) Every person turned away from me is potentially a person turned away from my writing, so why give them an excuse not to buy my book, when it’s difficult enough to get people to buy books these days? It’s not an absurd position to take. Yet I don’t think it can ever be my position.
That’s not to say I need to announce my interpretation of every news event in a public manner, or go trolling on sites dedicated to the opposite point of view. But author’s are people. Responsible, conscientious members of society stay informed on matters important to both themselves and to people in general. Expressing views on those topics, though it should be done in clean manner, is not to me unreasonable for an author. If I lose a few readers, I guess I lose a few readers. (I know, easy for me to say while my career is still emerging, but I like to think this would be even more true when my platform is large, my name well known.)
Besides, once an author is famous enough, he can effect change in his chosen field by use of said fame. I don’ think it’s wrong.
One final note, we may not be giving readers enough credit when we say that they won’t read our fiction when they realize we don’t agree with them politically. Though my beliefs inform aspects of my fiction, most of it can stand alone without my weaving a sermon per se into their fabric. Some people, in other words, may just not give a damn about my personal beliefs if they like my books.
I think I’ll throw this one at him during the book signing.
It’s something to be aware of, as is any behavior on social media. Yet, I don’t expect to refrain from expressing my principles publicly any time soon.
What’s your opinion on opinions? Should authors keep quiet?
“High-Concept” Fiction
I’ve read a few novels or stories that become too bogged down with world-building or what I call “concept obsession.” The former tends to happen in fantasy and sci-fi the most, and the latter can happen in any high concept piece. (Hence the term.)
I find a lot of high concepts intriguing. As a concept that is. I have a list of such concepts in my idea notebook. Yet one of the signs of a mature writer is realizing that not every high concept or intricate world makes for a good narrative. Narrative, plot, character, story and such are the keys to interesting stories for most readers, I dare say, and without those, you just have one long description of something you made up. It’s quite the temptations for author’s, especially new ones, to stuff their narratives with as much of the uniqueness to their story as possible, even if it doesn’t serve the story.
“It would be so cool if…” is usually not a sufficient building block for a novel, even a high concept one. Sorry. When you start a piece, make sure there is a solid narrative within your unique concept somewhere, that entails more than explaining how the high concept, or unusual world came to be.
Sad, I know. Your have an idea for a word where due to a virus, every single human birth is now a set of identical twins. You’ve explored the impact it would have on economics, population, religion, pop-culture. But if nothing happens to anybody interesting in this interesting new world, you’ll likely end up boring readers with details of how the world changed in each of those categories and more.
That’s not a story.
However, there is good news; you can always make an exploration of that world or high concept the entire reason for your writing. It may not be a story or a novel, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t creative. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write it down. It just means, perhaps, that all you are writing any given time is say a handbook for the world you created, or a faux-academic paper on the “everybody has twins” thing. Such creations don’t need a narrative or a protagonist. You can delve into the hows and the whys until your heart’s content, and it’s fine.
Granted, such works are not likely to be published in the traditional manner. (Though you never know; it happens sometimes.) But you can always self-publish it if you want. Or you can just keep it for yourself as an exercise. Not everything you write has to be published, of course. Tuck it away in a drawer, and read it or add on to it as time goes on, as a way to explore you creativity without a deadline. And who knows? That collection of “facts” about your concept may evolve into a more standard story arc some day.
All this by way of saying that though you need to discern which of your concepts may or may not make a good novel, you need not totally forget about your concept even if you decide there is no novel in it somewhere. Creating is creating. Don’t shut that out.
Contest Submission Complete
True to my word as expressed last month, yesterday I entered a larger scale writing contest than my norm. Entrance fee and everything.
It’s said and done now, so there is no undoing it. I’m not wild about having paid 20 bucks for the chance to lose. Yet I trust, for the most part, the sponsor of the contest, so i went with it. That’s the key to entrance fees, I suppose: trusting the sponsor of said contest.
That, and I’m rapidly approaching the end of the year, without having fulfilled my personal quota for contests. I suppose it will be easier each time I do it.
In the end, they are good ideas, assuming they are reputable. I know this, and the potential exposure for winning, or even just coming in second place are probably worth the 20 dollars. (Except maybe the flying to a writing conference…I’m a bit put off by that possibility, as I have never flown, and have no desire to do so. But I will cross that continent when/if I come to it.)
I submitted when is best described as a horror story, I suppose, though that doesn’t quite fit. If the editors at the contest should decide to keep it in that genre, however, and should I win something, it will be the second time one of my horror stories has gained some recognition from a contest this year. (And I have only ever written about three horror stories total, lifetime.) The irony alone of winning this contest, should I so so, would be worthy of its own novel.
I have a few more contests to enter this year, if I am to meet my personal quota. Any suggestions?
Getting Real About Literature
Was this article’s attitude necessary?
I honestly feel that everyone is entitled to a preference in the arts. Nothing you enjoy or do not enjoy is going to harm me or anyone else, so long as the art itself has no victim, such as child porn pictures or something. So if this author wants to be so brazen as to dismiss what seems to be two thirds of all fiction ever written because it doesn’t rise to his standards of “life changing” excellence, so be it. It’s his right. But it’s also my right to call out just how obnoxious he is for doing so.
I myself have not read Terry Pratchett, but apparently that is not a prerequisite for talking about the impact of his work. (The author himself admits he has never read Pratchett either.) Let’s say, however, that I didn’t like his books after reading them. So? Is that going to lessen his impact on the sci-fi/fantasy world? Obviously not. Why, therefore, would this guy’s assessment (having not read any of Pratchett’s books, proudly) keep Pratchett and others outside of the realm of “literature”? (Not that Pratchett fans or himself, from what I gather, insisted on his being considered literature by such stringent definitions.)
Is Pratchett to be degraded because his isn’t Gabriel García Márquez, or whatever other dearly departed authors this guy has declared to be of importance to the very survival of humanity? I suppose in the author’s world, the answer is “yes, of course.”
The thing is, literature is not solidly defined in practice, even if it may be in the dictionary. Anybody who spends time around the writing and publishing world, even with no more than a single eye open is aware of just how fluid the definition of “literature” and “genre fiction” has become over the last few generations. I wonder just how high of an ivory tower one must be in to remain unaware of this, as the author of this article seems to be.
That is separate from the hubris of declaring both that literature “changes lives” and that Pratchett is not literature. One’s life being changed is even more subjective than the definition of literature, and I’ll thank this guy not to determine what has or hasn’t changed mine. I can’t speak as to whether Pratchett’s works would be “life changing” for me, but I can speak to the fact that they must have been to someone, many someones in fact. Hence his popularity and the state of mourning in wake of his recent death.
Who said, by the way, that to be “literature” a book must change one’s entire life anyway? That’s a fairly lofty standard to uphold, even for “literature” isn’t it?
Yet even if we accept that definition, we have to also accept that any given reader will possibly consider to be literature works by Pratchett, or King, or Austin, or Kerouac, or me, or whoever. Something tells me though that confronted with his own definition, the article’s author would move the goal posts. That’s fine, though. People like him can argue about angels on the head of a quill pen, while the rest of the world enjoys reading what moves them and even calling it “literature” if they so choose.
Ty Unglebower 