Observations About Literary Contest Submissions, Part II

Copyright © 2017, Steven E. Houchin. All rights reserved.

Last year I posted an article titled "Observations About Literary Contest Submissions" after being asked to read and score five manuscripts submitted to the Pacific Northwest Writers Association's 2016 Literary Contest. In my posting, I outlined six guidelines and truths about submitting to literary contests, hoping the advice might help new writers who are tempted by a contest. As a two-time finalist and former winner of this contest, I thought maybe I have learned something along the way.

I put my own advice to the test again this year (2017), submitting two entries: a novel and a short story. Both received positive critiques from the first-line readers. And, the novel was chosen as a finalist! I found out in late July that I, unfortunately, did not win this time.

Being a finalist again got me thinking about the guidelines in my earlier posting, and the math involved in contests. In my article, I postulated that simply and precisely following the contest rules, and a cleanly formatted manuscript, would jump you ahead of half the others. Maybe that's an exaggeration, maybe not. But following all my six guidelines may do that and more.

Imagine if you're in a category, like Mystery, with 100 entries. If half of those fail the contest rules and neatness test, your competition drops to 50. Of those, many will fail to write a proper synopsis, maybe 10 of them. Another 20 may fail due to poor writing, such as too much backstory, mundane dialog, no description or scene setting, or a languid pace. So, maybe that 50 now drops to 20 or 25. They are your remaining competition. If the Mystery category has eight finalists, your odds become maybe 1 in 3, versus the original 8 in 100 (about 1 in 12).

Now, my numbers here are pure speculation, but are based on experience having been a reader/scorer for the PNWA contest three times. So, I've seen for myself how often author submissions fall into that bottom 75% where glaring mistakes doom their entries.

So, if you want to greatly increase your odds of being a finalist in a contest, paying attention to the details, and the experience of others, is a good start.

PNWA Author Panel: Poisoned Pen Press

Copyright © 2011, Steven E. Houchin. All rights reserved.

Last month, I attended the September member meeting of the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association. The program consisted of a five-person panel of authors who have published books with Poisoned Pen Press of Scottsdale, AZ, which is an independent publisher of various mystery genres. According to the panelists, the editors are Barbara Peters and Annette Rogers. Unlike the big New York publishers, they take unagented submissions. They accept works between 60,000 and 90,000 words.

The panelists raved about how the editors spent a lot of time with them to get their book just right. In general, they recommend that authors start out querying small, independent presses because the author has a good chance of receiving good feedback on their work, even if rejected. Like any other publisher or agent, 99% of submissions will be rejected; they receive a lot of poorly-written submissions.

Poisoned Pen’s advances aren’t large: about $1000. But, there isn’t a lot of deadline pressure, and they won’t necessarily drop you as an author because of poor sales. After your book’s first print run, they utilize Print On Demand for subsequent orders, and distribute through Ingram Publisher Services. This means your book never goes out of print. From day one, your book is published in hardcover, trade paperback, audiobook, and large print.

On the subject of marketing your book, the panelists emphasized the importance of sending out advance, pre-publication review copies to the big industry reviewers, such as Library Journal or Booklist. Poisoned Pen will send out the review copies. Once the book is published, these reviewers will not look at the book. They only review advance copies. Unfortunately, most newspspers no longer review books. Ones that do: LA Times, Seattle Times, Washington Post.

Also attending the meeting was a man (I didn’t get his name) from New Libri Press, a small publisher in Mercer island, WA.

What’s In a Synopsis?

Copyright © 2009, Steven E. Houchin

I had the privilege this year to be a first-level judge in the 2009 Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest. It was an interesting experience that I enjoyed. I saw my own start at writing five years ago in the obviously newbie manuscripts I read, and liked some of the clever plot ideas. I can’t detail them here since they’re confidential, but a few had great potential.

One thing was clear to me: the idea of a synopsis is sorely misunderstood. I’ve also run into this in a weekly writer’s workshop I attend. For the contest, it didn’t help that the PNWA posted an online document “Writing a Synopsis”, which was truly misleading. It gave the impression that a synopsis should be written in structured segments: here is the protagonist and antagonist; this is their motivation; this is the theme; here is a sentence about the plot. That doesn’t make a synopsis; those are the elements that make up a query letter to an agent/editor - a completely different thing.

I won the PNWA contest two years ago with a synopsis that simply and concisely told the story, from start to end, in two pages. In doing so, the characters and their motivations were revealed naturally within the story. That should be true whether the synopsis is 80 words or 800. Write it like the inside of a book jacket, except tell the whole story - even the surprise ending.

On the subject of word count, a local panel of agents/editors recently claimed they wanted no more than a 50-word synopsis in a query letter. They have no time for anything longer. Holy cow! I tried that with one of my books, and only got to 80. Anything less, and I don’t think the agent would understand what’s compelling about the story. So, then, what about all those agents out there who advertise that they want a query letter, a one-page synopsis, and the first 50 manuscript pages? I’ve read on some blogs that agents are getting cynical about the perfectly crafted query letters they receive because the art of querying is being “workshopped” everywhere. Poor writers are learning how to write great queries. The only way to know what is any good is to read some of the manuscript itself, and judge if a more substantial synopsis makes sense.

I wrote an article recently about proper synopsis writing for a newsletter I edit. Here are the main points:

1. Write it in present tense, even if your story is in past tense (as most are). Write, “Gretchen sees the ghost float in”, not, “Gretchen saw the ghost float in”.
2. Tell the whole story. A synopsis is not a teaser, as is the case for what you often read on a book jacket or in a book review. Give the start, middle, and ending. Subplots are usually left out.
3. Be concise. You don’t have to include everything, just the important points. An agent may specify an interest in a one-page (or less) book synopsis only. Brevity is beautiful. But, getting across the main plot points is crucial. And, you still need to hook your reader. A book jacket or book review description can be a good example of conciseness.
4. For a whole book/story synopsis, include the main characters and their motivations. Minor characters are unnamed or left out. The first time you use a character’s name, put it in all uppercase.

And ... no dialog. Just tell what happens, and make it compelling to read. You may make an exception for a just couple of spoken words, but normally there is no dialog at all.

So, what does an agent/editor really want to see? The answer seems to be “it depends”. Follow whatever guidelines that person/organization posts. If in doubt, I suppose a simple, one-page query can’t go wrong.