Submitting to Contests and Anthologies part 1 #amwriting

Today begins a two-part series on submitting your work to contests and anthologies. We’ve talked a lot about the nuts and bolts of writing short fiction. January is an excellent time to review your backlog of short works and see if you have something worth sending to a contest or a publication.

You can get your foot in the traditional publishing house door this way. Also, if you are happy as an indie author, having work that places as a finalist in a contest (or is accepted into a paying anthology) will increase your visibility and gain readers for your other work.

The first part of the year is when calls for new works begin appearing at Submittable or Submissions Grinder. Large publishing houses and reputable small and mid-size publishers willing to pay for your work use these platforms to advertise when they are open to reading work by new authors.

Many contests and publications use the Submittable platform year-round to accept and review the large volume of manuscripts they receive from writers. It’s great for us as authors when a publisher uses this platform. The Submittable app allows us to track what we have submitted and where it currently is in the process.

Also, the website at SFWA has a list of reputable publications that you might want to check in with every few weeks or so. These publishers regularly post open calls for submission, so it pays to check each magazine and publisher’s website for opportunities.

Submitting to contests is an excellent way to grow as an author. Why is this? Writing for anthologies and contests forces us to fit an entire story into a specific length.

Often, you must base your narrative around a particular theme, one you might not have chosen. This forces us to use our imagination.

So, what do editors of anthologies and magazines look for? And how are contests judged?

First, let’s be clear–editors don’t enjoy sending out rejections. They want to find the best work by new authors because they love to read. If you have a story that was a contest winner, you may be able to sell it to the right publication.

I regularly read for several literary contests and have edited several anthologies. Your work will receive a far closer inspection than from a casual reader.

Contests have a pool of editors and authors reading for them. These readers do their best to judge each entry on their merits. In many contests, two people will read the submissions. Each reader will have looked at the technical aspects of the piece as well as the overall story and characters.

Contest readers judge an author’s technical skill and professionalism as well as the overall story:

1. Plot: the sequence of events and the overall story arc.
2. Setting: did the world-building include a location, time, hints of the weather, and hints of the environment? Was the world solid to the reader?
3. Viewpoint/narrative mode: how was the story told? Was the POV consistent to one or two characters? Did the narrative drift between verb tenses, making it confusing? Was it consistently told in the first-person (or second, or third, or omniscient, etc.)?
4. Characters: Were the characters believable, and did they have an arc?
5. Dialogue: Did the dialogue, both spoken and internal, advance the story? Did each speaker have their own voice and style?
6. Transitions and hooks: Did the opening lines hook the reader? Did the narrative move smoothly from scene to scene without jarring the reader out of the story? Did each transition hook the reader, enticing them to keep reading?
7. Showing versus telling: did the author understand how to show the action?
8. Mechanics: Did the author understand grammar, punctuation, and industry standards? Did they follow word count and length requirements and obey formatting directions as listed in the submission guidelines?

Editors for anthologies will look at each submission with the above guidelines in mind, but they will have two more caveats:

1. Theme: did the author understand and incorporate the theme into their story?
2. Appeal: did that story strike a chord? Did it make them want to read more of that author’s work?

Contest readers/judges read every word in each submission and base their opinions on how well the first eight conditions were met.

Each editor for an Anthology or magazine will have a slightly different idea of what they will accept than a literary contest. Literary contests focus heavily on knowledge of craft as well as the ability to tell a story.

Anthologies and magazines will make some allowances in regard to grammar and mechanics for the sake of voice—as long as it is consistent and benefits the story.

The main difference between submitting your work to a contest and submitting to a publisher is the sheer volume of work they receive and the number of people/editors available to read it.

Anthologies and contests close on a specific date or after a certain number of submissions have been received.

The inbox of a large publisher fills up every day. Larger publishers may have gatekeepers reading submissions, but most editors do their own work. For this reason, the editor will look at the story’s first page, and based on what she sees there, she will decide whether to continue reading or reject it.

If all ten of the above criteria are clearly shown in the first paragraphs, the editor will read further. If the work continues to be engaging and professional, they will read it to the end. Each page she reads gets you closer to being published, so make those words count.

Some contests charge a fee for submissions. I’ve said this before, but it bears mentioning again. You have wasted time and money if you don’t follow the prospective contest or publisher’s submission guidelines, which are clearly listed on the contest page on their website.

Following those steps demonstrates your level of professionalism. Editors at magazines, contests, and publishing houses have no time to deal with unedited, improperly formatted manuscripts. Their inboxes are full of well-written and professional-looking work, so they will reject the amateurs without further consideration.

If you have any doubts about the quality of your work, consider running it past your critique group to hear their opinions on characterization, story arc, and other features of your work.

It’s hard to hear a critical view of something you have struggled with and labored over. We believe it to be perfect, but we don’t have an objective view of it. This is when you must step back and rethink certain aspects of a piece before you submit it. The external eye of your writing group can help you see the places that don’t work.

On Monday (next week), we will discuss the expectations of publications and contest editors regarding the work they want to read. I will show how most contests and publications want submissions formatted, offer screenshots, and explain why they have these uniform standards.