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 Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:03 pm
Hello and welcome to my guide to B/C writing contests and flatsales! This guide is designed for the Cabbage Patch and reflects my tastes as a judge, but the information in it can be applied to any shop in B/C which uses a similar contest format.
About Me
So, who am I that I think I'm qualified to give anyone advice? As the owner of the Patch, I have been involved in judging every single contest in the shop. In that respect, you should look at this as a unique opportunity to really get into the mind of the one judge you can count on to be reviewing your work! Outside the Patch, I'm a veteran of many, many B/C writing contests, most of which I've won by applying the principles I'm outlining here.
But at the end of the day, every contest is different, every judge is different, and all I'm trying to do is give you my perspective in the hopes it'll help you win and give you an edge when you're entering!
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Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:25 pm
The Basic Rules of Thumb
(1) Be realistic about what you can achieve.
If you're really determined and work hard, you can find a way to get a kid in any shop you want to be a part of, but in writing contests, it's good to be realistic. If there are multiple children available and one is really popular, look at going for a less-popular one.
(2) Study the competition.
If the contest has public entries, read them. This goes hand in hand with (1) -- if there are several really good entries for a child already, it's probably worth your time to consider entering for a different child. Look at your competition. Read the other entries. Decide what you like or don't like about the entries. Use that to inform the decisions you make about your own entry.
(3) SPELL CHECK.
Seriously, nothing looks dumber than an entry with easy, obvious spelling mistakes. If you don't have Open Office or Microsoft Word, find a friend who does and ask them to run a spell check for you. Spelling mistakes can make judges think you don't care enough to pay attention to what you're doing.
(4) Practice makes perfect.
Winning writing contests is like anything else. You get better at it with practice. If there's judging feedback available, ask for it. If it's not offered, ask anyway. Even if nine contests won't give you feedback, the one that will is worth trying. Most of all, don't give up. The more you enter, the more chance that your win will come. Plus, if you enter more than one contest at a shop, it shows the judges that you really want to be a part of the shop. If your entry comes up against one of equal skill, it could help influence the judges in your favor.
(5) Less is more.
This can be taken two ways. First: edit, edit, edit. Your judges have a lot of entries to go through. The last thing you want to do is take up too much of their time. Longer doesn't equal better. It equals more work for judges, and more chances for you to make mistakes! If you have a very long entry and there are a lot of entries to get through, it can be frustrating. Plus, while you may think your prose is eloquent and beautiful and want to write fifteen pages, your judges may not be so enamored and find it rather purple. You want your entry to be short and sweet and leave the judges wanting more, not wishing for less. The second thing to consider is that you can often engage the reader better by leaving something up to the imagination. You can describe a grimy room in excruciating poetic detail, or just say it's a grimy room and let the reader paint the picture. Shorter, declarative sentences will improve the flow of your writing to a wider audience. You don't need to get bogged down in too many descriptive details.
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Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:38 pm
Guardian
The first section you'll want to put any detail in is the guardian section. This is the person who will be the primary caretaker of your child, and as such will play an important role in introducing your child. So what should this section have?
The guardian section should have a brief description of your guardian character. This should include all of the important details that paint a broad picture of your character in the judge's mind, and a few small specific details to help cement the character. This should NOT be your guardian's life story. Do NOT waste time on unnecessary details.
Some important details you might wish to consider:
- name
- occupation
- living conditions (are they well-off, indigent?)
- major hobbies (only if they are a major part of your character's life, as in a character who is consumed with reading, or )
- general personality
Things you shouldn't bother with:
- full character history
- detailed personality
- minor hobbies
- physical description
Optional:
- link to an image of your guardian character
Ideally, you want your guardian section to be no longer than 1-2 brief paragraphs. If you have two guardian characters, you might be able to go up to 3-4.
I cannot stress enough that this should be brief. If the detail is not CRUCIALLY important to your character, you should get rid of it. Save it for the character profile you will put on the first page of your child's diary thread when you win!
GOOD: Eloise is thirty years old, works as a carpenter, and has a small house in a modest neighborhood.
Why? Broad strokes can actually paint a clearer picture of a character for the reader than lots of specific details do. From this simple sentence, you probably already have some ideas in your head about who Eloise is.
BAD: Eloise is tall and thin with dark auburn tresses and wears green gowns.
Why? It doesn't really enhance the judge's understanding of the character to know these facts. We will not be drawing a picture of your character based on this description. Besides, if you leave unimportant character details up to the judge's imagination, they will fill in those details with stuff they like!
Instead: Link to a picture or don't bother with these details. Only include physical details if they are crucial to the character, like "Eloise has a hump on her back and has always felt ugly and wants someone to love her, so she decided to adopt."
BAD:
Why: Describe to us who the character is right now, not who they were in the past. As judges, we are primarily concerned with the character who will be present in the prompt and in roleplay, not whoever your character was five years ago. If you absolutely must include history, keep it brief, like "Hector was king of Predonia until his throne was usurped by his evil twin brother. Now he lives in exile on Gaia." That's about all the information we need to know about the event -- and just those two sentences say a lot.
GOOD:
BAD:
GOOD:
BAD:
GOOD:
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Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:39 pm
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Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:40 pm
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Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:41 pm
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Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:42 pm
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