Volunteering to Judge a Contest

This is a last minute post today. Sort of. I had another I originally would share but I just finished reviewing the last of five story entries for a contest. Whew! Never done that before and I decided to scrap the first post and talk about my experience.Don’t know if anyone here today reading this has ever judged—anything—let me see a show of hands. Don’t be shy, c’mon, raise them high. 

Well, let me tell you, there is a lot of responsibility, even if you do it anonymously. I was in their position once. New, and not sure if I'd make one sale or honestly, if someone liked my writing style and stories. I guess there will always be someone who doesn't, but if I'm being judged that can be nerve-wracking so I took on this task keeping that in mind even if the person wouldn't know I graded their "babies". You want to be fair, but if it isn't perfect, don't you have to judge it as such? Critical, but nice about it. I'm of the belief that you can't learn from your mistakes if no one tells you. I'd want someone to tell me and actually every time I get my first line edits back, I always cringe and wonder--Ohmigod how many plot mistakes did I make? Did I have my hero and heroine moving body parts defying the laws of physics. Or, how many typos did I miss? Since my first book, I've learned so, so much and took all the criticisms from reviewers, editors and readers a true learning experience. I approached the judging in the same fashion when I decided to accept the judging.

Keeping all the above in mind, when I was asked if I was interested, I enthusiastically jumped on the idea. I like to read and don’t always have the opportunity because I’m usually up to my eyeballs working on my own stories and promoting. I figured this would be a great opportunity to read new things, which by the way I did, and give me a break away from my own works. I write mainly, no really almost exclusively, paranormal and none of the five were so I was ecstatic. I dove head first into reading them and overall, I’m glad I did. Yes, it took time because each entry was over 200 pages and the last one just shy of 300 pages. I don’t know these authors, whether they are currently published, aspiring, or what, but I tackled each one with a respectful eye. Takes courage to put our “babies” out there for others to read and possibly pick apart, so I wanted to do this right and not be biased because I didn’t like the subject matter.

I didn’t Google the writers/authors to see if they were published and looked at each entry with a critical eye. I have to admit, the hardest part involved cutting my internal editor off. Yes, I made mental notes if the typos, misspelled words, persistent head-hopping, and weird sentences. I made note on those items on the grading at the end. The storyline was what I was interested in the most and I must say two out of the three were winners in my opinion, one of which was just a bit better. Two others were okay and with some tweaking/polishing had potential and the last one was just really not good even with fixing the multitude of problems.

For my first time judging, I found the experience a very good one. My comments and scoring on all were fair, I think. But, as I’m familiar with the reviews I’ve received on my books, some like, some don’t and I guess the same happens when judging. Certainly gives a different perspective when writing my own pieces now. Kind of gives you thought. It’s not easy to read something and grade it. If I had to read these entries to give a review, the one I didn’t like I probably would have politely declined to rate. Unfortunately, not all reviewers (not the drive-by reader types on the top retailers or social networks, and you guys know what I’m talking about) take that approach.

Would I do it again? Yes, if asked. I took the task on as a learning experience, plus reading different genres was fun. Don’t think I’d write in them because I like my vampires, but they were an adventure worth exploring.

Now, with this break over, I’m ready to get back to writing my next dark vampire story and do some more promo for my new release. Look for it coming soon to your nearest etailer. And if you read it, be honest I can take the criticism because I want to learn to be better.

Signing off for another month,

 Cynthia Arsuaga

Erotic Romance Author

http://romanticwordsbycynthia.blogspot.com

P.S. Everyone in the States, have a nice Labor Day!!!

 Image credit: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/photo_11418209_performance-card-rating.html'>gnicolson / 123RF Stock Photo</a>