Judging Short Fiction
By Juliet Marillier | June 5, 2014 |
I earn my living writing longish stories – my historical fantasy novels for adults usually come in at around 150,000 words. Perhaps because I’ve always loved traditional storytelling, including myths, legends and sagas, I do tend to think big, and it sits most comfortably with me to write fiction in the long form. I write short stories, too, but I find them more of a challenge. Every element must be refined and polished, the key message of the story must be conveyed perfectly within the limited word count, and the writer has a lot less space in which to connect with the reader. Because I find writing short fiction difficult, it was especially rewarding when one of my short stories, By Bone-Light, a contemporary version of the Baba Yaga fairy tale, recently won two awards and was short-listed for a third.
As an established writer I’m sometimes asked to sit on selection panels or judge writing competitions, and currently I’m sole judge for a short fiction competition that has drawn in entries from around Australia. This contest was for a short story in any genre with a 3000-word limit. I thought it might be useful for me to share my judging process here. Some of the WU community will be just starting out with writing short fiction, some will be improving their craft and some will be a lot better at it than I am. Some of you, like me, must periodically find yourselves needing to judge other writers’ work. You may be given established guidelines to work from, or you may set your own.
I had nearly 130 stories to read. As an experienced competition judge with a busy schedule of other tasks, I have a fairly ruthless approach in the early stages. For this contest, I read every story once and attached a post-it note with a 1, 2, or 3, plus a comment where required, eg, interesting concept but no proper ending; engaging but over-written. A number 1 was a story that impressed me and might be short-listed, number 2 deserved another read before being ruled out, and number 3 was a definite no. That first stage reduced the stories under consideration to around 60.
What ruled a story out after only one read-through?
– poor formatting (though if a story was exceptionally well written, I would be prepared to overlook this – none of these were.) Anyone entering a story in a competition should stick to the format required, which generally means double spacing, an easily read font in 12 point, decent margins, and proper indentations for paragraphs and direct speech. Basic! Also, if the guidelines tell you not to put your name and address on the story, don’t.
– errors of spelling, punctuation, grammar and/or syntax. Incorrect word use.
– overwrought language.
– inconsistency of tense or POV within a scene; clumsy head-hopping.
– typographical errors. (Again, if only one or two, and otherwise an excellent story, I’d overlook these)
– lots of telling, not much showing.
– lack of originality. There were many similar ideas and settings.
– dated, ponderous writing style.
Then came the second stage of judging, which brought 60 stories down to around 30. The 1s and 2s got another read, and I weeded more out on this basis:
Ruled out at stage 2: anything that was not a complete short story
– novel-sized plots squeezed into 3000 words
– chunks of history thinly disguised as historical fiction
– pieces that read like memoir (with some exceptions, where a great concept and skilful execution gave the piece the emotional depth and punch of a short story)
– pieces with no satisfactory story arc; in particular, stories without a proper ending. There’s no need for every loose thread to be tied up, but the story must feel complete in itself. It should not read like the first chapter of something bigger.
And also:
– stories that did not say anything. The best short stories touch the heart (make us laugh, make us cry, scare the pants off us) and stimulate the imagination/intellect. A story should make us feel and make us think. We should remember it long after we finish reading.
– stories that lacked an assured voice.
– characters who did not come alive for the reader.
When you’re getting to the pointy end of a competition, it’s hard to keep personal taste out of the selection process. Ask me what I like in a short story and my answer will be: a powerful story written simply and subtly, with excellent command of the writer’s craft and a compelling voice. If a story has a sad/tragic ending, I believe it should contain some note of hope or learning, even if it’s only the merest glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. The submissions contained a few well-written but unrelentingly bleak stories, and I did not select any of those for my short-list. I also considered whether the writers had taken some creative leaps, given themselves some challenges, been in some way adventurous. Several stories stood out for successfully pushing boundaries.
Stage 3: the short list
It was interesting, after working through the best of the bunch again, to take another look at the post-it notes I’d attached after the first read-through. On the eventual winner: VG prob winner. On the second place-getter: Love this, beautiful, top 3. On the third place-getter: Well written, original, second or third. I was pretty sure about these three right from the start – two packed a big emotional punch, one explored a highly original concept, all were written with assurance. That gave me renewed confidence in my selection method! Fortunately, the rules of the contest allowed me to award quite a few Highly Commended and Commended placings as well. There’s a lot of variety in my short list.
Judging this competition gave me a new window into the writer’s journey. Many of the entrants were still working on craft basics; some were gaining competency and starting to stretch their boundaries. A heartening number of writers had the lot: craft skills + originality + writing with emotional heft. This experience made me think hard about my own short fiction writing and how I could improve.
Have you judged a writing competition? Entered one? What did you think of the experience? Can judging creative writing ever be really fair?
Photo credit © Cynoclub | Dreamstime.com
Juliet Marillier has written twenty-four novels for adults and young adults and two collections of short fiction. Her works of historical fantasy have been published around the world and have won numerous awards. Juliet’s most recent series was Warrior Bards, of which the third and final book, A Song of Flight, was published in 2021. Her collection of reimagined fairy tales, Mother Thorn and Other Tales of Courage and Kindness, had its trade release in 2022. Mother Thorn is illustrated by Kathleen Jennings and published by Serenity Press.
Juliet is currently working on a two-book fantasy series. The first book in this duology, The Amber Owl, will be published by New Dawn in February 2025.
When not writing, Juliet looks after a small crew of rescue dogs.
Good morning, Juliet!
I can’t relate about judging stories, but your opening comment about writing long vs. writing short has me eager to ask some advice.
I am an aspiring writer – epic fantasy for adults – and like you I can relate to the freedom of longer word counts. I thought I’d ask you (and the WU community) about the advice I’ve heard, even for epic fantasy: there is a 120,000 word threshold and anything longer in not salable as a debut novel. I think that’s extreme, so I’m wondering if you can chime in (or anyone else here who has ideas). I really relate to what you say about cutting things down being difficult – in the case of my novel, it sits at about 132,000 and that is with lots of trimming (it would be about 170,000 if I hadn’t learned a few things from an earlier short fiction publication and previous drafted novels which I’m never published).
John, are you a member of the WU Community Facebook Group? That seems like a perfect question for that forum. I’m sure you’d get lots of feedback. (Even Juliet graciously weighs in over there from time to time.) If you’re interested, just follow the link in the right sidebar (our Facebook group – under FB Moderators). Good luck!
Wonderful tips, Juliet. I struggle with writing short fiction, but it’s a wonderful exercise. I’ve found my attempts to write short both humbling and enlightening. Thanks for sharing your experience!
‘Humbling and enlightening’, I like that, Vaughn! When I’m writing short fiction I’m always conscious of craft issues, whereas writing a novel I tend to be more carried along by the story and characters.
Hi John and thanks for the comments. I echo Vaughn’s suggestion, the WU Facebook page is a great starting point for discussions of this kind and full of wise people happy to share their experience.
Re acceptable word counts for an adult fantasy novel, the best person to advise you is probably an agent who handles fantasy, but I know most of us can’t get away with those bug-whomping tomes we used to write. I’m an established mid-list author and my US contracts usually stipulate a range of, say, 130-150K for an adult novel. I would guess that for a first-time novelist quality counts more in the balance than length. If an agent or editor was completely captivated by your work, the issue of book length might be secondary, provided the manuscript was not enormously long. My rough guess would be that you should keep it under 150K, and make sure you’ve trimmed what you can.
Good luck!
Thanks for that, Juliet. (Vaughn – I’ve send a request to join the group and look forward to connecting with some of the wonderful resources there.)
John, see my reply further down – I was having a few problems with the page.
I have served as a judge for journalism contests, but never fiction writing competitions. Your judging criteria and process are sound. Of course, subjective judgments always enter the picture. Each judge looks at a work through her own prism, and personal and stylistic preferences influence the judge’s opinion, either consciously or subconsciously. I also agree short fiction is more challenging than long form writing. That’s one reason why many of us stay away from it. And there are few markets for shorft fiction these days, which is unfortunate. Thanks for a useful post, Juliet.
True about the limited markets, CG. In the genres of fantasy/science fiction/horror, we’re relatively fortunate in the opportunities available to have short fiction published. Or so it seems to me, especially here in Australia where a number of specialist small presses regularly bring out good quality collections/anthologies, both print and digital.
Re the issue of personal taste influencing judging, it’s hard to keep it out of the equation but it needs to take a back seat to those other criteria. I did include one story on my short list that was in the ‘simple idea, elaborately told’ category, ie not to my tastes, but which was too well written (and original) to be set aside.
I love short stories … they can be like a gem in your pocket. I’ve been on both sides, winning and judging. I wasn’t the sole judge but our process was similar. In the end, the top five picks were all the same, so it was objective (we were all given the criteria to judge by). But there can only be one winner, so we were very careful that our choice held up to scrutiny and not to the whim of the day.
With a judging panel or jury you are more likely to get a ‘fair’ result. On the other hand, with some jury-assessed awards the final winner can be a compromise choice. I love A and hate B; you love B and hate A; we’ll give the prize to C, which we both think is OK.
Thanks for the insight, Juliet! I’ve entered numerous contests – never won one, but was a finalist in two – and it’s very interesting to hear about your judging process. I do feel that there are often multiple potential winners and that the actual story selected as the top one does come down to taste. However, I know I’ve definitely been guilty of committing some of the story flaws you mention – fiction that reads like memoir, for example – and while providing individual feedback is naturally impossible, I wish more judges would come forward to discuss their specific selection processes, as this would definitely increase the quality of contest entries.
Good point, Lori – that would certainly be helpful to entrants. I will be delivering a judge’s report, but often the only people who hear/read that report are the shortlisted writers. And it’s the less successful entrants who can benefit most from knowing about the process (to help them next time around.) It would also be useful if judges gave individual feedback, but it usually isn’t possible because of the volume of entries.
Juliet, I write short stories and have had several published in small literary pubs and Ezines. The contests I’ve entered NEVER give you any feedback (most fail to even send a courtesy email about the results), so your post is very insightful about how you process your choice. And it does sound like your personal tastes and standards were the keys. Nothing wrong in that. Isn’t all writing about personal taste anyway? From my own contestant’s point of view, I’ve learned that for many contestants its more about “fitting their story into the contest.” The advice I’ve been given is, in order to win a writing competition, you have to get to know the judge, read his or her works, read the interviews, blog, etc., and then write a story pitched to the judge’s personal style, voice, and taste. This thinking that to be a “winner” you have to have more than craft, talent, skills, and a good story. You need a targeted strategy to fit in. I like your question, Can judging creative writing ever be really fair? Provokes a lot of thoughts for me. Great post! Thank you.
Interesting, Paula, and rather depressing to think of entrants feeling they need to employ that kind of strategy.
I don’t think writers entering a contest would be able to guess the way I’d judge by reading my fiction. They’d have to know what I love to read rather than what I write – not the same at all! Especially in an all-genres contest.
I agree that personal taste will always play a part but I’m enough of an idealist to believe that quality of writing craft plus great storytelling skills will produce something any but the most narrowly-focussed judge should recognise as a potential winner.
I enjoy (stronger word needed) love entering short story contests. I especially appreciate receiving the judge’s critique and find it very helpful in sharping my craft.
I have, and it was eye-opening. I could see my own mistakes by reading the work of other new writers. If it were possible to sum up the problems of a new writer, it would be this: we all start out as poets. We get it in our heads that writing is about beautiful, flowery prose, which manages to bury the story in most cases. I’ve done it, too. I will admit, though, that I haven’t judged often, because I’ve never felt qualified. My only publications are non-fiction magazine articles and business\technical writing. I wonder, though, if I wrote 20 best-sellers, if I’d even feel qualified then. I’m sure I’d make a lousy agent or publisher. I can’t stand to tell writers that they aren’t ready yet (even though I’ve heard it plenty and still keep going). Thanks for the post!
Such an insightful post. Wonderful.
I have judged several writing competitions, but as one of five. We all sat at a table together and read and ranked enteries one to five. We never discussed what we were reading while we were reading. Every so often somebody would sigh, gasp or cover their mouth with their hand. I would know which entry they were reading by their reaction because it was the reaction I had as well. Those were our winners.
Ina, thanks for that comment, you really hit the nail on the head – the stories I loved best, the ones that packed the biggest emotional punch for me all had that moment when the reader looks up and takes a deep breath in awe/shock/revelation/satisfaction. And yes, all the winners had such a moment.
I like your process, Juliet. It is much like the one our writer’s organization used in judging a contest connected to the annual Craft of Writing Conference that was held in the Dallas are for many years. We did the judging in small groups, so there might be three or four of us culling through the entries for each category. Your mention of typos and grammar errors slating a submission for pile number three reminded me of an entry we once received in the mystery novel category. The author consistently punctuated the dialogue improperly and that irritated one of the readers who said the submission should go into the not-worth-a-second-look pile. Luckily we all took another look at what the other judge rejected, because I was able to ignore the punctuation and discovered the story was quite good and the writing well done. The final judging for this contest was done by agents and editors in New York, and we sent this ms on with the notation that we ignored the formatting. It didn’t win first place, but it came in third and the author gained representation, eventually getting her cozy mystery published. I wish I could remember the book, but that was a long time ago.
Very sound point, Maryann, about sometimes needing to overlook errors of technique and recognise a darn good story. It’s something I find quite hard to do, I admit, especially when the errors suggest a writer with an inadequate grasp of the basic building blocks of language. That’s where it would be good to be able to give every writer feedback, so you could explain that the story was great, and could be even greater if the writer worked some more on those basics.
great post, thanks for breaking down your process. I’ve judged stories in the past, but your rubric will make it easier in the future.
Thanks, Carol!
In order to be impartial–
I wouldn’t say fair, no such end point is possible in the ever more competitive literature culture, nor has the culture ever been fair. Some writers are born with full access to the means; many have to beg, borrow, take, work beyond their reaches for the means.
Fair judging would see every composition a winner in its own lights and published to great popular and critical acclaim. The writing effort in and of itself laudable because writing makes better persons of us all, from making critical, conscious, responsible thinkers of us all. The central message of Postmodernism: Think for yourself or others will to your detriment.
–judging short stories is more challenging than writing them for me. Not that writing is a cake walk in any sense. I’ve done more screening reading than many writers, workshopping, too, and judging for contests not as much but more or less the same deeps. Of late, with the advent of online writing venues and posting of excerpts and parcels for evaluation and self-publishing’s less-than-stellar narratives overpopulating cyberspace, access to ambitious writers’ works has opened up a cornucopia of material for judgment.
Writers want to write, not judge or much else writing-related besides write. For the purpose of skill building, writing and revision and self-editing; reading, evaluating, and judging standing in relation to others’ like-ability or dislike-ability, judging others’ ambitious writing is beneficial for any writer.
Our human capacity to find fault in others, writing-wise, though socially inappropriate elsewhere from inherent biases and hypocrisy causing unsettling disturbances of the peace, is the kernel of judging writing: the very principle that writing workshopping is based upon and any writing judging, any judging. Writing is a social activity, a communication activity, social beings’ communication activity. In any analysis, objectively, a writing judgment boils down to how the writing communicates and appeals socially; in other words, appeals to the audience.
Subjective criteria, personal sentiments and sensibilities, do in a final analysis of closely competitive finalists influence choices; however, the subjectiveness is not so personally sensible as appears on the surface. Aesthetic hunches appeal or alienate from subconscious sensibilities arising in the foremind. Within those hunches are practical and supportable though unaccessed criteria.
In short, a genre preference, for example, shouldn’t matter. Only the craft skill matters. An artfully-crafted narrative appeals broadly because it splashes into the heart of the human condition.
Gifted judges place as much emphasis on virtues as on faults, and not overlooking that a fault may be a mitigating factor and a virtue an aggravating factor. Though not often tapped to judge much for contests, safe to say I’m prone to devil’s advocacy, adversarial and contentious for noble reasons, that virtue focus has made all the difference for my writing progress. My virtue focus judgments center around whether a work’s decorum meets its ambitions. Decorum in the rhetorical sense: words and subject matter suited to each other, and to the occasion and the audience.
I am a judge for a literary magazine and the pieces come in over a few months. I would encourage writers who are interested in submitting to journals to submit early. By the time the last few come in, they certainly get the same thorough reading, but are competing with other pieces that many of us have decided already should be included in the journal. Also, for this journal, writers are notified right away if their piece is going to be included, instead of the journal waiting until the end to notify everyone.
Hope this helps! I read about 125 nonfiction essays…
Thanks for sharing your process, Juliet. I’ve neither judged nor entered a writing contest, though I am working on some short fiction now. It is very challenging! A list like this is very useful to have even outside of contests, I think. It gives me things to think about as I polish my own work, or to keep in mind when reading for a critique partner. It is too bad that judges aren’t able to give feedback to everyone – I’m sure that as we go through the learning process, many of us aren’t even aware we’ve made some of those mistakes at first – but it’s certainly understandable that with that volume of entrants it’s not possible to do.
Leslie, I agree that it would be good if everyone could be provided with feedback, though there’s no way I could have managed that with this number of entries. Your comment made me think back to submitting my first novel to a publisher because that publisher had a policy of reading and commenting on any manuscript from a writer in the location where I live. The encouraging letter I received at that point played a key role in my continuing to polish and improve my work, and eventually led to my first contract (with another publisher whom they suggested.)