As explained by a seasoned judge

I’ve reviewed submissions for dozens of writing contests and trained several fellow judges for Bardsy, my writing platform. Needless to say, entrants’ triumphs and tribulations have left a deep impression. One of the deepest arises when I see strong work that comes close to — but just misses — the grand prize.

With that in mind, I’d like to share my thoughts regarding how to take your work from very good to great.

Let me contextualize this advice. First and foremost, I want Readers to be happy. When anthology readers enjoy my selections, they come back to my site and tell their friends. This fosters a virtuous circle of more exposure for everyone, as well as better entrants.

Making readers happy serves another purpose as well. It fends off the toughest critics, namely, entrants who didn’t win. Further, it suits my personal mission: to support writers with actionable feedback, and stories that model excellence.

As you might expect, judging gets complicated despite these straightforward goals. While judges should trust their instincts as to the best submissions, it’s not enough to read and pick a winner without established markers of excellence.

One needs to clearly and consistently articulate why certain stories advance and others don’t. If they can’t, they run the risk of having their choices seem arbitrary. Simply put, implicit, rather than explicit, criteria tend to offer non-winners frustration instead of insight.

At Bardsy, we address this issue, and hold ourselves accountable, by publishing explicit criteria: our Publishability Index™ (PI). Crucially, it enables us to send targeted feedback and provide entrants with the opportunity to revise. This turns judges into coaches, which ameliorates the negativity associated with “rejection.” Entrants receive actionable feedback as well as the chance to learn, even if they don’t win. In sum, everyone benefits.

Keep this in mind as you join me on the other side of the submissions queue and we examine three tests to make sure your entry is on the path to victory.

3 Tests to Win Writing Contests

1. Take advantage of psychology to test your development of characters and storyworld.

Extensive psychological evidence reveals that the way humans think about fictional people closely mirrors the way they think about actual people. The same holds for fictional worlds. We use the parts of our brains tied to the real world to imagine them. Fascinating, isn’t it?! This presents a tremendous opportunity for writers: one you should avail yourself of to bring your characters and storyworld to life and grab readers.

You can, of course, find countless blog posts and journal articles that outline how to do this; the obvious include sketching, assigning goals, providing a backstory, etc. What I’ll add to this conversation is my personal test, which I encourage you to try.

To see whether or not your character is sufficiently robust, try having a “conversation” with them. Better yet, find a beta reader to role play a conversation. Like a Turing test, the question is whether the imagined character can hold their own, apart from the story. For example, if you or a reader asks the character a hypothetical question, will they be able to answer? If you or they can easily imagine a response, you’re on the right track. With a beta reader, you can take the test one step further and see if their answer tracks with yours.

To demonstrate, let’s test the super-human strength of a popular character: Superman. Okay, Man of Steel, what’re you doing tonight? I’ll wager you can supply Superman’s answer easily and with a certain sense of satisfaction.

A parallel mental ability exists for storyworlds, offering writers a chance to administer a comparable test. Can I put myself into the world you’ve written? Once there, I should be able to understand the internal logic, establish a sense of place and, above all, navigate through it. Again, beta readers can help, if used properly. You should go beyond soliciting general impressions and actually have them try these tasks. When readers and judges can fully imagine conversations within your setting, you’ve passed this test.

2. Test your conflict’s resonance and its synergy with your plot.

There can be no story without conflict, as we know. What many fail to understand is that relatability also stems largely from conflict, not a character in stasis. Put another way, relatable characters are optional. Gripping struggles aren’t.

Conflict occurs whenever your character confronts an obstacle to their goals. Because your characters have lives of their own (see test one), their confrontations must also exist in the same way. The Lord of the Rings always comes up when I give this lesson; more on Gandalf’s world soon.

Ask yourself this: in the confrontations you create, do readers understand the characters’ options well enough that they are compelled to make their own, parallel, decisions while reading? Here, “compelled” signals a reader’s feeling of necessity, which requires some empathetic connection with what’s at stake.

Great writing also makes the structure of the conflict — the character’s options — clear and immediate. It’s not, for instance, about throwing a magic ring into a volcano; it’s about summoning the will to take another, impossible step. The thrill comes from stepping into the character’s actions as you read.

The importance of events in this advice brings us to plot. For your reader to engage, conflict and plot must synergize. For example, events should steadily intensify stakes. Interestingly, research participants spontaneously make up narratives when given lists of completely random events. Needless to say, you want to lead readers away from haphazard guesses. Every event in a great author’s writing is there for a reason.

We know the oft-discussed universal story structure: inciting incidents, rising actions, etc. What’s less seen is how conflict holds this structure together. A large part of our criteria, the aforementioned PI, investigates whether these events are productive in terms of advancing the story. Great writers, for instance, end with a resolution that delivers a satisfying and impactful conclusion.

So, before you hit that submit button, you should go one by one through every event. Know each of them backward and forward. Think about what would happen if you changed their order of presentation (spoiler: it should make a big difference). If you can do it, a better test is to ask your beta readers to retell your story in their own words. If they can, you should examine their logic as they move from one event to the next. It’s revision time if what they say falls short of your expectations.

3. Test to ensure all elements of your work are cohesive.

Here’s the ultimate question: is your entry a great read? When I judge, I’m dying to say yes. I want to tell my colleagues that our search has ended, and send a congratulatory email. It doesn’t happen as often as I’d like.

Nearly all entrants meet the prerequisites: proofreading, limited exposition and the like. A majority of entries satisfy the requirements of narrative well enough to be considered solid stories that readers would enjoy. Reaching this point is wonderful; however, a great story — a winner — is more than the sum of these parts.

At Bardsy, we call that extra “something” cohesion. To write a cohesive story, the author must orchestrate their story’s parts productively. It’s an immense challenge and opportunity. The choices you make, each word, every punctuation mark and all syntax, must pull in the same direction.

Cohesion is the glue that makes good stories great. Readers enjoy good stories, maybe remembering the title and a character afterward. Great stories, in contrast, linger. I remember every grand prize winner I’ve had a hand in picking. The power to deliver greatness comes not from any one thing but from a story’s totality, and that’s what readers crave.

Here I’ll offer one last test, which you can use as you write: examine your drafts closely to make sure every part does its job. Like Michelangelo, reshape and chisel until your entry is ready. Then, pat yourself on the back and hit “submit.”

Final thoughts

Understanding judges and their readership is critical to winning contests. Good judges want to make readers happy while promoting their contest. To help you write a winning submission, keep these three tests, derived from the psychology of reading, in your back pocket.

I’ll leave you with an optimistic thought: learn from every loss and eventually you will win.

Submissions for Bardsy’s First Chapter Anthology Contest are currently open. Learn more at bardsy.com/contest. If you have questions or want to discuss, feel free to reach out: [email protected]

How to Win Writing Contests by Passing These 3 Tests was originally published in The Writing Cooperative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.