Mistakes that knock people out

The name on a blind entry

If the prize is judged blind, your name stays off the manuscript. That includes the header, the footer, the file name, and the title page you reused from a submission to a magazine. A surprising number of good stories leave the pile here. Put your name where the form asks for it, and nowhere else.

The word count, including the title

Over is over. Some prizes count the title. Some count the notes. A piece at 2,010 words in a prize for 2,000 will not be given a friendly extra ten by a judge who has already disqualified twelve others. Cut it. Hyphenation arguments will not save you.

The theme, glued on

Themed prizes are won by pieces that needed the theme, not by pieces that mention it. If you can delete the theme word and the story does not change, you have written a story and then waved at the brief. Readers can tell. Either rewrite so the theme is the engine, or send the story to an open prize and write something else for this one.

Published already, or published by accident

A lot of prizes want unpublished work. “Unpublished” often includes your blog, a social post, a shared document with a public link, and an anthology from a smaller prize you forgot about. Read the definition on that site. If you win somewhere else while you are waiting, check whether you have to withdraw. Rights tangles are a grim way to lose a prize you actually won.

The wrong country, the wrong age, the wrong year

Regional prizes mean it. Age-band prizes mean it. “Unagented and unpublished” means it, and a book deal in another genre may or may not count, depending on the small print. Students-only prizes are not a loophole for everyone who once took a class. The calendar’s age and region filters will hide a lot of these. The official page is still the one that counts, because bands change.

Time zones

Midnight in London is not midnight in New York, and neither of them is midnight in Sydney. The deadline on a card is a date. The hour lives on the entry site. If you are entering from another country, assume the cutoff is earlier than you think and send the day before. Megan Davis nearly lost a winning entry to a crashed computer on deadline day. Do not be the person who also loses it to a clock.

The apologetic cover letter

If a letter is asked for, say what the book is, who it is for, and one or two real credits. Do not explain that you are new, busy, nervous, or sorry the ending is sad. Do not summarise the themes in the language of an essay. Judges who want a letter want to know you can describe the work. Judges who do not want a letter will not read the one you attached anyway.

The synopsis that hides the plot

Novel prizes ask for a synopsis because they cannot read 90,000 words in round one. Tell them what happens, in order, including the turn and the ending. A synopsis that “avoids spoilers” has not done the job. One page, present tense, the names of the people who matter. If you cannot write it, the book may not be finished enough to enter.

Same file, every prize

Sending one story everywhere is reasonable. Sending it without checking simultaneous-submission rules, anthology rights, and word limits is how you end up in a dispute with two organisers and a magazine. Keep a note of where each piece is out. Withdraw it if a win elsewhere uses up the rights they asked for.

Entering because it closes tomorrow

The “closing this fortnight” list is a nudge, not an instruction. A draft you do not like, sent because the countdown says three days, is a fee and a no. If the piece needs another week, let this round go. The calendar also shows prizes that are opening, and typical close dates for next year. There is almost always another door.

Prizes that are mostly a shop

Some contests fund a magazine, which is fair if the magazine is real and the winners are published. Some fund the organiser, and the “award” is a certificate and an upsell to editing services. Look for named judges, a previous anthology, a winner you can search for, and rules written in plain sentences. If the main prize is a critique you have to pay extra for, you are not in a competition. You are in a queue.