5 Things to Consider Before Entering a Writing Contest

Vocal Media has come under fire again.

Recently, the writing platform announced a Summer Fiction Series: eight fiction writing challenges for a chance to win up to $5000.

It didn’t take long for controversy to rear its ugly head; after the results of The Old Barn Challenge were announced, it was revealed that the second-place winner had exceeded the word count limits by over 800 words!

A quick aside about the Vocal Media word count limits: generally, Vocal Media requires that submissions have a minimum of 600 words. In the case of the writing challenges, there is typically an accepted word count range of 600 to a maximum of 2000 words.

To Vocal Media’s credit, it is only the word count minimum that is strictly enforced according to the Official Rules for each Writing Challenge. When questioned about the justification for allowing a 2800 word entry to place in a competition of over 1000 submissions, Vocal Media’s response was as followed:

Understandably, users were upset.

The common argument was that many entrants worked hard to maintain within the confines of the word limit — some writers had even cut down the quality of their work considerably to adhere to the guidelines.

To award a cash prize to an entrant who not only ignored the rules, but shouldn’t have gotten through an initial round of vetting, was a serious slap in the face of Vocal + members, the people who actually paid for the opportunity to have their work fairly judged.

I’ve spoken before about my issues with Vocal Media, including their lack of transparency on how they manage the platform and especially the cash-based writing challenges.

This not only proves that the site has not learned or grown from the criticism, they have only doubled down in admitting to no wrongdoing. Remember the “ill-mannered creators” remark?

I’ve entered my fair share of suspect writing competitions. And while I did not and will not participate in the Vocal Media Summer Writing Challenges, I think this is a good learning opportunity to explain why writers need to be extra vigilant when entering writing contests.

Here are a few things writers need to look out for before clicking submit or paying that fee.

1. Return on Investment

In order to enter the Vocal Media Summer Fiction Series (going forward to be referred to as SFS), you have to be a Vocal + member; that means you have to pay the monthly $9.99 fee to participate.

And while there are more expensive competitions to be sure (Zoetrope, for example, is charging $30 to enter their short story contest), you have to determine if the cost is worth the investment.

Some contests offer healthy cash prizes in the thousands of dollars, but only to a very small group of winners. That could mean only three prizes out of a pool of tens of thousands of entries.

If you have confidence in your writing, then by all means, enter these contests with their illustrious prizes. But you have to be mindful that such prizes tend to attract a large and diverse talent pool, which may lower your chances for success.

2. Read the Rules

Obviously, you should read the rules to ensure your entry won’t be disqualified from contention. But it’s also important to read the rules in order to understand what’s to become of your writing after submission.

Just by entering a contest, you may have given consent for your writing to be published in an anthology or online. This could be problematic, especially if you intend to publish or sell your writing in the future.

There is such a thing called “First Publishing Rights”; most publications and publishing houses are only interested in writing that has never been published before.

Writers need to be aware of what they stand to lose whenever they submit to contests. Is the chance at a grand prize worth the risk of being a shortlist finalist who gets published but not financially compensated?

3. Constructive Feedback

It can be demoralizing to put your heart and soul into your writing only to receive nothing in return from a writing contest.

I will always recommend entering contests that provide constructive feedback to its entrants; it at least gives writers the piece of mind of ensuring that the piece was considered, and can provide useful notes on why an entry was rejected and how it can be improved.

In the case of the Vocal Media SFS, only entries considered for prizes are given any feedback by judges. This is frustrating to those who don’t win, especially when many entrants are concerned that their piece was considered or even read at all. Feedback at least ensures some recognition of writing, even if it is flawed.

4. Research the Judges

It can be helpful to do a quick Google search of the judges who are participating in a writing competition. The simple act may provide valuable insight into what type of writing the judge specializes in or what type of writing they may prefer.

The Vocal Media SFS is judged by the Vocal Media editorial staff and an indeterminate pool of appointed judges. It is this ambiguity and lack of refined selection criteria which may have resulted in the second-place winner who was not properly vetted.

If a writing contest is not forthcoming with how or who is judging contest entries, consider it a red flag.

5. Check Previous Winners

A good indicator of what to expect from a writing competition is to study the winning entries from previous iterations.

Some contests will post previous years’ winners on the website. As Vocal Media is primarily a writing platform, all winning entries are available to be read after a writing challenge closes.

A 2800-word short story placing second made participants in the Vocal Media SFS realize that word count limits were more a suggestion than a hard, fast rule.

For those who hope to complete all eight writing challenges that are part of the SFS, it provides valuable insight into how they can hope to improve their chances of winning.

Writer Beware is an excellent blog that documents unfair practices and stipulations which may be cleverly hidden within a writing contest's rules.