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Hi everyone! We’ve received several story submissions outside the contest’s 2,500 — 5,000-word limits. We recognize that different word-processing programs use unique word-counting rules. If you are wildly off, we’ll send you a PM and ask you to adjust your story to meet the contest parameters. Thanks!
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I’ve taken part in several contests on BC as a participant and as a judge. The quality of writing in this contest, so far, is a notch above what I have experienced in other BC contests.
Through this morning I have scored about two dozen stories for our current contest. The scores ranged from 66.5 to 98 on a 1 to 100 scale. Under my scoring system, any story with a score of fifty or more is a good story.
So far, six stories have been in the nineties, three in the eighties, eight in the seventies, and six in the sixties. The average score is close to eighty.
Those stories that did not score in the nineties contained some of the following:
Information Dump – Exposition is the lifeblood of a story, but it should come in in small bundles within the normal storytelling.
Unlikeable Protagonist – Only exceptional stories can withstand a negative main character.
Passive Verbs – “Was” and “were” are the enemy of good writing.
Breaking the Fourth Wall – Like salt, this should come in small doses and only if unobtrusive.
Unrealistic Characters
Lack of Tension
All of these are subjective, which is why we have two judges scoring independently. Emma might see a story much differently than I do. We will use a total score to determine winners.
Please consider taking an active part in this contest. You can win money by entering a short story, commenting, or by asking “new” authors to enter this contest.
If you find a particular story highly enjoyable, send me a PM. My opinions are malleable. I am open to taking a second look at a story if it seems warranted.
Comments
Much appreciated
Thank you for your diligence, and your thoughtful suggestions. I agree, the stories have been wonderful. :DD TAF
DeeDee
Four score ....
scored by the end of the competition?
And Dedicated to the. . ..
. . .one I love.
From Lincoln to the Shirelles.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Jill, I have always respected
Jill, I have always respected your opinion.
When all is said and done, and you are finished with your judging duties, and no longer need to be impartial, I would love to hear your critique on mine. Every bit of advise you have ever given me has helped me to become a better writer.
Hopefully the level of quality of all entries continues to be a cut above!
Kristine
When All Is Said and Done. . .
. . .I'm good at expressing opinions. Great authors who are natural storytellers take those opinions, throw out the chaff and create marvelous stories.
Writing fiction is a science and an art. I can tell you what I would do. I can't tell you what is best for your story.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
We have worked together on a
We have worked together on a few projects, and I will always take editing as suggestion. Sometimes a suggestion from you has made me think about something in a different way, which leads to something even better.
I remember one specific example from my Lucy and the Ghost story, for instance.
That said, you have always provided good advice, that is worth considering, and as I said, I have learned from those experiences and improved.
I am hoping that this contest will wake up my writing muse. I have missed it.
In the meantime, while the contest is ongoing, I know full well that you take your judgeship seriously, and will be meticulously fair in your ratings, which is something I have always truly respected about you. I have been trying to read the stories as they post, and am truly impressed with them all.
It is an honor to be amongst them.
Kristy
A good piece of advice I had was....
Critiques can point to where there is a problem, especially if several point to the same thing, but ignore their fixes, that is for you to do.
__
Estarriol
I used to be normal, but I found the cure....
Science and Art
That's the motto of my Alma Mater
Well, the first one. I'm promiscuous.
66.5 to 98 on a 1 to 100 scale?
well, you must not have gotten to my story yet, I'm sure its maybe a 40 . . .
Your Story
Your story was the eighth story I scored. Your score wasn't 66.5 or 98.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Asking for a friend
How does MS Word do versus the standard that you all are expecting, with the built in word counter for word documents?
Jo Dora Webster
Honestly, it depends.
I find it depends on the story. Try to get within the range on the BC counter. In general, I find BC’s word count is usually a couple percentage points higher than other programs.
Emma
Staring into the Abyss
Thanks for the update but I kind of wish you hadn't posted about the negative things you found in stories.
You mentioned breaking the fourth wall and now I'm stressing out about it. I read all but a couple of the stories and I don't remember seeing any of them breaking the fourth wall.
I always thought breaking of the fourth wall happens when a character directly addresses the audience. But I have to wonder if you have a different definition.
I have a bit of omniscient narration and now I'm wondering if that breaks the fourth wall. I didn't think it did. I don't like books or movies that overtly break the fourth wall.
I don't handle stress very well. Sorry.
- Terry
Fourth Wall
Your definition is the same as mine. It happened in Emma's example story. Before she published, she asked me about it. I thought it fit within the context of the story. She went with it.
Every rule has the potential to be broken positively. Don't stress about it. It seems to me the movie Barbie did just fine with heavy-handed narration.
Barbie : I'm not stereotypical Barbie pretty!
Narrator : Note to the filmmakers: Margot Robbie is the wrong person to cast if you want to make this point.
At the end of the day, this contest will be decided by the opinions of two ladies who are far from professionals. We will do our best to judge fairly but are victims of our own bias.
We have both done what we can to let the potential participants know where we're coming from.
Give it your best shot and enjoy the process. If you win an award that will simply add to your pleasure.
When I was in the seventh grade I heard about a "knuckles down" marble contest. I practiced this little-used style for two weeks and won the "City Championship." My prize was a hatchet. Sixty-four years later, I still have a scar on my hand to prove it. Winning is not everything.
I'm reading a book about Charles Schulz. The incredible amount of rejection he suffered in junior and senior high school made him who he turned out to be, the creator of Charlie Brown and Peanuts. He simply continued to do his thing, which was great for all of us.
Thanks for your question. I look forward to your entry.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Stress Relief
Thanks for your kind reply. *hug*
You've probably already read my entry. It's Cosmic Loophole. Perhaps you don't remember it? *sigh*
Low self-confidence sucks right along with gender dysphoria.
- Terry
Hmmmmm
Some food points there, I think I'll answer them...with the sneaky feeling I have probably failed them all!
Information dump: almost all of my stories are written first person non-omniscient, and when I do otherwise, it remains non-omniscient, because omniscient simply doesn't work for me. A very large part of my stuff is conversation, because that works for me; exposition tends to be about 'place' rather than plot detail, but what I try to avoid is the monologue, which is the work of Stan. Natural questions, answered naturally.
Unlikeable protagonist: well, I DID write 'Hard Memory' (see below), but I generally avoid that trap with the first person angle. I have, of course, written some bloody unpleasant antagonists.
Passive voice: yeah, well, I do. Sue me. Not that often, though.
Fourth wall: I am not Ryan Raynolds. In my first novel, I did break it a few times as I started, because that book settled into a sort of conversation with the reader.
Unrealistic characters: Now, there's a rule I can get behind. Said it so many times: my writing starts with a character, and their back story. I need to know why someone is the way they are, which then makes the writing easier. If I can't believe in the character, I can't write them in any adequate way. It's a bit like method acting: what is a character's motivation?
Lack of tension: absolutely! There is a difference between a prose picture or vignette and a story. A decent tale must have the reader wanting to know what happens next
I could add in other things such as basic literacy, but they should be a given here. What I will choose to add is Voice. A good story should have a voice, a tone to it . Not necessarily an obvious bias, but a sense of a narrator. It may be humorous, it may be narrow-focus, but it needs to be there. It's easier with a first person story. Are you writing comedy, or tragedy? If so, switching from one to the other is a difficult trick to pull off neatly.
With regard to word count, yes, BC does exceed Word. I went with the limit on BC, just to be sure.
Now: 'Hard Memory' was a story I wrote years ago for a Hallowe'en competition, and in it I tried to do two things aimed at unsettling the reader. It was written third person with changing POV, each shift moving to the voice of the character in question, but without announcing the change. That was intended to unbalance the reader, as said.
The other aspect was that I deliberately wrote an entire cast of arseholes, in that not one of them was sympathetic. I didn't want the reader to care positively about them, so that the maguffin at the end could stand by itself as absolute horror.
As said, it was a deliberate experiment. Some people liked it, others didn't. Then again, Dan Brown sells a lot of books.