Entering Writing Competitions
Creative writing competitions can serve many purposes. One of these is getting you writing. Should you have a maximum word count and a deadline it concentrates the mind and can result in work that otherwise would in no way have been written.. If you’re given a subject to write about it is even better.
An additional consideration is fame and fortune. Not really a poor incentive, but right here we must be realistic. Competitions are generally for brief stories and therefore are held by magazines or publishers. The competitions can vary from very little to really big. A couple are free of charge but most have entry fees. This is very acceptable, as prize money must originate from somewhere. Nevertheless entry fees could be very high and should you enter quite a lot of competitions the cost of fees adds up alarmingly.
The small creative writing contests have a couple of hundred entries and give you a definite chance of winning. All things considered some of the} entries will be very bad, some will be excluded, as the authors haven’t read the submission guidelines correctly, along with a couple will miss the deadline completely. This cuts down on opposition to some thing manageable. If you’re a competent writer you have a chance of being within the top 2 or 3. But what do you get for your trouble? The prize money will more than likely cover your entry charge as well as the cost of a coffee at Starbucks. You may only get a free copy of the magazine sponsoring the competition. That is about it. Your name will appear on the list of winners, but couple of people will read the list. So entering a small competition is little a lot more than writing practice, whatever the outcome. But writers have to begin somewhere and a win or perhaps a shortlist can cheer you up a great deal and inspire you to greater things.
Big creative writing competitions are different. They attract an international entry of thousands. The winner gets an amazing prize and a lot of publicity. Not free of charge publicity, do not forget the entry charge, but valuable publicity that may push a career forward. The standard of winners are going to be really high. They may be competition specialists who are not only superb writers but know exactly what the judges are searching for. Perhaps they’re published authors who, by definition, are very experienced at what they do.
You ought to in no way think you aren’t good enough to enter any competition but a reality check is needed here. Simply to be on the shortlist of maybe 100 writers is to have performed well. Should you win you’ll have earned your fame and fortune.
Obviously a single sure way to avoid winning a competition is not to have entered in the first place. Have a go, you might not win – not at very first anyway – but you’ll have written your entry. If you do not achieve the success you expected in the competition. begin the next writing competition.
