Should you Write Specifically for Contests?

Hello, and welcome!

I’m here today to talk to you about writing/literary contests and, more specifically, should you write for them? In other words, should you write your opening pages to fit what contests are looking for? What are the pros and cons of doing such a thing? Let’s find out.

Should you write specifically for contests?

Okay, admittedly ‘should’ is a strong word. You certainly ‘can’ write specifically for contests, meaning you construct your entry for the sole purpose of finaling in and winning contests, and quite frankly, I don’t think it’s a bad idea at all as long as you keep a couple of key points in mind.

The hard truth…

First, the odds are against your selling a manuscript to New York on the first 20 pages alone. Unless you’re already published and have some decent sales under your belt, this simply doesn’t happen. So, while you may polish your first 20 pages until they shine with a blinding brilliance, you’d better be able to back that up in the other 330 pages. Agents and editors will know the instant your manuscript starts to fall apart, and they will know why. They’ve seen it thousands of times, so you won’t fool them, I promise.

Second, there is a strong desire to work and rework our beginnings, especially if your goal is to win contests, polishing them until they glow, and then going back and reworking them again. In other words, we fall into the rabbit hole—and habit—of starting a manuscript, then another, and another, and never completing any of them. You do not want to do that. You are never going to sell if you don’t, as Cherry Adair would say, FINISH THE DAMN BOOK!

The pros of writing for contests… 

As you may already know, contests reflect the submission process. If those first few pages AREN’T polished to a blinding brilliance, you are not going to get an editor/agent to read past them. Sad but true.

QUICK TIP: A big sign that you have started in the wrong place:

If you have ever said to anyone, “Keep reading. It gets better.”

That is a huge, flashing warning sign that you need to go back and rethink your opening.

Like the above states, if you have ever said to anyone, “Keep reading, it gets better,” you may have started in the wrong place, put backstory where it doesn’t belong, began with too much description of the weather … any number of possibilities, really. Consider tossing out your entire opening and starting later in the story, cutting out the info dump and sprinkling in backstory throughout your story, or tightening your prose until it’s razor sharp.

A fantastic byproduct of writing for contests is that your prose will be tightened and streamlined. You are learning about pacing early on, about introducing key characters quickly and succinctly, about jump-starting your story, making it interesting from the very first word. A nice pace for the first 20-50 pages has a powerful effect on the rest of your story.

So, in that sense, there is nothing wrong with writing for contests. Later, when your manuscript sells, grows up, and gets to sit at the big table next to Nora, you will have accomplished a very important goal: Hook the reader and don’t let go. If there is anything you learn from entering contests, it’s to hook your reader early on. It is a valuable skill. You have about three seconds to grab a shopper’s attention with your prose when she’s browsing the books at Wal-Mart. Once she opens your book for a peek, you’d better have your best foot forward. Make the most of those three seconds.

Sharpening your focus…

What should you focus on in your entry?

The same thing you focus on in every opening scene. You want to set the stage, to orient the reader, and you begin with sharp, crisp writing. That’s a given. Learn the craft and keep learning. Remember, you have to know the rules to break them.

But where should your story begin?

We all know the old adage that the opening should start when there is a change in the main character’s life. Something has happened to set the main character on a different path than he or she was planning.

In a romantic suspense, perhaps our heroine comes home to find her ex-boyfriend dead on her living room floor. In a paranormal, maybe she meets a dark stranger who insists she is destined to save the world. In a YA, our heroine could find herself being goaded into running for prom queen against the evil popular girl, the one who dumped Kool-Aid on her in grade school. On purpose!

But I hope you’ll eventually learn, what I’m still learning, is that our job is not to grab the reader by the throat, nigh ripping out her jugular, trying to force her to turn the page and keep reading. It is to seduce the reader into continuing. To lure her to the next word, to tempt her with the next sentence, the next page.

Your first and best bet in doing this is not necessarily by wowing her with action, but by wowing her with sharp, crisp writing. Writing that is so fresh and appealing, it is impossible for her to stop reading.

Still, understanding your mission, should you choose to accept it, will help.

While the goal of a book is to create a positive emotional experience for the reader, the goal of the opening is to set the stage, to pull the reader in.

THERE ARE FOUR GOALS IN AN OPENING:

1.     Draw the reader in

Step one is to draw the reader in. This means, setting the stage. You must orient your readers lest you risk losing them in a sea of confusion. You can use detail and description. I’m not talking about starting with the weather unless it is important in setting the tone of the story.

2.     Create empathy for your main character

Step two in the process is to create empathy in your reader, make him or her really root for your protagonist. We don’t read to observe the character from a distance. We read to become the character and experience the conflicts and rewards they are experiencing.

PRO TIP: You must create empathy BEFORE introducing any negative flaws in your character, anything that will distance us from the reader.

There are five ways to create empathy: (Need to use AT LEAST two of these.)

• Sympathy
• Jeopardy
• Likeability
• Power
• Humor

3.     Set the tone of the story

Tone encompasses the attitudes toward the subject. It may be formal, informal, intimate, solemn, somber, playful, serious, ironic, guilty, condescending, or many other possible attitudes. Tone and mood are not necessarily interchangeable.

• Tone is what the author feels toward the subject.
• Mood is what the reader feels.

Establishing the tone can be done by showing the ominous thunderclouds overhead, describing the sultry darkness of the night, or describing how disturbing the loud music is at the nightclub your heroine has ducked into in an attempt to ditch a man she believes is stalking her.

Your environment is an excellent way to set tone, but dialogue is great too.

• Masters of dialogue:
  • Julia Quinn
  • Molly Harper
  • Janet Evanovich
  • Joss Whedon (the god)
  • JR Ward
  • And many more!

4.     Elicit emotion-your primary objective

If you’ve done all of the above, chances are you’ve already accomplished this last must-have. Eliciting emotion is a given if our heroine is in jeopardy or if our hero has been wounded or longs for something he believes he can never have. But just to throw fuel onto the fire, to really hook your reader, you might throw in a quick twist the reader didn’t see coming.

Perhaps your heroine who is a nice girl and who is liked by her colleagues and who seems to have her act together is actually living a lie. She is on the run and has a secret past that is so dark and so disturbing she is deathly afraid the truth will get out. The bad guy will find her. And while she is checking her email that morning, she receives one from someone who knows her true identity and has threatened to reveal her secret to the highest bidder. Voila! Emotion!

End with a hook!

Next, if you are writing for a contest, you want to end your entry with a good hook. You want that judge to be drooling for the next paragraph, so end with a twist she didn’t see coming.

And the great thing is, all of this can be done in the first 5,000 words!

Nailing your opening is a class in itself; I’m trying to be brief. But all of this together is your hook, your seduction of the reader. If you can master the opening, you will be leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.

THANKS FOR JOINING US TODAY!

Please feel free to ask questions!

~D~

REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED READS:

The First Five Pages: Noah Lukeman

Goal, Motivation, and Conflict: Deb Dixon

Anything by Michael Hauge; check his website!

Plot and Structure: James Scott Bell

On Writing: Stephen King

*****

Let’s look at Darynda’s upcoming book:

SEVENTH GRAVE AND NO BODY

Release date: October 21, 2014  Preorder here: Amazon| B&N 

Twelve. Twelve of the deadliest beasts ever forged in the fires of hell have escaped onto our plane, and they want nothing more than to rip out the jugular of Charley Davidson and serve her lifeless, mangled body to Satan for dinner. So there’s that. But Charley has more on her plate than a mob of testy hellhounds. For one thing, her father has disappeared, and the more she retraces his last steps, the more she learns he was conducting an investigation of his own, one that has Charley questioning everything she’s ever known about him. Add to that an ex-BFF who is haunting her night and day, a rash of suicides that has authorities baffled, and a drop-dead sexy fiancé who has attracted the attentions of a local celebrity, and Charley is not having the best week of her life.

A tad north of hell, a hop, skip, and a jump past the realm of eternity, is a little place called Earth, and Charley Davidson, grim reaper extraordinaire, is determined to do everything in her power to protect it.

We’re doomed.

A little about Darynda:

NYTimes and USA Today Bestselling Author Darynda Jones has won numerous awards for her work, including a prestigious Golden Heart®, a Rebecca, two Hold Medallions, a RITA ®, and a Daphne du Maurier, and she has received stellar reviews from dozens of publications including starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and the Library Journal. As a born storyteller, Darynda grew up spinning tales of dashing damsels and heroes in distress for any unfortunate soul who happened by, annoying man and beast alike, and she is ever so grateful for the opportunity to carry on that tradition. She currently has two series with St. Martin’s Press: The Charley Davidson Series and the Darklight Trilogy. She lives in the Land of Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, with her husband of almost 30 years and two beautiful sons, the Mighty, Mighty Jones Boys. She can be found at www.daryndajones.com.

Darynda Jones Website  | Facebook | Darynda’s World | Twitter

*****

Make sure to check out all of the other stops on this month long tour HERE and enter the grand prize giveaway.

All winner’s will be picked at the end of the month and announce the 1st week of October.