Writing Contests

[Acalewia]

Have you ever entered a writing contest?

Did you win? What did you enter? What contest?

[Earniel]

I joined one two years or so ago on Elfwood, a site where I post some of my short stories. The aim was to write a SF&F short story based on a news article. I picked an article on libraries using smell detection to judge the conservation and state of book collections. I then wrote a story about people tracking down intelligent books by smell.

It won first prize, first thing I ever actually won all on my own, come to think of it. The prize was an interesting book on writing and a year-long Patron-status (member account with perks).

I only entered the competition because I was on the site for years and trusted them. Otherwise I'm generally weary of writing competitions. There are some out there that are really dangerous, like the ones that put into small print that by merely entering the competition you give up all rights to the competition organiser who can then use your story to their own liking and benefits whether you even won anything or not.

Then there are also a lot of competitions that have entry fees. You then have to decide whether the fee, the prizes and the state of your writing skill make it worthwhile. But here too are a good number of scams that ask for entry fees and then tell everybody that they're the winner. Or then ask you to pay exuberant prices for a book that contains all the winning stories. It's often only then you notice you've been had and how little achievement 'winning' actually was.

But as long as you are careful and check out every contest you enter, they can be very good practise or motivation. I would never have written 'At the Library' without the competition. I'm still very proud of that particular short story and hope to incorporate it at some point in a larger story.

And winning anything, even an honourable mention, is of course a massive self-esteem boost.

There are two competitions I would have loved to participate in, the SFX magazine writing competition and the writing competition started by Terry Pratchett, but -alas- only open to UK residents. Not that I would have had a shot at either of them, but I think they could have been real fun and educational.