Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="two" data-source="post: 1807463" data-attributes="member: 9002">advice from a published writerThe following advice is in no way intended to STOP people from writing and entering the competition.  It's simply a list of things to consider, from a standpoint of common sense/reasonableness.1)  5 months to write a complete novel, from scratch, is not a lot of time - for anyone!  It's certainly possible to do such a thing, but will require much effort and determination.  If you are not willing to work on it three or four hours a day, every day, rain or shine, it won't get done.  Remember, the first draft of a novel isn't going to be good enough.  No first draft, by ANY author, is ever published.  That's just the way writing works.  Write the first draft, then revise and write the second draft.  Leave at least two weeks time for a thorough revision.  Then have a 3rd party read/edit the novel, then revise a 3rd time.  This is the minimum.  2)  I would not suggest writing the first three chapters, and "if they like it, I'll knock out the rest of the novel in 10 days."  That's a recipie for major stress, and an under-edited, unsuccessful novel.  Plus, you will be kicking yourself for not doing more work in the time you were given.  Plus, the final novel you generate won't be in publishable form after 10 days.  Either do it right, write the whole novel, or I would suggest don't bother entering the competition.3)  Because of the probable number of entries, and how appealing this contest is to both published authors as well as unpublished ones, competition will be stiff.  If you are an unpublished (or heck, published) author, and want to enter, by all means do it!  Write the novel, but don't simply write it with an eye to winning the competition.  That's frankly unlikely.  Writing a novel can be fun, exasperating, grueling, and very rewarding.  Use the competition to get something done you always wanted to do ("write a completed, well-edited novel"), and if you somehow manage to win -- that's the icing.  Just don't set yourself up for major disappointment.  99.999% of entries will be rejected.  Don't let a rejection spoil the joy of the completed novel.4)  People with completed (or half-completed), but as-yet unpublished novels sitting around are in the best shape overall.  If you have such a beast taking up space on your hard drive, by all means use the 5 months to dust it off, polish it, edit it, re-write it, and enter it into the contest.  This is a real opportunity, which will also force you to do something not always fun:  edit and revise.  At the very worst, you lose the competition, but have a highly polished novel ready to sent to agents.Good luck everyone!  It's a major undertaking.</blockquote>

Verification