On Entering A Contest, Winning Long List Status And Receiving A Critique
Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 9:14PM Some time in the not so distant past—maybe September 2011, I decided to enter a contest. I chose the one I did for all the wrong reasons: someone who knows nothing about such things suggested it, it’s an Irish contest and I’m Irish. I know, but there you have it. Fortunately, it turned out to be an enlightening experience. I recommend it!
Fish Publishing is an independent publishing company in County Cork. My family is from County Kerry, in the West of Ireland. Fish Publishing has been running writing contests since 1994. Its stated goal is to encourage and promote new writers.
The annual Fish International Short Story Prize has become an established event on the literary calendar, and according to their website, “…many authors published in the Fish Anthology have consequently achieved further publication and gone on to have flourishing writing careers.”
They held another competition that I entered. It’s the Fish Memoir Prize. I entered a short story that I had published on Amazon, The Guy in Frankie’s Hatbox, and it garnered a Long List position. LOL. Long List? How long was the long list? Did I win or lose?
As it turns out, Fish Group gave me the option when I entered the contest to have my work critiqued. I reprint it here, the good and the not so good, because I think this kind of thorough analysis would benefit most writers, especially Indies. Anyway, in the interests of helping other writers, I thought it might be interesting to share with you what they shared with me.
Oh, and the Long List? It was over 900 entrants. So, The Guy in Frankie’s Hatbox didn’t make the Short List, or win the Prize, but, hey, it wasn’t a terrible showing either. Oh, I know it's cool to say you're always learning your craft, but, it's probably not so cool to reveal just exactly what you don't know. But I think if you're not always sharing your experiences about learning your craft, even the easy stuff you and everyone else think you should already know, then you're never going to get any better than you are right now. No place for status quo in a writer's life. So uncool or not, here's what they said about my story:
The title intrigues and attains more layers of meaning as the fiction unfolds. The process of concretizing the complexity of emotional states through the observation and exploration of a small detail, such as hats, work particularly well to structure and drive the momentum of this memoir. Sharply observed detail convinces the reader they are surrounded by this fictional universe and the first-person narrative perspective allows smooth access to the protagonist’s thoughts and observations and is imbued with sufficient exposition for the reader to draw inferences and conclusions about the predicament of the other key characters, notably Frankie.
This is the strength of this story; the writer’s control of narrative distance which subtly and entertainingly steers the reader’s gaze, allowing implication to pad out the narrative. Reproducing the child’s logic, by its realism and the manner in which children make odd and yet obvious connections ("...she was Swedish, so I wasn’t sure if Swedish people knew about hats.") adds real resonance to the narrative fixing the reader’s gaze firmly behind that of the young girl. Be wary of straying too far from the vocabulary used by the narrator as a slip in this direction can break the illusion of the character’s consciousness. Notably a character who asks “What’s ‘sophisticated?’” is unlikely to narrate using an abstract phrase such as “I feigned nonchalance as I surreptitiously...” but rather this would be concretized as a physical gesture, i.e., “I fiddled with the perfume decanters on the dressing table, scanning the room for signs of hats or feathers”
The reflective voice, crucial to the memoir genre is interwoven seamlessly and the flashbacks are compelling and unobtrusive. The narrative arc is crafted and consistent and the shift between the forces that make up a solid narrative (description, action, summary and dialogue) are all evident and balanced. The dialogue, although concise and revelatory contains too many dialogue tags (she asked, I protested) that risk slowing the flow. By only employing them when they are necessary i.e. to avoid confusion about who is talking when, the resulting conversation will feel more vivid and continuous. Adding accompanying gesture and actions can also help reveal the underlying tensions.
“Easter’s big... June is next, uh huh. Wedding season, you know. You’ve got both mothers, all the bridesmaids, usually, and sisters and aunts of the bride and bridegroom. You never call them grooms,” she added. “Grooms clean out horse stalls.”
“What about Christmas?”
“Not as big as it used to be, women these days are turning to scarves.” She pulled the corners of her mouth down in a gesture of annoyance.
“Scarves are for necks, but winter hats are not so exciting,” she admitted. “Spring is when you get your great hats. I’m going to be working non-stop up to Easter, uh huh.” She sipped her Port and stared off into the distance.
The denouement in the closing pages of the story that reveals the mother’s secret hidden in the hat box and the narrators new found perspective in terms of her knowledge of her mother is well structured although the pace could be slowed here to give the information increased dramatic impact. Similarly, the traction of the narrative slows after this epiphany and the writer may want to consider cutting passages such as the polka dot dress piece as it is not inherently crucial to the storyline. The ending pulls the memoir together and leaves an upbeat lasting impression. In conclusion, therefore, the writer has produced an entertaining and poignant short memoir peppered with beguiling characters in a vivid setting and time.
For my upcoming historical novel, The Blondness of Honey, my editor, Theresa Stevens, said the exact same things about using too many dialog tags and not using enough accompanying gestures and actions! Fiction is like a signature, I think. Who you are and what you know shows up whether you mean it to or not. I received the results of this contest not too long ago, but I called in Theresa Stevens in December because I just knew I needed a professional editor. And boy is she!
The first edit (which was my fourth or fifth draft) came back with so many red lines and red-boxed comments I got dizzy. For a week, I couldn't think. For two weeks I was really glad I had my day job, and there was an unrelenting urge to keep it---forever? Finally, after about three weeks, I sat down and pored over the edits page by page.
I first feared I would go blind. Then I feared I wouldn't. Who the HELL is Theresa Stevens and why does she hate me? And then. AND THEN. It began to make sense. Not only did she send back my 540 pages in a lovely shade of red, she sent me three mp3 downloads in which she walked me through some of the more important things. She has a lovely voice---uh, no, it doesn't make the content any easier to absorb. But what I learned was priceless. I finally sent her a completely re-written first chapter. She liked it. "Keep moving forward! You're really doing very well with learning a lot of material in a short period."
I had one POV malfunction and few too many commas, because I love them dearly, and I said the word "said" two many times on page one. But...it was good. Is good.
“Problem solved!” she said. She swiped the air with her hand and erased the imaginary editor’s marks.
Heh.
