What I Learned from Slush-Reading for the Nova Writing Competition

Ready to hear about slush reading? Okay. Here's a bit about the competition first: Nova is an annual Finnish-language writing competition held by the Turku Science Fiction Society, the Finnish Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, and the Science Fiction Culture Cabinet at the University of Turku.  It's aimed at new writers (pros are excluded, so if you've won the Atorox award, the Portti writing competition, or published a novel-length work, you're no longer eligible).

I've submitted stories for the competition for quite a few years, like most Finnish spec fic writers. I won second place in 2016, so that's probably why I got asked to slush read. Like most slush reading, this was an unpaid position, so why donate your precious time, you might ask? Well, first of all, it's fun! You get to meet interesting people and it's nice to give back when you can, since a smallish group of fandom actives work hard to make things like Finncon possible, host reading and writing groups, and arrange genre-flavoured writing courses, for example. Second of all, it's a golden opportunity to see the editor's side of things and learn how to stand out from the slush pile.

So how much work is involved? This year there were 134 entries, 24 of which made it into the judges' pile. One thing I like about the Nova competition is that a part of the prize is a critique from the judges. The finalists who don't make it into the top ten get a critique from the slush readers, so we  each did three or four critiques in addition to the reading part. 134 stories sounds like a lot, but the page limit for the competition is twenty and maybe half the entries ranged from a few pages to eight or ten pages, so while I did read for several hours each week, it wasn't that bad.

For those interested in the process, the way we went about it was to score every short story on technique (grammar, punctuation, voice, style, etc.) and storytelling (structure, plotting, theme, character, world-building and so forth) and then worked out an overall score from one to five. The four of us also wrote a short critique that summed up the story and touched on any special merits or major flaws; these made writing the finalists' critiques a few months later a lot easier, and it was very instructive to compare and contrast what the other slush readers and the judges had written about the stories.

And what did I learn? What made a story stand out from the slush pile?

For me the major factor was originality. There were many competently written stories that felt quite familiar to someone who's read widely in the genre. Most failed to make the cut in the end. Personally, I'll overlook a certain number of technical issues for an idea that feels fresh. Before you despair, it's not impossible to come up with an original idea; for many of these stories all it would have taken was an extra half hour of plotting before starting to write. First, take the time to ask yourself what the reader expects. If you just write the idea as it first comes to you, your mind is probably trying to take you down familiar paths, but if you take a moment to think about the major turning points you might come up with something else entirely. And it doesn't have to be something completely new: a fresh spin on an old trope is original, too. Second, do try to utilise more than one idea, you'll add more depth and originality.

Once you've got that sorted, here are some recurring issues I noticed that writers entering the competition might want to watch out for:

• Do pay attention to the submission guidelines and proper story formatting. If you're not sure how to use quotation marks in dialogue, grab any book from your bookshelf and check. And paragraph breaks are nice, too. Don't use a weird font in a tiny size with single spacing. It's really annoying to read. Even if you don't get disqualified, do you really want to piss off the slush reader even before she's read one word of your story?

• Are you sure you've submitted a complete story? A surprisingly large number of entries read like novel excerpts or a part of a larger whole, usually stopping at the first plot point. If it's too long for the competition when you finish, check that you've started the story when the story actually begins. 

• Nova is a speculative fiction writing competition. Is the speculative element integral to your story? If the speculative element could be easily deleted and the story would still work fine, it's probably not integral enough. And no, "it was all a dream" and "it was all in his/her head" don't count.

• Do have somebody read your story before you send it in. You'll definitely improve your chances with a few thoughtful edits.

• Style preferences are subjective, but going very over the top will almost always work against you. Overly elaborate, flowery prose is heavy to read and can easily slip into the unintentionally comical. I think that this is a common phase that new writers go through before paring back and finding their own voice

Okay, there's my two cents, I hope you found them useful. Congratulations to all of this year's winners and to everyone else, thanks for entering and letting us read your stories. If you didn't make it this year, please don't get discouraged. No story is ever wasted, and success at competitions is definitely not everything. The best thing you can do is keep writing and try to get feedback on your stories, you'll get there eventually. 

I won't go into specifics concerning any single competition entry here, but if you have a general question, I'll be happy to answer if I can.