Reflections After Losing A Short Story Contest | Falcon Talks
I'm not a sore loser!
Note: This will probably be my last post for a little while, as I will be busy getting the next part of The Red Riding Hood Saga ready!
Hi everyone,
Recently, I entered a short story contest.
(No, I’m not linking to it, because this applies to more than just this one contest and it’s not the point that I’m trying to make. Also, just to be clear, this is NOT a critique - the judge, organizers, and contestants did nothing wrong.)
I had entered “Mulan Searches for the Medicine of Immortality” into this fantasy short story contest, and I was VERY confident about my chances - after all, that story is, I believe, one of best my works and I’m still very proud of it.
As you can tell from the title - I WAS WRONG. 😱
Okay, to be precise, my short story wasn’t the winner, one of the runner-ups, or one of the honourable mentions - but I WAS placed in the top half(-ish), so that’s not nothing!
Anyways, after a period of processing (look, while I’m happy for the winners, I’m not above admitting that I was hurt - that just comes with the territory of contests!), I decided to give all of the winners (and a few others) a read.
And, look, I’m DEFINITELY biased when I say this, but… I would say that my short story wasn’t really any worse than the winner and the runner-ups, and that mine was (in my opinion) even better than some of honourable mentions. I also found myself enjoying some of the other non-winners more than the winners.
And that’s the keyword there - I.
I have my own tastes and biases, as did the judge.
From what I could tell with the winner, runner-ups, and honourable mentions, the judge had a preference and bias for Irish and/or British influenced stories, short stories that were on the… shorter side, and narration that was more third-person and detached1.
Meanwhile, “Mulan Searches for the Medicine of Immortality” is more Chinese-influenced (with a dash of European thanks to Red), on the longer side, and the narration was first-person and VERY invested.2
So, pretty much nearly the opposite of (what I speculate to be) the judge’s tastes - it’s a wonder I even made it into the top half(-ish)! 😅
Again, this is not a critique - the judge, organizers, and contestants did nothing wrong.
NOBODY did anything wrong.
And that’s the thing - with contests like these, where the competition centers around creative work, it often comes down to the judges’ tastes, mindsets, moods, and etc.
So, while I was hurt and disappointed by my loss, this was a useful reminder to me (and maybe for some of you out there as well) to not be too harsh on myself when I don’t win these - because, often, it just wasn’t to the judges’ tastes.
(P.S.: Sometimes, though, like when I entered The Decade Cycle into another contest, it really is because of the quality of the work that I lost. For that instance, after I had reflected upon the loss, I found my story to be subpar - mostly because I had taken an underdeveloped concept and rushed it for the contest. But I’ve already talked about that type of reflection here, so I won’t rehash it again… 😅)
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That is not to say emotionless, but written with a narrator that felt more detached from the events rather than a narrator who’s much closer to the (or is one of the) characters.
I had also put myself at a slight disadvantage because the main narrator is Red, whose backstory was already covered in previous entries of the Saga - so she just quickly recaps her backstory for the reader, which means that a newcomer would not have felt the same level of emotional resonance with the narrator as what I was going for. Oh well, it’s what happens when your output over the last few years have been a part of a series.