Are Competitions Rewarding?

[nylonpunkie]

I'm curious... would you writers who regularly submit recommend entering a competition?

I look at them but I've never tried, maybe I'm a little scared of the rejection...

What do you get out of it (and I don't mean the prize)?

Do you enjoy shaping/bending a story to a particular theme?
Is it a positive experience?

 

[Privates1stClass]

I'm curious... would you writers who regularly submit recommend entering a competition?

I look at them but I've never tried, maybe I'm a little scared of the rejection...

What do you get out of it (and I don't mean the prize)?

Do you enjoy shaping/bending a story to a particular theme?
Is it a positive experience?

One thing you get out of submitting an entry into a contest is a lot more views than normal. It puts your story in front of many more readers, and even your older stories will pick up some viewers.

Of course your story has to match the theme of the contest, but I haven't found that to be all that difficult.

In all, I think you'll find it a positive experience. Good luck, and I hope we'll see one of your stories in a contest soon.

 

[SisterJezabel]

I'm curious... would you writers who regularly submit recommend entering a competition?

I look at them but I've never tried, maybe I'm a little scared of the rejection...

What do you get out of it (and I don't mean the prize)?

Do you enjoy shaping/bending a story to a particular theme?
Is it a positive experience?

I like challenging myself to think inside a theme, especially a theme where I Might not normally go such as World Nude Day! I also like exposing myself to different audiences- some people read a lot of the submissions and this opens me up to new readers. I wrote a couple of stories a few years ago and did not start writing again until this year, but with the competitions, I continually gain at least 10 new 'subscribers' with most competitions. This leads readers to my other work.

Don't be afraid of rejection! Just jump in and do it

 

[Rustyoznail]

I'm curious... would you writers who regularly submit recommend entering a competition?

I look at them but I've never tried, maybe I'm a little scared of the rejection...

What do you get out of it (and I don't mean the prize)?

Do you enjoy shaping/bending a story to a particular theme?
Is it a positive experience?

I've entered a few, and I don't go in to win. I enter for the challenge of writing a story to fit a theme in a strict timeframe, to pick up some new readers, and to take part in the inevitable discussion about trolls bombing our entries.

Don't worry about rejection - you'll possibly get that with any story, but you will get more people looking at your work.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Agreed with the above. More views, bigger exposure is a major plus. Having to wordsmith to meet specs is challenging, an opportunity to grow. Opportunity to compare your skills to others’ is a plus.

Go for it!

 

[Voboy]

Yes.

I enjoy taking a theme I don't care all that much about and turning it into a good story. It's a fun challenge, even apart from what everyone else is saying.

 

[PennameWombat]

I'm curious... would you writers who regularly submit recommend entering a competition?

I look at them but I've never tried, maybe I'm a little scared of the rejection...

What do you get out of it (and I don't mean the prize)?

Do you enjoy shaping/bending a story to a particular theme?
Is it a positive experience?

As you can see from my sig, I've entered a number of the contests, albeit not all of them. I've never won one, in fact, although I've had plenty of good scores I've never been quite at that top echelon. That said, I've never felt rejection.

As to what do I get out of it? I'll echo the comments already here. The contests push me into a specific theme that I might not always try to cover. In addition, the fact that contest entries need to be complete stories means I have to write something that's self-contained. Doesn't mean there can't be sequels, but the story has to stand on its own. Now, many of my contest entries do share universes with other stories, but they still need to make sense on their own.

The last point is that my stories generally cluster in certain Categories, mainly E&V, SF&F, NonHuman and Erotic Horror. All are fun and the readers are great, but they tend to be lower traffic.

On that note, my most recent entry, for Summer Lovin' 2020 (I missed the recent Halloween contest) caused my total views across all of my stories to jump 17% during the contest weeks! Since the contest ended, I'm up 2%. I just submitted a new (non-contest) story that's not yet posted so that's part of the slowdown, nothing new. But my point, this recent story was in 'First Time,' a Category to which I'd never previously submitted.

So another benefit is that by pushing me around, Contest entries can push me into new Categories to attract readers who might not have otherwise seen my work.

 

[MetaBob]

would you writers who regularly submit recommend entering a competition?

Yes. Try it, at least. Dip your toes in.

I look at them but I've never tried, maybe I'm a little scared of the rejection...

What do you get out of it (and I don't mean the prize)?

Well, so far, little besides the accomplishment of finishing a story that might've otherwise taken months longer. Don't worry about rejection, honestly it's not so much a matter of that as ... more people will view your story, and rate it. Yes, a few more of them will be hostile, or perplexedly neutral. If your story is doing well, expect a late 1-star bombing. This may be from other writers or more likely fans of other writers who want their own favorite story or author to win.

But the most important thing I get out of a contest was said best by Duke Ellington: "I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline."

Do you enjoy shaping/bending a story to a particular theme?

Not so much that, as ... thinking about the theme can sometimes lead to a really good story idea.

Is it a positive experience?

It has been for me.

 

[BarracudaSwordfish]

I entered the Halloween competition, which was my first. I enjoyed writing to the theme and the deadline, but didn’t notice any extra interest or attention.

Maybe it was my choice of genre (erotic horror). Views are still fairly low - just under 4k, with 5 faves and 35 votes (after sweeps). It scored ok 4.59, but I was expecting more hits given the comments of others and the blurb in the competition announcement.

That said, my views are down at the moment for all my latest submissions so maybe people who have dipped their toes previously and not liked what they have read are staying clear.

Its all a bit like calling election results or virus tracking really - who knows?

 

[tomlitilia]

I've entered a fair few. The chance of winning the contest is not a small factor (I haven't won any but placed 2nd twice). It's not because of the cash; I've donated all price money to charity. It's more about an accomplishment (however insignificant), and even though all contests have issues with dubious voting patterns, the themed contests are more fair to me than the monthly and yearly ones, which are biased to late chapters of long, ongoing series.

But more so, I find the limits of the themes quite rewarding. There are an infinite number of stories that can be told, and keeping within given boundaries tend to keep me on course. It's also a way of going out of my comfort zone. The kinks tend to be the same, but the path to them are determined by the boundaries. For instance, I never thought I'd enter the Halloween contest since I'm not into erotic horror. But once I started thinking about how costumes could play a central part in the story arc, the story just fell into place. I finished it much quicker than I normally would, and it's probably my favorite story (called Catalysts). I wouldn't have thought of it without the limits of the theme.

Oddly, the only contest I haven't so far entered is Nude Day, which would seem like an easy ride; many of my stores are E&V. But entering a contest that doesn't influence the writing kind of defeats the purpose for me.

 

[Omenainen]

I'm curious... would you writers who regularly submit recommend entering a competition?

I look at them but I've never tried, maybe I'm a little scared of the rejection...

What do you get out of it (and I don't mean the prize)?

Do you enjoy shaping/bending a story to a particular theme?
Is it a positive experience?

I'm still so new here I don't think if I classify as "regularly submitting in competitions", but I have participated in the last two. It's part of what I do anyway, I go probing around like "oh, category X, I'll try that", "oh, a competition, well why not".

I'm not entering to win, English is not my first language so if I was ever to win an English writing competition I'd just have to ask what are the rest of you doing...besides, I'm not a competitive person, so to win just to win isn't a thing for me.

Initially I was hoping for more exposure, and maybe I got it, though both of my contest entries were in a category I hadn't previously attempted, so who knows what the view count would've been without the competition.

Rejection? I don't really know what that would mean. If the story was for a really specific kink, it might be that the contest would attract readers that are put off by the story and who wouldn't have read it otherwise. The entries are listed with just the name of the story and author, no blurb and no category, so for something like that it could be a negative thing to get more exposure.

But then the 1-bombing also happens without the competitions. I had one story start well off, so well it ended up near the top of 7 days and 30 days lists. I was all happy like "oh goody, they like my story!" Well, those lists are updated in a delayed schedule, but as soon as I got there it was like down, down, down, and from what I could see the same happened to everybody else on that list. And that was that, it came up a notch after Halloween contest sweeps, but never as high as it was at first. So I think that's gonna happen anyway, competitions or no competitions.

Participating in contests has been a positive thing for me. Or at least it hasn't been negative. Writing to a theme is alright, and after reading the other entries I've seen that some stories connect to the theme only tangentially, so it can be taken as quite a lenient guideline. No need to fret for instance "is my story Halloween-y enough", yes it is.

I say just try it out. Might be good, and if it isn't, you don't have to do it again. (Applies to all other aspects of life as well; we've got a proverb in Finnish that goes "you've got to try anything once, except for incest and folk dance".)

 

[BrokenSpokes]

Different reasons

I've entered three contests now. To be honest the only reasons I entered the Halloween and Winter Holiday contests last year was that the thought of each contest happened to give me the germ of an idea for a quick little story I could bang out in a short time. They both did fine, no winners, but they were enjoyable and easy to write.

I entered the 2020 Halloween contest for an entirely different reason. I wanted to write a story that held up a mirror to today's society and one of the big problems we have, by showing our society 60 years ago to show how we have made a lot of progress in some ways and yet still have so far to go, and that our societal actions in the past are still impacting our present.

I had exactly zero expectations of winning. In fact, by tackling a thorny issue, I really expected it to be my lowest rated story ever, as I think political stories don't do that well in general. I worked for several months on The Hunt. I did a ton of research, and I talked a lot with AvidReader223, talking about race and diving into my own unconscious biases.

I ended up really happy with the result. I'm super proud of The Hunt, and would be regardless of whether it had done well in the contest or not.

I was also complete shocked that it did so well, much less that I placed third. I hadn't imaged in my wildest dreams it would be that successful.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've entered a few and found them rewarding. The benefits:

1. You might win. Competition is fun. Winning a competition is even better. I haven't won yet, but hope springs eternal.

2. Competitions boost exposure of your stories to more readers. You will get more views, reads, comments, favorites, etc. This in turn will get more exposure for the rest of your stories. In my experience -- this isn't everyone's -- the boost I get is fairly small. It's nice enough to make entering a competition worthy of consideration, but it's not a big factor.

3. In particular you get more exposure to your fellow authors, many of whom read many of the entries and therefore will be more likely to read and give feedback to your story. It's a nice way to feel more like you're part of a community here.

4. You get exposure to more stories by other authors, often of a higher caliber than the run of the mill. It's interesting to see which stories win and do well.

 

[oggbashan]

...

4. You get exposure to more stories by other authors, often of a higher caliber than the run of the mill. It's interesting to see which stories win and do well.

It is also interesting to see which well-written, well-crafted stories do badly. It is often a function of a low-scoring or unpopular category or the wrong category or a story that annoys fans of that category = Yet the story is better than its rating suggests.

 

[BrokenSpokes]

Yes

It is also interesting to see which well-written, well-crafted stories do badly. It is often a function of a low-scoring or unpopular category or the wrong category or a story that annoys fans of that category = Yet the story is better than its rating suggests.

This is why I thought mine might not do well. Especially given that all my other stories are in the Lesbian category and are the happily-ever-after type. Venturing into Erotic Horror was a risk (ratings-wise) and I was happy to see it was well-received.

 

[SimonDoom]

It is also interesting to see which well-written, well-crafted stories do badly. It is often a function of a low-scoring or unpopular category or the wrong category or a story that annoys fans of that category = Yet the story is better than its rating suggests.

Agreed. Most of the time, the winners that I've read have ranged from pretty good to excellent. But the flip side is not so true -- the fact that a story did NOT do well in a competition does not necessarily tell you about its quality. It might be the victim of troll bombs or it might just not fit the expectations of its readers.

 

[SamScribble]

It is also interesting to see which well-written, well-crafted stories do badly. It is often a function of a low-scoring or unpopular category or the wrong category or a story that annoys fans of that category = Yet the story is better than its rating suggests.

I suspect that there is a bit of jiggery-pokery goes on with competition voting. Most of my competition entries have taken a kicking while the competition is on, only to gently float up to red-H territory once the voting is over.

However, competitions do seem to pull in one or two new readers.

 

[SisterJezabel]

I've entered a few and found them rewarding. The benefits:

3. In particular you get more exposure to your fellow authors, many of whom read many of the entries and therefore will be more likely to read and give feedback to your story. It's a nice way to feel more like you're part of a community here.

True, but as I have found overnight, some authors are not so nice on other authors leaving pretty ordinary comments (anonymously of course) and I am feeling pretty thin skinned after a particularly nasty email (no return address and I suspect an account set up to send such emails).

This is the first time though I have felt so affected by negative comments.

 

[SimonDoom]

True, but as I have found overnight, some authors are not so nice on other authors leaving pretty ordinary comments (anonymously of course) and I am feeling pretty thin skinned after a particularly nasty email (no return address and I suspect an account set up to send such emails).

This is the first time though I have felt so affected by negative comments.

I know how that is. No matter how much we say we want criticism, it can sting when it's nasty or rude, and one really nasty comment can outweigh ten good ones in emotional impact. You have to have a tough skin. There's no substitute for it here.

It surprises me sometimes how little effort some critics make to couch their criticism in constructive terms. True even of authors who themselves know what it's like to get criticism.

 

[KeithD]

It surprises me sometimes how little effort some critics make to couch their criticism in constructive terms. True even of authors who themselves know what it's like to get criticism.

Different perceptions and agendas. This isn't a critique site. There's no requirement for a reader to respond at all, or to do so with any concept of improving the author's writing if they do. A visceral up or down or just reading and moving on are legitimate responses on this reading site. That's just the way it is.

The site gives the author the power of deleting comments not liked. It's not an author-friendly service provided much of anywhere else.

 

[SimonDoom]

Different perceptions and agendas. This isn't a critique site. There's no requirement for a reader to respond at all, or to do so with any concept of improving the author's writing if they do. A visceral up or down or just reading and moving on are legitimate responses on this reading site. That's just the way it is.

The site gives the author the power of deleting comments not liked. It's not an author-friendly service provided much of anywhere else.

I think it's fair to expect a critic of any kind to demonstrate a minimal level of courtesy and decency. I don't think that's too much to ask. If someone really objects to something in my story, they're free to tell me. But leave the obscenity and name-calling and hostility out.

With criticism from other authors, I think it's fair to have somewhat higher expectations, because they know what it's like to write and they know what it's like to receive criticism.

I will say that the great majority of author-generated criticism I've received HAS been helpful or at least appropriate in tone, even when it has been, at times, highly critical of what I've written.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I suspect that there is a bit of jiggery-pokery goes on with competition voting. Most of my competition entries have taken a kicking while the competition is on, only to gently float up to red-H territory once the voting is over.

However, competitions do seem to pull in one or two new readers.

My experience with contests, and one of the reasons I generally don't bother with them (other than seasons being arse-about face, Halloween and deadlines) is that the additional views coming in from the contest page generally bring with them a downturn in scores, often permanent. You'd think contest readers would be adult enough to realise an unbadged story might give them wobbles and quietly back out, but I'm not so sure, sometimes. Mostly though, it's the theme and the notion of an imposed deadline that keeps me disinterested.Too much like hard work.

 

[SisterJezabel]

Different perceptions and agendas. This isn't a critique site. There's no requirement for a reader to respond at all, or to do so with any concept of improving the author's writing if they do. A visceral up or down or just reading and moving on are legitimate responses on this reading site. That's just the way it is.

The site gives the author the power of deleting comments not liked. It's not an author-friendly service provided much of anywhere else.

I get that with public feedback, but when you get anonymous feedback sent from the story that basically says you are a shit person and basically calls into question your professional abilities and basically asks why you bother, it can be pretty demoralising.

 

[NotWise]

I suspect that there is a bit of jiggery-pokery goes on with competition voting. Most of my competition entries have taken a kicking while the competition is on, only to gently float up to red-H territory once the voting is over.

However, competitions do seem to pull in one or two new readers.

I haven't seen anything "jiggery-pokery," but then, I can only guess what that means.

It's hard to reliably compare what kind of response you would get from the same story if it was in or out of a contest. The best I can do is:

Non-contest story: "Working for Mom," in I/T, posted 4/2/2020: 39.4K views, 200 votes and 62 favorites.

Contest story: "My Sister's Wedding," in I/T, posted 8/21/2020: 83.8K views, 895 votes and 137 favorites.

In that non-scientific comparison, the contest appears to double the views. The rest of the numbers depend on what's in the story.

I published one story between those two. It was in First Time and didn't get enough of a reader response to boost my count of followers before the second story.

The non-contest story has had a larger percentage of votes swept (13%) than has the contest story (8.5%). If the contest came with much "jiggery-pokery" stuff, then that should be reversed. Really, I think the difference probably has something to do with the number of votes and nothing else.

Those stories were both in I/T, otherwise I wouldn't compare them. I could count on a good number of views whether they were in a contest or not. If your story is in a little-read category, then the views from the contest page could be most of the views you ever get.

 

[KeithD]

I get that with public feedback, but when you get anonymous feedback sent from the story that basically says you are a shit person and basically calls into question your professional abilities and basically asks why you bother, it can be pretty demoralising.

Anonymous? On a free-read story site? Compared to it coming from your literary agent? There's a balance folks need to train themselves to bring into perspective--or they should consider taking up golf instead.