A couple of weeks ago, someone (I won’t name who because I don’t want to embarrass her) asked me what score I’d received in a writing contest. I didn’t want to answer at first. I worried about making her feel bad or seeming like I was bragging.
Yet I could understand her question. She’d noticed I was a finalist in a contest that she’d also entered (the Winter Rose contest, sponsored by the Yellow Rose RWA chapter), and she wanted to know what kind of scores were needed to reach finalist level.
That’s a great question. When we’re first starting out, it’s natural to want a goal to aim for. I’ve found it gratifying to use contests as a tangible measure of the improvement in my writing.
What’s Your Goal When You Enter a Writing Contest?
Writers have many reasons for entering contests. Years ago, I shared several of the reasons I had for entering contests.
Then, like now, there are more contests in existence than would make sense to enter. Every RWA (Romance Writers of America) chapter seems to have at least one contest. Just adding up those would probably mean entering a contest a week. Um, my wallet and my sanity say no to that idea. *smile*
In that old post, I listed the various things I looked for when deciding which contests to enter:
- Receiving Feedback: Contests that encourage their judges to give feedback with their scores.
- Final Judge: Contests with a final judge (agent or editor) I’d like to have look at my work.
- Prestige: Contests I’d heard of, or “name brand” sponsors.
- Category Breakdown: Contests with categories that matched my story.
- Ease of Entry: Contests with electronic entry.
Back then, one of my main goals was receiving feedback. I can remember when my scores ranged from 78-87%. Not horrible, but nowhere good enough to final. Contests were a way to get more insight into where I needed to improve.
However, just as my writing has evolved over the years, so have my reasons for entering contests. I no longer look for feedback from contest judges. Now, my top determining factors are the final judge (anything to avoid my dreaded query letter *smile*) and the prestige of the contest.
For either of those goals to have a chance, I first have to final. Any encouraging feedback from the first round judges is nice, but the agent or editor final judge will never see my writing unless I make it to the final round. So while I always hoped to final before, I’m now at the level of “final or bust.” No pressure. *grin*
What Does It Take to Final?
I’m still not sure I want to answer that question. Some writers might feel discouraged by seeing the gap between their contest scores and the scores at the finalist level. Other writers might like the challenge, or do what I did—take satisfaction from seeing their scores improve over the years.
Knowing the kind of scores we need to final might help us temper our expectations (and head off disappointments) until our scores are in the right ballpark. So even though I hate the thought of doing anything that could seem like bragging (I don’t think I even announced my last couple of finals), I thought I’d share my experiences.
Please keep in mind that the scores necessary to final can be very dependent on the contest. Some contests might be known for having harder judges, so all the finalists would simply be the best of the lower scores. Also, every contest I entered was sponsored by RWA or an RWA chapter, and other genres and organizations could have completely different ranges.
In addition, contests with a low number of entries can be “easier” to final in than those with high numbers.The number of entries in my category probably ranged from 15 to 200 (educated guess), depending on the contest.
My Contest Finaling Experience
Over the past 12 months, I’ve entered Treasured Claim into 10 contests. I haven’t heard back from one of those contests yet, so I’ll limit my analysis to just the remaining nine. (I’ll also take a guess at the number of entries based on the prestige of the contest.) (Note that I don’t have scores back for one of the contests yet, so I know only the result.)
- Guess at # of Entries: High
Score: 92%
Result: No Final (I missed finaling by one point out of 200.)
- Guess at # of Entries: Medium
Score: 94.2%
Result: Finalist - Guess at # of Entries: Medium-High
Score: 98.46%
Result: Finalist - Guess at # of Entries: Medium-High
Score: 96.5%
Result: Finalist - Guess at # of Entries: High
Score: 95.45%
Result: No Final - Guess at # of Entries: High
Score: 96.5%
Result: No Final - Guess at # of Entries: Very High
Score: Unknown
Result: No Final - Guess at # of Entries: Medium-High
Score: 98%
Result: Finalist - Guess at # of Entries: Medium
Score: 97.5%
Result: Finalist
What Can We Learn from These Numbers?
Unless there’s a low number of entries, our scores would need to be in the 90+% range to have even a chance at finaling. As you can see, my scores were all in the 92-98.5% range and I still didn’t final every time. (That’s not a complaint. I’ll take five finals out of nine contests. *smile*)
The contests I didn’t final in were at 92%, 95.45%, and 96.5%. Yet in other contests, I finaled with a 94.2% and a 96.5%, so like I mentioned above, a great deal depends on the contest.
In other words, if our writing tends to score below that 90+% range, we’ll only hurt ourselves and waste our money if our one-and-only goal is to final. Instead, our priority should probably be on contests that are known for giving feedback. A final could always come as an unexpected bonus, but we shouldn’t focus on it.
If I were just starting out contesting now and didn’t know what my scores might be, I’d first look for contests that used more first-round judges. Some RWA contests use only two first-round judges, while others use three first-round judges and drop the lowest score. More judges equals more feedback.
Once we see our scores rise to that 90+% level, we can adjust our goals. At a certain writing level, the feedback of random people can lose its usefulness. Their suggestions about writing “mistakes” are too often inappropriate. Like I mentioned in my post with tips for being a better beta reader, readers I haven’t picked for their high-quality feedback are more likely to fall into that “only 10% usable comments” category.
At that point, it makes sense for our priority to shift toward finaling. So our goal would be to either get our work in front of the final judge or to be able to say that we were a finalist of X prestigious contest.
When I was first starting out, I would have loved to know at what point I should start hoping for a final. I could have saved myself a lot of disappointment by realizing when I was nowhere close yet. I hope others find inspiration by knowing where the bar is for finaling. *smile*
Why do you enter writing contests? Can you think of additional reasons for entering contests? Do you disagree with my take on how our priorities should depend on our skill level and scores? Does knowing where the bar is for finaling make you feel despair, challenged, or encouraged? If you’ve finaled in a contest, feel free to share your percentage score so we can see if my experience is unusual.
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©2014 Jami Gold, Paranormal Author. All Rights Reserved.
