Who Am I to Judge? By Jennifer J. Chow

“Who am I to judge?” I really asked myself that question when I was invited to review the submissions for Writer’s Digest 21^st annual Short Short Story competition.

Original artwork by the young resident artist in my household

It was my first time being a judge. My role involved doing the preliminary judging of the contest entries. The results are now in. Huge congrats to JJ Lubinski and all the other winners!

 

The staff at Writer’s Digest informed me that I’d need to read around 750 stories. That figure was quite accurate. I had to do a lot of reading in a very condensed amount of time.

 

From my judging experience, I’ve now created a simple list of tips for those who are interested in submitting to a short short story contest:

  

·         Adhere to the word count

The contest rules indicated that stories needed to be 1500 words or fewer. Unfortunately, I had to automatically eliminate those submissions that didn’t follow the guidelines.

 

·         Grab me from the get-go

In a full-length manuscript, the initial pages need to pull in a reader. With a shorter story, there’s even less time. I want the first few paragraphs to entice me.

 

·         Find a unique spin

A lot of stories I read covered similar ground. Certain subjects were very popular, including big themes (e.g. love) or contemporary topics (e.g. the pandemic). To catch my attention, the tales with popular ideas required a distinctive take from the author.    

 

·         Develop an authentic voice

An interesting character is key to a story, and I latch on to great voices. If I’m invested in the voice, I’ll definitely keep reading further.

 

·         Guarantee a story arc

Although the word count in a short short story is lower, I still expect a complete tale. It’s important that a story arc is also found in these shorter works. 

One of the joys of judging is the honor of receiving people’s talented and creative output. I admired learning about all sorts of topics and reading different writing styles. I also appreciated being able to perhaps boost new voices through this contest. I’m indebted to Writer’s Digest for letting me put my judging hat on.

 

Have you ever been a judge or submitted anything to a contest? 

On My Own by Jennifer J. Chow

 

All my speaking events after the launch of my Sassy Cat Mystery Series in March 2020 have been in partnership with others. I’ve either co-presented, been interviewed by someone, or participated in a group discussion. I don’t mind. I’m not particularly comfortable at solo speaking.

 

The opportunities to do virtual events in the Zoom-heavy world we live in are plentiful. A lot of speaking engagements no longer require travel—only a working webcam. When I received an invitation to appear at the Writer's Digest Mystery & Thriller Virtual Conference, I jumped at the chance. The only catch was that I needed to conduct a webinar . . . on my own.

 

I agreed because I’ve been wanting to say “yes” more in my life. I’ve decided I need to be more proactive in general and push myself toward growth.

What does it take to prepare for an hour-long presentation? Apparently, a lot. Here’s a behind-the-scenes peek:

 

·         Title: First off, there needs to be a snappy title. I wanted my webinar to both capture the content involved and the mystery writing element of the conference. After brainstorming with Robert Lee Brewer at Writer’s Digest, we came up with “Solving the Mystery of Authentic Characters and Relationships.”

·         Content: It’s been a long time since I’ve made visual slides, but I threw myself into revisiting PowerPoint and trying out Google Slides. (I ended up going with the former.) In the presentation, I wanted to provide writing tips but also tie these to concrete examples. I read through recent novels to pick books that would exemplify different techniques and contacted each author involved to get their permission to summarize certain scenes. (On a positive side note: I also had fun taking some Bookstagram-like photos with these novels.)

·         Tech check: There are a lot of webinar programs out there. The one used for the conference was GoToWebinar, a platform I wasn’t familiar with. Thank goodness for Sue Johnson, who helped me to troubleshoot in the week before the virtual event. It turned out that I had to set up a variety of permissions for my computer to allow access to the webcam, files, etc.

·          Presentation Time: I triple-checked to make sure my slides worked. Having a cup of water nearby was also helpful. It’s amazing how dry your throat can get while talking. At the end, I also did a Q&A session, which I imagined felt much like doing improv. (While answering questions, I tried to stare at the camera lens, to create some sense of eye contact with the audience.)

The result of my first solo speaking event? I think it went pretty well. A few people even paid me compliments at the end of the session. Also, importantly to me, I left with a greater sense of confidence.

 

What kind of bold move have you made?