Writing Competitions?

[cathy]

Hello, I've just joined the forum - looks cool!

I have written a story, and was wondering if anyone can reccommend the best sci-fi writing competition to enter? I've looked on the internet and there are so many I don't know which one to go for! I'm in the UK btw, don't know if you can only enter ones in your own country.... Right, I'm off to have a browse through the forum, cheers!

 

[terryweide]

Hi,

Most present day competitions are open to anyone regardless of what country they are in. There are a few that say, "For the residents of the U.K. only," or "For Canadian citizens only," but those are in the minority. Most contests, if they advertising on the Internet, accept entries from around the world. The only obstacle is that submissions usually have to be written in English, which may make it slightly harder if English is not your native tongue.

As to what contest to enter, that depends on the story you wrote. Don't send a sci-fi story to a competition that wants fantasy or horror submissions, and also check that the story is within the word limit of the contest. In other words read the guidelines and make sure your entry meets the requirements. For example, since you say your story is sci-fi, send it to sci-fi contests.

A couple of other things--the entry fee for a normal contest is about $10 U.S., which would probably be about 6 British pounds, or about 8.2 Euros. I wouldn't pay more than that unless you were really convinced you had a good chance of winning. For one thing, contests can get expensive. No one will cry about losing 5 - 10 dollars, but more than that can put a dent in your pocket book. For another, the more they charge, the bigger the prize amount should be. It goes without saying that where there's bigger prizes, there's also more competition. I'm a little leery of sending a story to a contest that could get 1,000 entries, simply because my odds of winning won't be as great as submitting to a contest that gets 200 - 300 submissions at most. Some contests are lucky to get 100. These are just things to consider. Try to pick the contest that sounds like it's best suited for your story.

As to places to check out good contests, I'd go to Ralan's at

http://ralan.com/contests/

and also I'd look at the Preditors and Editors page at

http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/pubctst.htm

Both of these sources will list legitimate contests.


Hope some of this feedback is useful. Best wishes, Terry

 

[cathy]

Thanks so much for the info, I have an idea of where to start now!

Cathy

 

[jenna]

i think the best is the Writers Of The Future comp.
http://www.writersofthefuture.com/

 

[terryweide]

Writers Digest is also currently holding a competition for popular fiction in the categories of Romance, Mystery, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Suspense, and Horror. The e-address is

http://www.writersdigest.com/contests/PopFiction/#rules

The deadline is Nov. 1. I have mixed feelings about Writers Digest--they run an honest contest, but I also think they get tons of entries so the odds of winning may not be as great as with other competitions. Then again, perhaps some of the rest of you would have good luck with this. Check it out and make up your own minds. Best wishes, Terry

 

[Bill Snodgrass]

The Sword Review is also in the middle of a contest:

http://theswordreview.com/contestInfo2005.php

 

[StFrancis]

Hello, I've just joined the forum - looks cool!

Hey, everyone. I'm new to the forum, too, and figured I'd come into this thread and blow off some of the dust. I was wondering if anyone else knew of any upcoming contests, offhand. There are some great links in this thread, but a lot that 404 (which makes sense, since the posts are seven years old...).

Does anyone know of any science fiction competitions for novel-length pieces? Would greatly appreciate any feedback!

 

[Venusian Broon]

Does anyone know of any science fiction competitions for novel-length pieces? Would greatly appreciate any feedback!

Surely getting it published by the industry is a 'win' for a novel-length SF work to start with. (And then I suppose the work can be entered into the published book competitions to earn higher accolades from the community?)

Other than that, assuming you are talking about an work from an aspiring non-published author, I've never heard of a competition that asks for novel-length unpublished work.

 

[Ursa major]

Wan't there a competition, run by SciFiNow where the prize was a publishing deal, for that novel, with (I believe) MacMillan or Tor or someone? I think there was a Chrons thread about it.

* goes searching *

EDIT: I haven't yet found the thread, but the competition is mentioned in the non-Forum part of the Chrons: http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/2009/06/18/war-of-the-words-writing-competition/.

* continues searching *

EDIT2: Here it is: http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/50886-become-a-published-sf-author.html.

The winner was published: I saw a review of it. (I think the impression I got was that the first half of the book was better than the rest; perhaps the imagination that captured the decision of the judges was too just too clever to leave space for an interesting conclusion.)

 

[Jo Zebedee]

There's the Terry Pratchett competition, which closes in December. And there's an Irish one for any novel which is open at the moment, although it's not specifically for sci fi.

 

[Ursa major]

Having read a sample of that winner - The Nemesis List by R.J.Frith - I decided to purchase it.

The Curse of Kindle....

 

[Colbey Frost]

I assume there are more places to enter short stories than novels? And if you win with a novel, it's good for getting agents?

 

[Venusian Broon]

I assume there are more places to enter short stories than novels? And if you win with a novel, it's good for getting agents?

See, to my mind a literary competition usually involves you paying a fee and then recieving a cash reward (as well as publication of the story - that's given!) for coming first, top three or thereabouts.

But calls for submissions or open submission policys from publishers whether it's for books or for short stories for magazines are almost identical. Except you don't pay a fee but you are usually paid for the story if they accept, and you are competing with everyone else that entered at that time.

Hence my puzzled remark above.

But to answer your question CN yes there are loads of places to put short stories in - magazines, anthologies, competition websites. When I researched it some time back I found hundreds upon hundreds of viable outlets for short stories. Can't guarentee how many of them are still going however, but I'm sure others spring up to take the places of the fallen.

For the second question, I think if you can demonstrate that you can get your work properly published/valued whether it's by: competition, small press or have sold shed loads via self-publishing, I believe it can be a contributing factor in getting positive attention from an agent.

 

[Colbey Frost]

See, to my mind a literary competition usually involves you paying a fee and then recieving a cash reward (as well as publication of the story - that's given!) for coming first, top three or thereabouts.

But calls for submissions or open submission policys from publishers whether it's for books or for short stories for magazines are almost identical. Except you don't pay a fee but you are usually paid for the story if they accept, and you are competing with everyone else that entered at that time.

Hence my puzzled remark above.

But to answer your question CN yes there are loads of places to put short stories in - magazines, anthologies, competition websites. When I researched it some time back I found hundreds upon hundreds of viable outlets for short stories. Can't guarentee how many of them are still going however, but I'm sure others spring up to take the places of the fallen.

For the second question, I think if you can demonstrate that you can get your work properly published/valued whether it's by: competition, small press or have sold shed loads via self-publishing, I believe it can be a contributing factor in getting positive attention from an agent.

I would be more interested in entering novels instead of short stories. I don't really like short stories. I suppose there's half as many places to enter your novel?

Could you enter a novel into competitions and agents at the same time? What if you won and then an agent wanted it at the same time? Would you have to pick or would you get a pat on the back?

 

[Venusian Broon]

I would be more interested in entering novels instead of short stories. I don't really like short stories. I suppose there's half as many places to enter your novel?

Could you enter a novel into competitions and agents at the same time? What if you won and then an agent wanted it at the same time? Would you have to pick or would you get a pat on the back?

When I last looked the number of places to submit a unsolicited manuscript of novel length was tiny - but then I was only looking at publishers. Practically all now said that they don't accept unsolicited work - but to be fair I started at the top at the biggest and worked my way down looking at their submission policies. There may be a lot more small press around willing to look at unsolicitated work.

(I was asked to find three, and I think I managed to scrap together 5, but that was pretty tough - and it included AR and a magazine that did serials!)

As for competition and agent at the same time - I'm not sure, if they picked you up because apart from your natural talent they also had a great contact at a publisher that they thought they could easily get you in, but you told them oh, I won this competition and they now have the publishing rights. I imagine this would queer the pitch a bit.

Probably best to do a search through literary agency websites and see what they say about submitting manuscripts.

 

[Kylara]

Quick question: Would you say submitting to magazines would be better than writing competitions if you think it is really a very good short? Because that has always bugged me...I'd like to enter a few comps, but also get some published, but they both cancel each other out...Also which are currently the best of either to be applying for...whenever I search I get multitudes of results and have very little way of telling which are the better ones to go for, being somewhat abstracted from the world...

 

[Abernovo]

You can do both. If they don't get taken up by the competition, you should still have full rights (any competition that denies them surely isn't worth looking at), so you can submit them to magazines.

The publication to go for depends partly upon what sort of shorts they are. Two good market finders are Duotrope and Ralan.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Quick question: Would you say submitting to magazines would be better than writing competitions if you think it is really a very good short? Because that has always bugged me...I'd like to enter a few comps, but also get some published, but they both cancel each other out...Also which are currently the best of either to be applying for...whenever I search I get multitudes of results and have very little way of telling which are the better ones to go for, being somewhat abstracted from the world...

I personally would prefer the top rank magazines - because you're getting your work out to a reading community. While alot of the competitions, which also publish your work if you win, seem to be a lot of writers getting together. And while writers are of course readers, at the end of the day the magazine market seems to access the wider community. (But hey maybe everyone that subscribes to Interzone or Black Static are aspiring authors )

Plus you generally have to pay to enter most of the competitions .

 

[Noren_Realm]

Question on the same subject... anyone here have a good or bad experiences entering a contest? I've never done this and I'm interested in some feed back from writers.