Contests...the name for our pain. We love them. We hate them. We’re addicted to them. Sometimes they’re the bane of our existence as writers. But do we really understand what the judges in contests are saying to us? Are we taking their feedback and improving our writing so we can pass the ultimate test — getting in front of an agent or editor? Hopefully so!

In an effort to pay it forward, during 2004, I spent almost eighty hours judging close to sixty contest entries in four different contests. Perhaps I approach contest judging differently from the next person, but I feel that it’s my job as a judge to give as much helpful, useful and constructive feedback as possible so the entrant gets their money’s worth from the contest. Too often, I’ve received contest entries back with no feedback, no comments, no suggestions and I don’t feel that’s right. I take my judging seriously and try to put myself in the seat of that editor or agent who might be reading the submission. What are they looking for? What’s going to stand out to them? What’s going to halt their reading or propel them further?

From the myriad contest entries I read over the year, some trends developed that I wanted to share in an effort to help fellow writers improve their manuscripts. While it’s great to final or place in a contest, our ultimate goals should always be getting published and taking the feedback from a contest to move to that next step in your writing career.

Here are the things I’ve discovered as a contest judge that writers can improve upon:

1. Don’t hold your heroine at arm’s length.
It’s interesting...in many of the contest entries I judged over the course of the year, this was one of the biggest problems for me as a reader. The writer had a great premise and an interesting situation, but I never really felt like I knew the heroine I was reading about. It seems writers can be more generous with their secondary characters and showing their actions/reactions, but oftentimes it seemed as if the heroine was just walking along through the scenery and as a reader, I was never really set in her head. The heroine is the most important part of your book. Your reader will want to identify with her and feel that she’s walking in her shoes. Give her quirks, special features, items that let the reader know her soul and what’s deep inside her.

2. Over-explaining and going into too much detail about meaningless things.
This may be a clue to a first-time writer, but I noticed a lot of over-explanation, even of simple details. The reader doesn’t want to get bogged down in details that don’t matter to the overall whole of the story. We want to know about the setting, but it shouldn’t go on for page after page. Detailing ones expertise in a subject matter (knitting, cooking, home decorating, construction, etc.) might be helpful to drop in here and there as it relates to your plot, but don’t let the explanations and detail over-shadow what’s happening in your book. Your reader will want to skim read and look for that next wowing moment in the story. Tighten your writing. Take out things that aren’t necessary and you’ll have a better story overall.

3. Tense, tense, tense — keep it consistent.
This was a huge one in all of the contests I judged. Since I judge a lot of chick lit entries, there is this tendency to vacillate from past to present, back to past, back to present. This is something that I was personally knocked for by agents a couple of years ago...switching tenses. Your reader wants to have a consistent read and tense changes and inconsistencies can be jarring. Pick one tense and write towards it the best you can.

4. Avoid long, drawn out prologues.
General rule of thumb is a prologue should be short, serve a purpose and share information that the reader wouldn’t otherwise know from reading the story. In the Golden Heart of 2004, I read one entry that had a 47 page prologue that had nothing to do with the rest of the story. On page 48 when a whole new set of characters were introduced, I felt cheated with a bait and switch. A prologue should be an introductory to the story, the characters or the situation. When a writer goes on for (in my opinion) over eight pages, it’s no longer is a prologue, but rather it’s now a chapter. Make sure whatever information you need to reveal in a prologue is more than just back story, bur relevant to the overall plot.

5. Starting the story in the right place.
Another common “mistake” I found in so many of the contest entries that came across my desk was starting the story in the right place. Often times, the writer is chugging away, really telling a story, introducing characters and situations, but then in chapter three, it takes a totally different direction. Or, better yet, I’ll read a synopsis where it says “The story starts when HEROINE goes to a party...” and the party didn’t start until page 58. In these circumstances, the writer has told me, the reader, that even she knows the previous fifty some odd pages were unnecessary and pure back story or lead up. Readers want action. Drop the heroine into the poo and watch what happens. Someone at RWA-Dallas said, “Stick your heroine in a tree and start shooting at her.” Well, of course not manuscripts will have the use of dire circumstance, but it’s a “cut to the chase” sort of thing. You’ve got to pace your story so that it’s interesting and relevant and information is revealed at the proper times to keep your reader interested. If you’re writing a mystery and the dead body/suspicious event doesn’t happen or get hinted to in the first sixty pages, chances are you’re going to lose the agent or editor readers attention.

6. Misspelled words.
This is a real peeve for me as a writer and a reader and particularly as a contest judge. Typos, to me, are a bit inexcusable in this day and age. Word processing programs offer spell checks, as well as translators, thesauruses and other writing tools. Also, the Internet is a great resource with Google at your fingertips, as well as Dictionary.com. If you’re going to have your heroine ordering tiramisu for dessert, please take the time to look it up and not write it out phonetically as “tearamasue.” (Not kidding.) You lose credibility with your reader when you have such blatantly misspelled words. Sure, mistakes happen, but when you refer to a heroines “high heals,” it’s excused the first time. The second and third time it’s spelled that way, it makes the writer look lazy for not checking grammar and spelling. Also, take a refresher course in grammar if you’re having problems distinguishing between “it’s” and “its,” “to” and “too,” “you’re,” and “your” and other words. Take the time to show that you’ve done your research, proofed your work and have mastered the language.

7. Fully describing the story from start to finish in the synopsis.
The synopsis is an important tool for you to sell your story. Once you become lucky enough and sell that first story, you’ll be able to submit proposals with a synopsis of your planned story. You need to be able to describe how the story pans out from start to finish, from the opening to the happily ever after. Many times in the contests I judged last year, the writer left teasers at the end. Or, if there was a mystery, it was never explained how it was solved. You want to fully describe the main thread of your plot, how it unfolds and how it is resolved. Don’t leave your reader (editor or agent) hanging because it will make them put the story aside. Get your hero and heroine’s goals, motivations and conflicts upfront in the synopsis the best you can. Always tell the ending. Never leave them hanging.

8. Putting too much of your personal life into a story.
With the advent of chick lit and the “telling my life story” trend and true-to-life stories that are hitting it big, there’s a tendency to want to make the heroine you. While that’s not altogether bad, it can be boring if it’s not done correctly. Taking incidents and occurrences in your own life and fictionalizing them might not be interesting enough if you dwell on details or actions that aren’t important to the overall story. For example, I read a story in one contest where the heroine was a construction worker in a man’s world. Great premise and very different. However, the writer tended to write way too many personal details about how it was being a woman in this job and how she was smarter than all the men. Then she went into details of the type of nails and hammers and dry wall and other materials. And, what was lost on me as a reader was the detailed personal tales that I could tell were being written straight from the writer’s own experiences. Where an anecdote may have been funny in real life, if it’s not translated into something interesting and relatable to the story, then it’s not as appealing. Take personal experiences and craft them so they fit into the overall tone and plot of the story.

9. Watch your dialogue tags.
Many of the entries I read over the year seemed to either be afraid of using dialogue tags or overused them. Some entries would go on for pages with no “he said” or “she said” and I felt, as a reader that I was yo-yoing through the dialogue...like I was reading a screenplay. Other times, the lack of dialogue tags had me unsure of where the characters were, what they were doing or what they were feeling. Then, on the opposite extreme, I saw many instances of dialogue being “smiled” or “cried” or such things you can’t actually do with dialogue. This falls into the over-explanation portion where it’s not always important to attach an emotion to ever dialogue tag. Most of the time, simple “said” or “asked” works just fine. Don’t take away from the reading by overuse of tags.

10. Don’t summarize. Let the reader “hear” what’s happening.
Oftentimes, I found some writers summarizing too much. Especially during crucial scenes in their manuscript. The reader wants to “hear” what’s going on. They want to share in the conversation, listening to the words, the inflection, etc. When writer summarizes too much, it sucks the action right out of the story. Action is what propels the reader forward, it’s what keeps the editor and agent turning the pages. If you summarize too much, you run the risk of the reader skimming and wondering how that particular passage is important. Use dialogue and the here and now as often as possible to convey your plot and story.

11. Formatting problems.
I’m one of those people who have been dinged in contest for using italics instead of underlining and it always gets my goat. (Although I don’t own a goat. ?) That’s not the type of formatting problems I’m talking about, though. Fonts, underline, italics...that is not going to get your manuscript rejected. However, not having proper chapter breaks or page numbers of not double-spacing will make your manuscript look unprofessional. Also, don’t double-space between paragraphs as this will totally mess with your word count. Another thing is to always indent your paragraphs, otherwise, the manuscript runs the risk of being one big block. The bottom line on formatting is that if you’ve got a kick-butt story, an editor won’t really care how it looks as long as it’s readable, but why not make the effort to project the best possible image for you and your manuscript by properly formatting it?

12. Proper targeting of the contest/genre.
When it comes to contests, take the time to fully research it and don’t just throw a manuscript in “because.” There are a lot of RWA chapter contests out there that are very specific in what they are judging: first chapter, last chapter, synopsis, query letter, sex scene, chick lit, first kiss, etc. Don’t enter a contest unless you’ve read all of the rules, understood the categories, find some use in the final judges. Don’t throw your romantic suspense into a chick lit category. If you enter a first kiss contest, make sure your characters actually kiss. Don’t put your 100K manuscript into a short contemporary category. Have some respect for the judges who will be giving their time and feedback, but who are also working with in a regimented set of rules and score sheet requirements. If your manuscript doesn’t fit a particular contest, move on to the next one. You don’t have to enter every one. Believe me, everyone involved will appreciate it.

I hope my insight over the year in judging is helpful for you as you’re looking to enter your manuscript(s) into contest for this new year. Always have a goal for what you’d like to get out of a contest and then do your part to make sure the judges have the most professional, well-written, best stab from you as possible. The better prepared you are as a contestant, the better the feedback will be. Good luck to you!

Marley Gibson has been writing for five years. She is an RWA PRO, Conference Chair of the New England RWA chapter and President/Founder of Chick Lit Writers of the World online RWA chapter.