This was my first time coordinating (Paranormal) and judging (Historical Romance) in the WisRWA FabFive contest. In the words of Groucho Marx, I’d never join a club that would have me as a member, but Karen took a chance on me. Being a newbie, I worked extra hard to get it right.
Coordinating fit like an old glove. I love converting chaos to order. That’s why I’m the one at home who does the laundry at home. I draw the line at dishes, though.
Twenty-four contestants entered my category, the bulk of them arriving in a flurry during the last couple days. I edited format, organized the entries and got them off to fourteen different judges. Each entry was judged by three different people, so my twenty-four entries exploded to seventy-two separate documents! Naturally, a bunch of the judges waited until the last possible moment to do their judging, so a wave of critiqued and scored entries came back right at the deadline or a little beyond. I was happy to see that even the stragglers did a great job of critiquing. Only one of my fourteen judges was stingy when it came to writing comments all over the entries.
As a coordinator, I had the opportunity to read twenty-four pieces of unpublished work. I didn’t really need to do that as part of my assignment, but how could I resist? I also read all of the critiques. Let me tell you, seeing the entries through so many discerning eyes was a major educational experience. It will undoubtedly help me improve my own writing going forward.
Judging was a great experience. The poorest entries were the hardest to critique, of course, and I spent extra time on them. Hopefully my gentle explanation of concepts such as GMC and POV will encourage the struggling new writers in my group of entrants to read a few books on writing and become better novelists. I tried to help even the best writers by pointing out where sentence structure could be made more interesting or where the dialogue might flow better with fewer tags. There was a time many years ago when I thought about becoming a teacher. Judging brought out that side of me.
Finally, I made new friends among the judges and some of the entrants as a result of my FabFive participation, so I got something of lasting value from the experience.
Can’t wait till next year’s contest!
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Joe--this was my first contest and I'm so glad I entered. Right now I am working on the manuscript and using judge feedback to edit it. Fresh eyes really helped (who knew that I used the word "crackled" as a verbal tic? Would have never seen that on my own). Thanks, all of you!
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