Patience

One of the things in contest entries that drives me crazy is where a judge deducts points because they have questions about where the plot is going. If picked up a random book off the shelf at the bookstore, and read only the first 25 pages, with no cover picture and no back cover blurb to help out (i.e. no synopsis), I’d probably have questions too. If I didn’t, I’d put the book down. If I know in 25 pages exactly where a story is going and how its going to get there, I’m bored. With my Sci Fi, you really can’t guess on page 1 or 25 where the book will head. I hope that’s a good thing because I had no idea exactly where that would be until I got there, but I know the characters ended up in the right spots. Yes, I’m a pantser :) And some parts of my plot are kind of unexpected (I hope). I like it that way.

These aren’t short stories, folks. You don’t get the whole scoop in 25 pages, and nor should you. In my opinion, the first 25 pages should be starting the action, starting the conflict, starting the plot. Not handing it to you wrapped in dancing snowmen and ribbons. I do think that the suspense judges were kinder about not knowing everything on page 1 (or on page 25).

I also get a lot of questions on romantic conflict. And I think its related to how I’m showing my stories and the same comments about wanting to understand where the book is going. I don’t necessarily delve into every romantic conflict on page one. I’ve been trying to uncover them, layer by layer. For example, in my single title, its clear from page 1 (or maybe 2) that the hero is engaged to someone other than the heroine. But you have to get much further in the book to understand why he’s rather adamant about staying engaged, despite events that keep leading him elsewhere. Nope, I don’t feel like speeding that up. I’d kind of like it to be frustrating to the reader until they get a little aha moment where things really click into place.

Again, don’t think I had any questions about it on my suspense entry—I guess FBI agent vs someone on the run makes the romantic conflict pretty darned clear, even though as the author, I know that there is more to come.

I also had entered Leap in the Daphne last spring, which is a suspense contest that has categories for various flavors of romantic suspense. Leap didn’t final, but I got rather consistent feedback (I forget the actual numbers, but they were all between 80-90% of total points, and I’ve made improvements since then). I wonder if the storytelling I’m doing is leading me down the suspense road. Its definitely something to think about.

Oh yeah, my scores for Leap: 100, 85, 70 Interesting spread, if you ask me...

Trickling In

My contest scores have been arriving, one at a time, all week. I mentioned that I entered 4 different manuscripts, right? 4 different categories :) No finals :(

Its been interesting to read the comments and the scores that I've received. I apparently average about 80% across the board. Occaisionally, I get one judge who dearly loves me and/or one who hates me. I think that's just the way it goes. I'm taking a bit of a chance here and posting my scores. These are out of 100. For final rankings, they drop the lowest score and total the other two (the 3rd score would be a tie breaker if needed).

Hold on to the Knight (Single Title): 94 71 64
Accomplice (Suspense): 95 79 80
The Appearance of Impropriety (Category): 54 89 83

I don't have scores for Leap, though I hear (informally) that it recieved one rather high mark, and two that were not so exciting.

The contest coordinator sent along a spreadsheet showing the scores of all the manuscripts, including which judge judged which ones. No names, just code numbers, so you have to read all the scores to guess which code number your own manuscript was.

I find it interesting to compare what my 3 judges scored me vs other manuscripts. On two of these (I think HOTK and Appearance), I had exctly one judge who judged any of the 3 finalists. The other ms was NOT judged by any judge who judged a finaling ms (say that three times fast). That doesn't mean much, but it is interesting. Actually, on Appearance, the one judge who also judged a finalling entry scored me higher (that was my 89).

And, I entered the GH. Rather, I've paid to enter the GH. With Leap. So, I have a couple of weeks to polish and print. Oh yeah, and maybe add an ending :) I'm hoping for the contest feedback on it by sometime this weekend, so I can see if there are any repeat comments on things that need to be improved before I send it off.

Debating

I'm still debating whether to enter the Golden Heart. A week ago, I was thinking Yes. With both of my latest creations. Today, the answer is no. To either.

I'm running out of time to decide, and definitely running out of time to finish my category romance if I decide yes. So I've really got to choose.

I had both manuscripts in the local RWA chapter contest, and I did not final with either. And now, I just want to know the scores. Because not finalling might mean I was one point away from sitting in front of an editor. Or it could mean I was forty points away. I have no basis to guess. Especially with the category romance. An intra-chapter 1st page contest yielded scores that range from perfect to less than half of hte possible points. So, yeah. I'm just stuck there.

And I've started re-reading and editing Leap, starting at page 1. I have close to 80k words on it already--it is not too far off of a state I could deem "finished" and mail off to RWA. Much closer than the other story, which sits at 50%. The problem isn't lenght or relative completeness. Is Leap a romance? I keep thinking that it straddles the fence with plain ol' sci fi. Sure, there is a romance between the two main characters, and conflict that keeps them apart until the very end. But as I go back and re-read the pages starting at 26 (i.e. one page after my contest entry), I see the story begin to focus on the rest of hte plot. You know, all the stuff that's happening when Dominic & Myrrah aren't pining for one another.

I just don't know. Part of me asks, "what can I lose?" And the other part answers "$50, postage, paper, ink, and many hours of precious time." And I know already that waiting for contest results doesn't exactly make me a happy person. Nor does the not-hearing my name announced.

So, what am I doing now? Preparing for the Golden Heart? Polishing a manuscript and query letter? Nope, I'm surfing the web and wringing my hands.