At the weekend there was a crime story writing competition announced in the Daily Telegraph:
I can’t remember how many competitions I’ve entered over the years, local ones, national ones, international ones, and all without success.
Well, this looks straightforward (I don’t mean easy) I would have to submit
- the first 5,000 words of a previously unpublished work of fiction aimed at adult readers and written in the English language (‘Novel’), submitted as a single-sided Word document, double spaced in font size 12 point, with page numbers; and
- a detailed two-page synopsis which includes details of the Novel’s plot, main characters and ending,
- a 100-word biography; and
- payment to the Promoter of the £5 entry fee
I would have to remember that:
- This competition is open to anyone aged 18 or over who is a resident of the UK, Republic of Ireland and other countries of the British Commonwealth, except for employees (and their families) of Harvill Secker, an imprint of The Random House Group Limited (‘Publisher’) or Telegraph Media Group Limited (‘Promoter’) and any other company connected with the competition.
- The closing date for the competition is 23:59 30th November 2013 GMT (‘Closing Date’).
But… and here is the but…
- Each entrant warrants to the Publisher that: they have not previously had a full length novel written or co-authored by them (under any name) published under a valid ISBN.
Now, I have had something published under a valid ISBN, it is a full length novel… except that it is a short reader for young people of only 66 pages… do you think that counts? The criteria is for an adult reader and my short reader is definitely not for adults… maybe I could have a go… I think I need to write and ask for clarification.
Anyone else out there interested in entering? I’d love to hear about it if you are!
Lois Elsden 
Lois, there are three elements to this, it seems to me.
1) Length: It says ‘an unpublished work of fiction’ without specifying a minimum length. The conventional length of a novel was determined by the paper publishing industry, not by the needs of stories, and, happily, today’s e-publishing world is not subject to those constraints.
2) Reading age: As a teacher, your idea of the reading ages of ‘young’ readers and ‘adult’ readers might well be different to reality. If you can, I would look at the average reading age of adults in society today – which is probably lower than we would like to assume – and then decide whether your content was written for a lower age level than that or not. I suspect not.
3) Content: Is the content of your story likely only to interest adolescents, or might it appeal to a wider group than that? A lot of popular fiction today is pretty juvenile stuff, so you might be categorising your content more narrowly than necessary.
Good luck if you decide to go for it.
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