Lessons Learned

Running a competition is hard

After a project as ambitious as the Gibberish Writing Competition, it pays to take a moment to do some self reflection. My reflections are going to be in three varieties: Lessons learned on running a competition—I’ll offer thoughts on what I’ll do differently next time; and lessons learned about writing—common things I observed in reading three stories by 5 people. The last variety is feedback received from the participants themselves.

Here we go!

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Running A Competition

This was much more difficult than I anticipated. I knew it would be work but I don’t know that I appreciated just how much. Honestly, it wouldn’t have gone as well as it did without the classy, wonderful, and respectful community here on substack. There were a few moments that were socially difficult for me to accomplish—I hated any time I had to give bad news or possibly disappoint people. Let me explain:

Choosing Contestants Sucks. I didn’t know how many people would want to participate, but I don’t know that I could have predicted TWELVE talented and qualified people would want to participate. The reason why I was so explicit about the fact that the selection process was entirely subjective was because I was deeply afraid if I had a system someone would disagree with me. “Why didn’t I get in, I am much better than so-and-so!” was what I wanted to avoid. My solution was to say—there is no reason, I’m not choosing for any reason, I’m gathering enough information to make a judgement call, and I’m executing.

That said—I don’t know how I could make this decision in the future. Do I make a system? Systems would just serve to reduce my own guilt at making a decision that some people are unhappy with— “Sorry, the algorithm said you didn’t make the cut”. I like the subjectivity but it almost made the decision harder. “Sorry, you didn’t make the cut and I don’t have a reason why.” Though the latter probably is easier to hear from an applicants perspective.

I think, the next time I will have people write a 250 word story as part of the application process, it will help me see standardized examples of peoples writing. That, I think, would make the selection process a little more cohesive, and pairing it with the subjective selection would make it easy for applicants to swallow.

Writing Reviews is really hard! More on the substance of the reviews in a moment, but just in general, having to read with a critical eye is challenging. My typical process was to read the story once, ruminate on it, get down some first impressions, and then the categorical impressions would take shape. Some feedback from the contestants was that my comments were indeed helpful, but I also had to be respectful of timing. Being really explicit about when the reviews will be published, is important.

I think, something I didn’t anticipate is the uncertain timing about when the stories would be completed. I think in the next iteration, I will insist upon the stories all being scheduled to post at the same time. That way, the contestants aren’t waiting too long between posting and receiving their review.

Writing reviews for good stories is much harder than writing reviews for stories that have room for comments. This leads perilously into the substance of the reviews, so let’s dig in.

Scoring stories is such a tightrope. I made a rubric for myself which ended up serving as a guideline more than a direct scorecard. Confining all of these into a 5-point system (I guess technically it’s a 6 point system, because zero was an option), was very difficult. There’s a lot of nuance, and things don’t always fit neatly into a rubric. I was worried my method was inconsistent. Was a 4/5 in one story recognizable as a 4/5 in another? It was a careful balance and required more horse-sense than science.

Were the Categories the right categories? There was some overlap in some of the areas. I DEFINITELY need to eliminate Grammar and Syntax as a category. It’s the category I am least qualified to opine on. The solution is either to bring in a guest-judge to take that category for me, or to cut it entirely. I struggled at times to differentiate “Craftsmanship” from “storytelling”. Craftsmanship, I meant more about the structure and “construction” of the story. Storytelling is more about the elements within, like the conflict and tension and release, etc. I need to more clearly define the difference there. I think if there’s a category I would have liked to include, it’s setting. Setting is very often overlooked, and it plays a HUGE role in how stories look and feel, and it definitely deserves careful attention by writers.

I actually liked having a Je Ne Sais Quoi Category. That one point was VERY powerful and I think having two points as an option was TOO powerful. So leaving that as a one-point bonus is probably best. I definitely understand what things have JNSQ. I gave the point to stories that I had an emotional reaction to at the end. Either “Whoa” or “whaaat” or “Arggghh”—you know the drill. Not every story has it, and I still don’t know how to put it into your story. But I definitely know when a story DOES have it, based on how I react.

Talkin’ Bout The Challenges. I was really proud of myself for the challenges I came up with. The first one felt underwhelming—but I think it was a good warm up. The second challenge was my favorite, I think some variation of that is going to be a staple of this competition in the future. The third challenge—I struggled to articulate exactly what I was asking for, but I definitely got exactly what I hoped for. Coming up with challenges in the future is going to be difficult, and I think it’s going to take a lot of work to balance the challenges, the word counts, and the writing time.

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Reviewing 15 Different Stories

It is an absolute PRIVILEGE to get to read and review 15 different stories. I got a great sense of the participants writing styles and common mistakes. Here I’ll share some thoughts about writing and editing based on what I saw in this competition!

Edit! Edit Holistically! Take your time! Listen, I am the king of not-editing. I hate to do it, I get so excited about finishing something I still rush to publish. My friends—if there’s one thing you can do to take your stories from good to great, it is to edit holistically.

You know what editing means but you might be surprised by that word ‘holistically’ so let me explain what I mean. When I write a new story without a real plan about where it’s going to go, I find my way to the ending. I discover twists and turns. I invent the plot as I write. Great! These are all great things, and they can make a story good.

But if your main character has a revelation in the end, make sure you put a hint of the need for that revelation in the beginning. If your character has a problem in the beginning, make sure you’ve resolved that problem by the end. You want to go back and look at your story as a whole and make sure that you can divide it into beginning/middle/end, and make sure you’ve got the similar elements in each part. More than once in this competition, my comments included something like “hey, this element was great, but if you gave us a hint it was coming, it would pack that much more punch.”

Give your characters names! This is VERY important. There’s a few reasons why you wouldn’t give your characters names when you’re writing:

• It’s a very short story and the focus is less on the people and more on the events

• It’s not a recurring character, you want the reader to insert themselves into the role of the main character

• You were on a roll while writing and simply forgot to add that detail.

The names enhances the empathy readers have for characters. Without the name, we insert ourselves, and it’s easy for us to root for ourselves—but we want to root for someone you have created. It’s a clever shortcut in a story that is very short and the focus isn’t on the characters.

But these stories were not that short—naming the characters is a must! Give the reader someone to root for, it will really facilitate the empathetic reaction and deepen our investment.

Characterization, too! While we are talking about characters, let’s talk about characterization. This is part of editing holistically, if there’s anything important the audience should know about your characters, especially if it’s something that comes into play later, you want to seed it early. Chekov’s character relationships! If there’s betrayal, make sure you set up trust. If there’s a change of heart, make sure you establish both sides of the change. But if it’s a plot point, the earlier (and sneakier) you put it into the story, the heavier it will hit.

Pacing! Pacing in a story is like texture of a meal. You want to be deliberate about it and provide variety. A story without intentional pacing is like a meal with no/all the same texture. It might be good, but it feels boring. There are a lot of creative ways you can play with pacing without forcing yourself to do things that don’t fit with the story.

The logic behind pacing is that in order for the intensity to hit harder—intensity where the story reads quicker and makes your readers hearts jump in their throat—they need contrast. You want a cool, relaxing moment to establish the scene before the thunder-clap of drama subverts the readers vibe.

Let’s talk about how to end a story. I like to think that stories are like jokes, in a weird kind of way. There’s a set up, there’s a payoff. “A priest, a rabbi, and an imam walk into a bar. The bartender says, ‘what is this, some kind of joke?’” Set up—people walking into a bar. Payoff—bartender being meta-aware. For stories, it’s less about setting up a humorous situation as much as it is about figuring out what question your story is asking. It might be as simple as “Hey how are they gonna deal with THIS?” and then seeing how they deal with it. But when the story ends, the situation must be dealt with—the question must be answered. The ending can be definite— “They lived happily ever after”; it can be ambiguous, “The end?”; but for it to be an ending there must be no further questions¹. When you’re doing Holistic Editing, make sure you’re conscious of what question your story is asking and whether you have answered it to your satisfaction by the end.

Allegories. This competition had no less than three allegorical submissions, and I did not expect that! It was a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one². Allegories are extremely difficult, and don’t let the ease and quality of the allegorical submissions to the GWC fool you. They hold themselves to two standards: They must hold up allegorically—that is, the lesson they aim to teach must actually be taught; they must hold up as fiction—that is, the story must be entertaining and compelling just like any other story.

It takes guts to attempt this and it takes skill to pull it off, and all three (explicit) allegories certainly had that. Here’s something that might be controversial though: allegories are stories first. They must stand on their own as if there was no allegorical weight behind them. THEN, when considering the allegory, that must shine through all the same.

Here’s the common theme with some of these comments. The reason you give your characters names, and you want your allegories to stand on their own, is because you don’t want to take advantage of things your readers already know. If you give them everything, it will feel deep and your readers will actually have a deeper connection. If you assume your reader knows things, then the readers who DON’T know it, won’t connect with your work; the readers who DO know it will feel like they are helping you write your story. Allegories you have to be really careful not to lean too heavily on the reader substituting their own information, because you lose control of what story you are telling. If you want to make sure the story you’re telling is complete, you have to control all the ingredients that go into your readers mind!

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Feedback From Participants

I invited participants to offer me feedback about their experience with the Gibberish Writing Competition. Probably the main thing I heard was Burnout. Participants had not a lot of time to write a great many words, and I was cramming my review time in there too. It’s a tough balance! Future iterations will need to balance how much I am asking with some good rest time in-between.

I also received feedback about staggering the results with the next challenge—also to help with a breather. By the time the results for one challenge had processed, another challenge was waiting—there was no time to really let things sink in. So again, timing being the key factor here.

It does not appear to have been as effective at driving subscribers as I had hoped. I really wish all five participants received a subscriber bump—maybe if I crossposted their stories to my audience, that would have jogged some feedback?

On the main though, I am happy that feedback was generally positive and I think this is a good and effective structure to use in the future.

That’s it—this got a little longer than I anticipated so I will close it off there.

Thank you again to all the participants, all the applicants, and all the followers and supporters. I am happy that the Gibberish Writing Competition was a huge success.

Until next time my friends!

-Scoot

1. your honor

2. “We will watch your career with great interest!”