Me with my Ditmar Award from earlier this year.
Yay – to date, I’ve won first place in eight national writing competitions here in Australia, ten if you count my co-authored work. How? Well, that’s a good question, with a very simple answer: you have to know your market.
To do this, you can start by researching:
- Who’s running the competition?
- Who’s the judge?
- What kind of story will that judge enjoy?
You have to know whose opinion you’re trying to win over, so you can motivate them into taking action – ie. award you first prize! There’s little point entering a genre story into a literary writing competition and vice versa. You might love your contemporary short fiction written entirely in text messages and tweets… But will the judge of a traditional writers’ group’s competition love it as much?
So, think about the competition you want to enter and ask yourself…
Who’s running this competition?
My horror writing trophy from last year. Mm… so shiny!
The organisers of writing competitions are the ones who select the judges – who are they and what kind of writing do they like? This is a little easier to know when the competition is for a particular genre. For example, the organisers of a horror writing competition are highly likely to select judges who like reading horror and dark fantasy. If it’s a mainstream writing group’s ‘open’ competition, however, they’re not as likely to have a preference for horror or dark fantasy.
Next, ask yourself…
Who’s the judge?
Mostly, the judges of writing competitions are writers themselves. So why not research what they write and/or read? This will tell you if they’re likely to value your writing. We all have different preferences – in music, books, movies, etc – judges too! Knowing your judge will help you pick the right story to enter, or even whether to enter at all. You may be wasting your time by entering a competition judged by someone highly unlikely to appreciate your writing style or genre. They are simply going to award first place to a story they like.
If you can’t find out who’s going to be the judge of this year’s competition, find out who judged the same competition last year. It’s likely the organisers will select a similar person again.
Next, think about how you’re going to connect with that judge.
What kind of story will that judge enjoy?
May all the wins be yours!
Not these though – they’re mine!!
Most writing competitions are judged by a single person, so you’ve got to put everything you can into writing a story guaranteed to connect with them.
Guaranteed?
That’s impossible?
And yet someone did it last year. I’ve done it ten times. So research who won the competition last year and, if you can, read what they wrote. Hundreds of writers will be trying to capture the judge’s attention this year. The odds might feel impossible, but someone is going to do it. Why not you?
What can you write that might interest that judge?
How did last year’s entrant stand out?
Most probably they wrote from the heart, like all good writers do – and they did their research 😉
GOOD LUCK!!
