The End of the 2009 Contest

Well, the “official” end of the 2009 contest has arrived. The votes have been tallied and the three lucky winners have been notified:

1st Place Winner – Gail Zerrade (Week 1 Finalist)

2nd Place Winner – Edie Ramer (Week 7 Finalist)

3rd Place Winner – Lilly Cain (Week 8 Finalist)

Congratulations, Gail, Edie, and Lilly!

Leigh and I wish to thank all of you who entered and all of you who stopped by to read the entries and/or comment. And we’d like to give a special thanks to the editors and agents who made the time to participate in the contest.

Additionally, Leigh and I offer individual contests throughout the year, so don’t forget to visit our web sites and sign up for our newsletters, so that you’ll be alerted to all future contests, as well as the 2010 “Chase the Dream” contest. And also, don’t forget: Leigh is offering everyone who entered a critiquing discount at A Word’s Worth! We can be found at:

www.LeighMichaels.com

www.RachelleChase.com

And speaking of next year’s contest, Deb Werksman from Sourcebooks has agreed to participate (it really wasn’t fair of me to try to drag her into this year’s at the last minute). So check back in 2010 for the complete list of participating editors and agents.

Want to help us make 2010’s contest even better? Please click here to give us your feedback.

Here’s wishing everyone tons of writing success!

Best,
Rachelle

Winner, Finalist, Voting, and Survey

Whew! I cannot believe that it’s the end of the contest already. Thank you for sending in such great entries. Leigh and I have thoroughly enjoyed hosting the contest – and reading your submissions. And we hope that you’ve enjoyed the contest, too — and found our comments, as well as those of others, helpful.

But, the contest is not over yet! Click here to vote for your favorite finalist - voting ends on March 11th. And don’t forget to stop by the Finalist pages to read what our agent and editor judges have to say. Theresa Stevens of Red Sage Publishing has already commented on the entries!

Also, Leigh and I will still be around. So, if you still have comments on the Finalists or Mini-Critique winners, please leave us a note.

And, here’s the link to vote for the winning Finalist:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=OQvSykwHXYudFZ5C3hcdoA_3d_3d. Please pass it along to everyone you know and tell them to vote!

So, without further delay, here’s this week’s winners…

Week 8 Finalist

Week 8 Mini-Critique Winners

Lastly, we’d love to get your feedback on the contest. Before the contest ends, please take a moment to complete our survey.

Thanks,
Rachelle

Final Entries Will Be Posted Today

Yesterday was the last day to enter the Chase the Dream contest. I’ll be posting the Mini-Critique Winner and Finalist for this week later this evening, as well as opening up the voting.

Sorry to make you wait until the end of the day — I’m not trying to torture you, honest! I’ll post a notice here when it’s done.

“See you” in a few hours!

Best,
Rachelle

Observations on Week 7 Entries

Whew. I think this was one of the toughest weeks yet to pick just one winner!

I noticed that quite a few of you who previously submitted the same entry in past weeks, made changes to the version you submitted this week. Some of you chopped off the unnecessary backstory and started with dialogue. Some of you deleted the unnecessary details before or after your dialogue. And some of you made more subtle tweaks.

I’d love to think it might have been because you applied some of the lessons learned from Leigh’s mini-critiques – and the feedback given by other readers and writers. But, regardless, the changes you made were right on and made your submissions great reads! Many of you were tied with this week’s Finalist.

So, major kudos to all of you — and to the rest of you who flooded our inbox with great submissions.

After much agonizing, we bring you this week’s winners:

Week 7 Finalist
Week 7 Mini-Critique Winner

Best,
Rachelle

P.S. By the way, this is the final week to enter the contest. So, if you’ve been holding off on entering, please send us your entry today!

Week 6 Winners — Check out the Panel

Rachelle and I are delighted to welcome Deb Werksman from Sourcebooks to the panel of editors and agents who will be reading all the finalists’ entries. Thank you to Deb and to all the agents and editors who have agreed to take part. Please visit the Agents/Editors page to check out all their bios, and to listen to what each of them looks for in the first 1,000 words of a submission. It’s a great learning tool!

And here are the Week Six winners:

Week 6 Finalist
Week 6 Mini-Critique Winner

Week 5 Winners and Other Thoughts

Each year that Leigh and I sponsor this contest, I’m always amazed by the quality of the entries. And this year is no exception! As Leigh has pointed out previously, it’s always a struggle to choose just one winner. But, that’s truly a great problem to have – for it would be, uh, disconcerting if I had to struggle to find a winner. So, thanks for all the wonderful submissions and lots of success to all you talented writers! Keep those awesome entries coming.

In addition to the quality of the writing, it’s interesting to see the trends in the subgenres submitted each year. One year (our first, I think), we received a lot of paranormal. The next year, we received quite a bit of chick lit and romantic suspense. This year, things seem to be pretty balanced – though with more historicals than we’ve received in the past, and very few erotic romance entries.

Which makes me wonder … does our sampling of contest entry subgenres tie into any bigger trends? Or, is this simply an interesting observation? I have no idea, but I find the subgenre differences intriguing.

But, enough of that. I’m sure you’d rather hear about his week’s winners ….

Week 5 Finalist
Week 5 Mini-Critique Winner

Best,
Rachelle

Week Four Winners Announced

Thanks for coming to the Chase the Dream site to check out the winners this week. It’s Week Four – which means we are at the halfway mark. Four finalists have been selected — but there are still four more to go. Are YOU ready to fill one of those remaining spots? Is your 1,000 word scene polished up and ready to go?

Each week’s winner has been a difficult choice for Rachelle to make, because there are always numerous entries which could be winners.

If you’ve been entering each week but you haven’t been chosen, it doesn’t mean you don’t have a winning entry — you might be the winner in one of the next four weeks. If you haven’t been entering each week, remember that you can’t win if you don’t enter.

Thanks to everyone who’s made such great comments — the support for your fellow writers is wonderful!

So here are this week’s winners:

Week 4 winner
Week 4 mini-critique winner

See you next week!

Leigh

Week 3 Winners Posted

As I was reading this week’s entries, I noticed a trend: Several entries were submitted with a brief introductory paragraph from the author, explaining the submission – i.e., what the story was about, what was happening in the scene, etc.

Now, I realize that the explanation could have been given out of nervousness on the author’s part — (s)he wanted to make sure we would “get” it. But, it also could have been given because what was happening in the story really wasn’t clear.

So, if you find yourself tempted to explain your scene, I’d like to challenge you to ask yourself why. If the reader cannot “get” your scene without an explanation, then you need to go back and weave in the necessary details so that the explanation is not necessary.  Because the scene should stand alone. Don’t make the reader have to work to try to figure out what’s happening. And don’t give an agent/editor an excuse to put your manuscript down and move on to the next.

But, enough about that. On to what you really want to know:

Week 3 Mini-Critique Winner
Week 3 Finalist

Best,
Rachelle

The Week 2 Winners Are Here!

Rachelle and I are pleased to share the Week 2 winning entries.

Week 2 Finalist

Week 2 Mini-Critique Winner

Please stop by and read the winning entries, and be sure to share your comments with the authors and with us.

Chase the Dream isn’t just about winners, though. It’s about making our writing better. Aspiring writers want to know whether they’re going in the right direction. What are they doing well, so they can build on it? What might they need to look at again, in order to make their stories more attractive to agents, editors, and readers?

Of course our weekly finalists get a lot of nice feedback – but what about everyone else? That’s why my main job is to select the mini-critique winners each week and give feedback.

In the classes I teach at Gotham Writers Workshop, and in my critiquing and evaluation business, A Word’s Worth, I read a lot of manuscripts – and I see the same sorts of difficulties cropping up over and over. When I read the contest submissions each week, I look for good entries which somehow fall short – entries that reflect the most common reasons why editors and agents turn down books.

Even though we can’t give feedback to each and every entry, Rachelle and I hope that the mini-critiques will help you to check out your own work and make it even stronger.

Happy writing!
Leigh

Week 1 Finalist & Mini-Critique Winner Selected

After much contemplation, Leigh and I have selected the first week’s winners:

Week 1 Finalist
Week 1 Mini-Critique Winner

So, please stop by and check them out — and leave a comment. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

As usual, it was hard to select just one finalist. With so many worthy entries, I had to get really nit-picky and look for the tiniest flaw in order to narrow the choice down to just one. Which always makes me feel bad, because I wish I could choose them all!

And, speaking of choosing, I want to encourage you, once again, to read about how I pick a finalist:

• Picking a Winner – details the weekly selection process
• Lessons Learned From My Contest - relates my contest experience to agents/editors submission review process

So, if you haven’t yet entered, we hope you are inspired to do so. And, if you’ve already entered, we hope you will do so again!

Best,
Rachelle