Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Two months ago I entered a writing contest sponsored by a fairly large chapter of Romance Writers of America. For those of you not familiar with my complete novel, it's a love story, not necessarily a romance (depending on your definition of romance---Nicholas Sparks denies that he's a romance writer and all he writes are love stories, yet lots of readers and critics consider him to be a romance author---whatever--clearly there's some gray area). Since I'm definitely not in line with any category romances I entered the "single title" section of the contest, meaning (I thought) single title books with a strong romantic arc. Part of the reason I entered was because the entries were all supposed to receive critiques, and I figured that might be helpful---critique from 3 strangers who were reading blind entries and had at least been somewhat trained in contest judging. At least one of the judges was guaranteed to be a published author.

The entry was supposed to include your query letter (just the story portion, no identifying data) and the first 25 pages of your novel.

The responses were mailed today. I didn't final, which came as no big surprise to me---I'm not a romance writer and I didn't expect to final in competition with people who actually are romance writers. What did surprise me was the range of my scores. Out of a possible 100 points (broken down to score both the query letter and the 25 pages on a variety points) I received a high score of 90 (not bad at all) and a low score of 64. Now I'm no mathematical genius, but that seems like a rather broad range. (My third score was an 82.) *Note: the email said the average score for this category was 82.7

Let me start off by saying there is no sandwich rule in the judges' guidelines. I don't know what they were told other than to use the score sheet and to make comments, but the range of responses was as dramatically different as the resulting scores. One person did a line edit. Another made no comments throughout and lots of comments on the score sheet. The third made four line edits (out of 25 pages of material) and made long comments after some scores and no comments after others.

As for the meat of the commentary. The most line edits came from the middle scorer (82). She line edited almost the entire thing. Unfortunately she must have made the comments all on her first read through because almost every single comment was a question and almost every single question she asked was answered in my next line of text....meaning if she'd read one sentence further she'd have had her questions answered. In other words if she'd focused on reading rather than asking a question after every sentence she wouldn't have had hardly any questions. That wasn't exactly helpful. If anything it showed me that I actually answered most of the questions she came up with as she read---so I guess that's good? Dunno. (Incidentally she was listed as being a published author but not in romance, and as being unagented.)

The low scorer (64) made 4 comments in the whole submission. One comment was that she's read that you shouldn't compare yourself to bestsellers in your query letter (I don't compare myself to best sellers in my query letter, for the record, I mention them in my market placement sentence, not the same at all.)
She commented that she hates all books where either protagonist is married and that she's read that's a no-no in the romance genre but that she wouldn't hold it against my entry. She pointed out two particular sentences that she didn't like, both of which happened to be sentences that were pointed out by the other judges as sentences they particularly liked. (Okayyyyy.) She went on to tell me she'd have stopped reading after my first chapter (page 11) because she was "quite frankly, bored" but she muddled through since she was, after all, judging a contest. She went on at some length about how I had no business entering a romance contest and how off-putting my story was. Clearly she's entitled to her opinion, and I'm in no way saying she should have liked my book more, but I don't think it was really necessary for her to use quite such harsh language. It certainly wasn't constructive or helpful. (Incidentally she is unpublished and currently in the submission process; also unagented.)

My high scorer (90) liked what she read. She had a few minor constructive comments, but by and large she "got" my story, found my characters likable and believable, and made several comments about my writing being strong. (She is published in both romance and non-romance and was a contest winner herself in a past year.)

My individual scores ranged from a perfect score (5) for "balance of dialogue/narration/introspection"(with a comment that it was an ideal balance and great introspective thoughts) to a 3 (with the comment that there was too much introspection).

For "conflict strong enough to sustain word count" my scores ranged from a perfect 5 (great conflict) to a 2 (I don't see the conflict here).

One person said "great character development, good character history", another said "too much backstory."

*sigh*

What does this tell me? Readers are all different. You can't please everyone. Someone liked it enough to give it a 90. (Yay, well above the average score.) Someone was "quite frankly, bored". (Boo.) Someone else liked it about average. (Meh.) If I were to buy three random books at a store I might well have that same range of reactions to the three of them.

Was this helpful overall? Not really. I'm trying to see if there's something useful to take away from the comments, but I'm really not sure there is.

Consider who's supposed to be learning and who actually winds up learning. Critiquing does little for a project in progress when critical reading skills are all over the landscape. A writer on the hot seat is left with picking and choosing who or what's actually on point. On the other hand, critiquers have the greatest potential for learning something. Meanwhile, writers hoping for some pragmatic advice are relinquished to a hellish limbo wondering in the dark what's really the point of critique. Simply put, critique is one contributing part of readers, critiquers, critics, editors, agents, and writers' apprenticeships.

Critical reading skills beyond the basics taught, easily forgotten, and rarely pursued past high school age are an overlooked, acquired skill. College literature courses attempt to teach advanced reading skills. My experience has been it's up to a student to do the heavy lifting, although effective literature professors appreciate the purposes of literature study.

Teaching and learning advanced reading skills are threefold processes involving related skill sets: fostering an environment for learning critical thinking skills--thinking consciously, conscientiously, critically for one's self; encouraging taking a credible stand, making an insightful point, and substantively supporting it; and illustrating that it is all subjective with distinguishably objective parameters; thus fostering individual interpretations of any given narrative's intent, meaning, and effectiveness.

I don't wonder what the point of critique is, I just wonder what the point of those particular critiques are. ;)

I didn't enter the contest expecting life-altering commentary---I didn't actually know what to expect, I was more curious than anything else and figured some objective comments might be helpful---I'm just surprised by the range of scores/content of comment/tact. I also wonder what the equivalent comments would do to someone who hasn't had their work critiqued as extensively as I have. I can name a few writers who I've worked with who would be floored and devastated by some of the, shall we say less-than-thoughtfully-put statements put forth by the one judge. I'm guessing that judge is in a "bad place" right now with her own unpublished status and submission process; I'm not basing that on a sour grapes reaction to her low rating of my work, I'm basing it on the way she chose to word her comments and the content of her "critique" (she pointed out a "passive sentence" that was, in fact, not a passive sentence). Oh well. Could have been much worse---they could all have been like her. And she could have given all the entries she read a rating as low as mine or lower---the email made it clear that judges are not required to give high scores to anyone so a low score may actually be the highest score that judge handed out to anyone. It just underscores how important it is to have your work read by a lot of people and to keep their opinions (because that's all they usually are) in perspective. That's why it makes me so crazy when people post about how they had ONE beta reader and made a ton of changes based on that single person's comments.

I gotcha. The critiquers probably didn't realize they too were on the hot seat. They hopefully thanked you for sharing your time, blood, sweat, and tears, and offering your first born progeny for their slaughter.

I suspect the disgruntled author was probably compelled to participate for the sake of salvaging her languishing career. Huh, bubba! did she ever miss the point.

Thanked me? Ha. Uh, no. The mean one put in the comments section "Good luck!" I'm guessing that wasn't meant with a great deal of sincerity!

She went on to tell me she'd have stopped reading after my first chapter (page 11) because she was "quite frankly, bored" but she muddled through since she was, after all, judging a contest.

Was this followed up by anything useful such as I was bored because you......and then a reason which you could then consider and, if you agreed fix, as if not, she's just bitchy and not exactly helpful.

She went on at some length about how I had no business entering a romance contest and how off-putting my story was

Clearly never read nathan's sandwich rule. Even if its not used in the contest, surely basic social skills would over ride?

I once posted an excerpt from a very early draft of a piece I was working on on a different website very nervously as that was the first time I'd asked for feedback. And the first reviewer just ripped it to pieces and said so many bad things I nearly gave up writing. I got comments from her saying she was 'disappointed I would post this level of work' and so on. I was so upset I left it for a month and went back to it and reread it. She made one or two valuable points, she'd picked up on a couple of typos (admittedly, bad of me) but from the rest of her comments I'm sure she didn't read all of it and from the gross mistakes she made about it obviously hadn't bothered to look at my synopsis. I then realised some other people had posted some very nice and helpful reviews. That first reviewer taught me one lesson in writing though: some people just like the opportunity to think they are better and to have their say. They don't give a damn about helping a fellow writer they just want make their crushed egos from their own failures to feel a little better. Okay, am now climbing down from my soapbox...

I hope you got some stuff you can use from the other 2.

cheekychook,

It frankly doesn't sound like a very well run contest. The judges were apparently not given clear guidelines for how to score and what was expected in terms of giving feedback. A discrepancy in scores might be normal but the inconsistency in what they wrote seems unprofessional.

It does point out the vagaries of soliciting/incorporating feedback from ANY quarter, be it beta readers, freelance editors, agents, or publishing editors. I guess it pays to get as many opinions as possible and then keep a strong counsel with oneself and connected to one's own vision for the project as one goes along. That's ultimately the lesson here, I think.

cheekychook wrote:I'm just surprised by the range of scores/content of comment/tact.

I'm guessing this was a contest that required money to enter.

I'm also guessing that results were determined beforehand. It sounds like stock replies/edits from a handful of the 7 dwarfs; Doc, Grumpy, Happy, maybe even Sleepy and Dopey.

Probably just enough encouragement in some responses to encourage another submission down the line.

And another entry fee.

Yeah, my clue that it might not be a well run contest should have come the second I submitted and the submission generated a response email that said "Do you want to be trained to be a judge?" Clearly it was too late at that point to pull my entry.

Yes, to those who asked, it was a fee-to-enter contest. Obviously the training and the guidelines for trainees is unclear (at best).

There was nothing I'd consider helpful in any of the comments I received---and that's not me refusing to take criticism---most of the comments were personal statements and the really rude ones, like being bored, weren't followed up with any suggestions. It's not like I don't understand that it was boring to her---that's fine, plenty of books are boring to me too, but I wouldn't put that in a contest critique. That's just me. And, though it's never easy to hear something like that, I've had several agents read the same exact first chapter and be "unbored" enough to request pages, so I'm trying not to let this one cranky judge's bitchy moment bother me too much.

The one who made the most comments (line edits) literally asked questions like "What does the room look like" when the next sentence of my writing described the room or "How does that make him feel" when the next sentence gave the character in question's internal reaction. Reading the critique was like having one of those conversations where the person says the same thing as you a millisecond after you've said it. In other words, annoying, and in no way productive.

It's too bad I didn't sign up to get trained as a judge, because if I had at least a handful of people would have gotten sincere comments that were thought out before they were typed up and submitted.

In any case, I hope my posting this experience is helpful to someone else who may one day get a really broad range of feedback on something. It really does illustrate how the same thing resonates with different readers in very different ways. And it also shows that people's class/etiquette levels vary greatly. I'll give the people running the contest the benefit of the doubt and assume that they aren't aware that some of their "judges"aren't using the most professional word choices in their responses. I'd be unable to recommend this contest to another writer, not because I didn't final or because I received a low score from a judge, but because of the inconsistent review/feedback style and the obvious lack of professionalism among the "judges".

I looked up my all-time favorite book on Amazon the other day (it's out of print and I'm always checking to see if decent copies are available anywhere) and I skimmed the reviews. They were mostly great, but there are several 1 star or 2 star reviews that rip it to shreds. And that's okay. The whole point of this post was to show what I said in the thread title---it's just another example of how subjective reading is.

I think it's interesting that the published winner gave you the highest score and the unpublished, unagented person gave you the lowest score. I'd take that as a compliment!