From deadlines that force words onto the page to opportunities that can genuinely change the trajectory of a writing career, here are WriteMentor’s five reasons writing contests are such a powerful tool for writers at any stage.
Deadline
First and foremost, most writers struggle to get books written or to a point where they’re happy because they don’t spend enough time working on them. A deadline provides you with the motivation to get the work done by a certain date. It’s worked so many times for me with my writing, and I know I’d never have written as much as I have without those deadlines to help push me along.
Practice letting go
It can be hard to let the rest of the world into our story worlds. Many writers find the place they made up in their own head is precious and they feel vulnerable letting others see it. But you will eventually have to do it, and the more practice letting others in, the more easily you’ll be able to send your work out – and remember, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!
Evaluation
Most contests focus heavily on openings, especially for novels and in the early rounds before more of the story is read – this replicates querying and how much an agent reads and so it can be useful to send your work into contests to evaluate the strength of your opening, to see if it’s engaging enough. If you struggle to get onto lists, it might be an issue with your opening, which might need work. *Although I will caveat this one with the fact that lots of writers get published with work that has never listed in contests it has entered. Taste, subjectivity, luck and timing all play a part, too. But I was able to send in 3 or 4 entries to a contest and judge which had the most promising or engaging opening by the one(s) that would list from time to time.
External validation
Of course, if you do list, this gives you a massive confidence boost and a great degree of external validation that maybe there is something promising in this story and that agents/publishers/readers may well be interested in reading it! We all have that inner narrative that says things like ‘this is no good’, ‘what crap did I just write’, or the spectre on your shoulder that whispers, ‘you’ll never be good enough, what’s the point…’ And contests can often amplify those voices if you don’t list, but similarly silence them if you do. The positives outweight the negatives overall on this one, though. And remember most published authors will have never listed in a contest – while some are only published because they DID list in a contest. So take the win if it comes, but don’t sweat it if it doesn’t.
Prizes
Everyone likes a bit of cold, hard cash right? And a prize of cash is always a nice thing, but you’ve all been clear in your feedback that other prizes are just as important, such as agent 1-2-1 time, or feedback, or other writing opportunities. And we know from our own contests, let alone the many others that are out there, that so many writers that have won or been listed in our contests go on to use these prizes to really further their writing, whether that’s a community prize, mentoring, agent and industry connection opportunities, and the rest!