November Novelists Contest #2 Winners Announced

Yep. That's right; winners.

We have a tie this week between Bobbi and Grayson Moran. Both of you can email me at editorjennifer @ gmail.com with your addresses, and I'll get your copies of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Brown and Dave King off to you.

Why did these two contestants win? For different reasons.

Bobbi's introduction of Mallory is a great example of how dwelling on the details can give us all kinds of insight into a person's character. Mallory's scarf hints that fashion is important to her, that she comes from a certain economic bracket, that she is a detail person herself, and that she takes good care of her possessions. Her inability to wait for the "help" to clean up the kitchen shows us how important order is to her. Kate knows that Mallory will try to impose that order on her illness, but Mallory surprises her by asking how she can help - a terrific insight into the depths of this character. She is not just a predictable cardboard cutout.

Grayson Moran took his contest entry in an entirely different direction. There are fewer descriptive elements to our introduction to the "Suttie," but the action in the scene tells us a lot about her back story, even though we have to make all kinds of mental leaps to understand the brand new vocabulary Grayson uses in his steam punk story.

We end up with a terrific sense of this slight, fragile, yet determined woman. We know her clothing is exotic and cumbersome, we know she has a baby and shouldn't, although we don't know why. We know the main character wants to leave her behind and get on with his own business, but we are grateful when he turns around to help her negotiate the steps. We want this interesting character to be part of the story.

Congratulations to our winners! And congratulations to all the entrants! This contest was hard to judge because there were a number of terrific entries.

Stay tuned for the third contest: Best dialogue between two or more characters (750 word limit). I will post the contest tomorrow morning!