Announcing the 2019 Strelitzia Awards

One of the most rewarding aspects of running ROSA is seeing how we learn and grow. Every year we improve upon the last. We learn from our mistakes, we make changes, we push the envelope, and I’m sure those of you who have been here since the beginning will agree that ROSA today is a much better organization than the ROSA of five years ago.
This is why we always welcome feedback – we use it to improve not just the organization but the individuals within it.

Which is my long way of saying: following feedback from entrants, mentors and judges, we are once again making some changes to the Strelitzia Contest for unpublished authors.

What is new in the 2019 contest?

• The deadline for entries is much earlier this year, in order to provide more time for both the mentorship phase and the second round.

• Entrants will need to submit a synopsis and writing sample when entering. This will assist us in allocating appropriate mentors to entrants, and also encourages entrants to start working on their novels before they start working with a mentor.

• Finally, entrance will not be guaranteed in 2019. Sending in an entry form will not guarantee a place in the contest. Once all entries are received, only the ten strongest candidates will be accepted to proceed to the mentorship phase. This might seem cruel, and not in the ROSA spirit of developing beginner writers, but we need to bear in mind that this isn’t solely a mentorship program but also a contest, and as such it is only fair that writers who actually have a shot at winning the award be entered. Part of ROSA’s mission statement is to promote excellence in romance writing, and in order to promote excellence we need to set the bar high.

This last change might upset some prospective entrants, but please bear with me…

I’m not unhappy with my body shape, but if you meet me you’ll know in an instant that I don’t like exercise. I especially dislike running, so the chances of me getting up early to go for a quick 5km run before starting my day are even slimmer than my chances of winning the lottery (at least I buy lottery tickets!)

But I’ve just signed up to run the Comrades Marathon next year. That’s seven months away, so even though I’ve never even so much as run around the block, if I force myself out of bed one morning a week and go for a run, I have a real shot at a gold medal. You know why? Because I hired myself a trainer, and it’s the trainer’s job to get me there.

You’re laughing at me, aren’t you? You think I’m crazy. You’re shaking your head and thinking “Romy needs a serious reality check.”

That’s what these new contest requirements are: a reality check.

No one seriously believes that an unfit novice with no motivation is going to win the Comrades marathon just 7 months after taking up running. No one seriously believes that a beginner violinist will be able to play in a professional orchestra a few months after picking up a bow for the first time. No one believes that a running coach or violin teacher can work miracles.

Yet there are beginner writers who do expect these things. (Not too many, thank heavens, but a few!)

Just as it isn’t a running coach’s job to get me to gold medal status with virtually no effort on my part, it’s also not the Strelitzia mentor’s job to get a beginner writer to award-winning status in a matter of months with virtually no effort on the writer's part. If you want to win, you need to be prepared to do the work. You need to show the Strelitzia organizers and mentors you are serious about doing the work.

The one thing our 2018 Strelitzia finalists have in common is that they were disciplined enough to complete a full manuscript before the deadline. They took the advice of their mentors, they edited to the best of their ability given the very tight time constraints, and they had realistic expectations. They did the work.

And that right there is why we are introducing the new entry requirements - to ensure that more writers with this kind of dedication and motivation get a chance to enter.

For every entrant who hasn’t yet started to learn or practice the craft, who is not prepared to dedicate time to their writing, who believes that their writing is already award winning and that the mentor is wrong to suggest it’s not, or who spends the entire mentorship phase writing a first draft and then doesn’t have time to get the mentor’s feedback, it means that another writer who is serious about the craft and who is prepared to do the work, loses out on the chance to enter and receive the benefits of mentorship.

This contest also relies on attracting and retaining good quality mentors, and we can only achieve this if mentors feel that their efforts are valued, and that they are making a difference.

And so in the next Strelitzia contest we ask that entrants both manage their expectations and commit to doing the work. By entering a synopsis and writing sample you will show the organizers and mentors that you are not expecting your mentor to wave a magic wand and provide you with an award-winning entry even though you don’t have the time or dedication to write the book, learn the craft, or polish your work to be the best it possibly can be.

Every single one of our mentors is a published author because they had the dedication, made the time, and did the work. They will expect nothing less from their mentees.

If this blog post hasn't put you off entering, and you are determined to do the work, win the award, and take home the crystal trophy, then check out the entry guidelines and download an entry form from the ROSA website here.

PS: in the interests of full disclosure, I haven’t really signed up to run the Comrades next year. And no, I don’t plan on taking up professional running any time soon. (I’m going to use that time to write my next book instead.)

Feedback from the 2017 Strelitzia Contest: Part Three

In this first post of 2018, we continue our series offering feedback from the 2017 Strelitzia (and Imbali) contests. To read the prevous posts in the series, click here.

The main feedback we had for entrants was to read the instructions!

In this final part of the series of feedback posts from the Strelitzia contest, I'd like to look at something that was more of an issue in the 2016 Imbali Awards than in the 2017 Strelitzias, however since we are changing the length requirements in 2018, I am including this advice here: manuscript length.

In 2018, Strelitzia entries will be limited to the first three chapters, not to exceed 15,000 words.

It is essential that you check the word counts / number of pages / number of chapters requested for the submission. The reason is simple: our judges (for both the Strelitzia and Imbali awards) are all volunteers. They are giving their own (often very limited) time to read the entries. It is very difficult for us to attract a sufficient number of judges if we have to say to them up front “you may have to read five 120,000 word epic novels.” And if we do not have enough judges signed up to ensure that each entry gets at least three separate reads, then we have to limit the number of entries we can accept.

Why do we want every entry to receive at least three reads? Ideally, we'd like each entry read by at least 4-5 judges! Reading preferences are so incredibly subjective. If one reader hates your hero, for example, but another has no problem with him, your score will be pulled right down. But if one reader hates your hero and two others like him, the negative score has less impact. Of course, if three readers all hate your hero, you may need to take the judges’ advice on board and do some further editing!

My final piece of advice has nothing to do with reading instructions or following the rules, but should just be basic, common sense: ensure that the work you submit is the highest quality possible.

• Study the craft of writing and ensure you understand the basic requirements of a romance novel.
• Read your submission through thoroughly before you submit.
• Edit it to the best of your ability - and then edit it again.
• Get a beta reader to read through it to catch any typos, grammatical errors, misspelt or misused words, before you submit.

This is an award for excellence. In the event that the entries do not achieve excellence, the trophy will not be awarded. ROSA’s own reputation is on the line, and if we were to award the trophy to entries that are riddled with errors, contain plot holes, under-developed characters and conflicts, and are not yet ready to submit to an agent or editor, the entire organisation's credibility will suffer.

We know you can do it. We know you can follow the guidelines, write a synopsis and submit great work. We know you have excellence within you. We just need a little help from you to ensure that the judges see it and reward it

And as we move into 2018, we'll be giving you a little help to get there too!

Feedback from the 2017 Strelitzia Contest: Part Two

Following our highly successful first Strelitzia contest, the organisers and judges have some valuable tips to share with those considering entering in 2018. In my previous post, I shared the most important feedback we received: read the instructions!

In Part One of this series, I discussed our file formatting requirements, and why we have those specific guidelines for the Strelitzia contest. In this post, I'd like to look at the other requirement a lot of our contest entrants struggled with: the dreaded synopsis.

In 2017 a synopsis was only required for those only submitting the first few chapters rather than a completed novel. Believe it or not, that was us letting you off easy! Since many entrants would not have had time between the announcement of our contest and the closing date for entries to complete an entire manuscript, we figured we'd open up the contest to more entrants if they only had to write a 2 page synopsis, rather than another 200+ pages of book.

However, several entrants queried this, asking if they could submit their first few chapters only, but not submit a synopsis. One even opted not to enter at all because of the synopsis requirement!

The synopsis was a non-negotiable requirement of entry, and from next year will be mandatory for all entries.

While it is of course your prerogative not to enter due to the synopsis requirement, the only person you are harming is yourself. Yes, writing synopses is hard. But it is also an essential part of being an author. If you ever plan to become a professional author, you will need to learn to write synopses. Agents and editors require them, and you can’t query them and say “oh, but I don’t like writing synopses, so I haven’t sent you one.” (Well, of course you could do that, but you would be ending your career right there!) Even bestselling, multi-published authors still write synopses - this is how they sell their as-yet-unwritten books to publishers.

Agents and editors require synopses for exactly the same reason we do: to see if the author has a grasp on character development, to see if the characters’ conflicts are sustainable, to see whether the story will be satisfactorily resolved.

No matter how brilliant the prose of your opening chapters, if you do not have a handle on plot or character arcs, you may not yet be publishable, and you certainly should not yet be winning awards. Harsh, but true.

But the converse also applies. If you have a gripping plot, the characters have growth arcs, and the ending is sufficiently satisfying, many editors and agents will overlook a few mistakes and writing that still needs polishing, because they can work with you on polishing the writing to publishable standard.

So do yourself a favour, and write a synopsis. I can promise you, our judges at ROSA are a lot less critical and much easier to please than most agents and editors!

For those who struggle with writing synopses, bookmark this blog, as we'll be posting some helpful tips on how to construct a short 1-2 page synopsis in January 2018.

Feedback from the 2017 Strelitzia Contest: Part One

Following our highly successful first Strelitzia contest, the organisers and judges have some valuable tips to share with those considering entering in 2018.

The first bit of feedback might arguably be the most important: read the instructions! 

The contest rules are not arbitrary. They are there for specific reasons, either to help you, to protect you, or to ensure that the contest is manageable and sustainable.

The requirement of this year's contest which was most frequently broken was the file format requirement. We asked that entries be submitted in Word format. At least half submitted in PDF format, which is a locked and uneditable format. We let it go in 2017, but going forward any entry not received in the requested format will be automatically disqualified, and the entry fee will NOT be refunded.

There are very two very valid reasons why we asked entrants to submit their entries in Word format. It is so that we can cut and paste the entries in order to:

1. Protect the entrants’ anonymity. We are a small organisation. It is entirely possible that the judges and the entrants may know each other. Therefore, in order to ensure the judging is completely fair and impartial, we cut and paste the entry into a new document, stripping out the author’s name, before sending it to the judges.
2. Correct the formatting. As your work has not yet been professionally formatted, as the Imbali entries have been, when transferred to another device (eg. to a Kindle or other eReader) some of your formatting may either be irreversibly stuck in place, or become strangely formatted (for example, words cut in half, lines of odd lengths, lines too tightly spaced for comfortable reading). We had two entries this year that suffered this fate. Do you really want your entry to receive a low score from a judge because the formatting affected their reading or understanding of your entry? No? Then trust us to format your work correctly so that your work can be judged on its merits, not on its layout on the page.

I can only imagine that the entrants who submitted in PDF either (a) did not read the submission guidelines, (b) were afraid that ROSA and its judges would otherwise steal the entrants’ work. I'd like to address both concerns.

(a) Not reading submission guidelines is a serious career faux pas. Through your career you will no doubt be submitting your manuscripts many times over to agents, editors and contests. If you do not read and exactly follow their guidelines, you are putting yourself at a serious disadvantage. Most agents will not even consider a submission that hasn’t followed their guidelines.

(b) On the second point, we are a professional organisation, and our judges are career professionals who are already successfully writing their own books. They do not need to steal your work. Furthermore, all our judges sign a contract before they are sent any entries, which clearly states that the copyright belongs to the original author (there is a similar clause in the Ts & Cs for entrants). We have a record of every entry we receive, and we keep track of who is sent what, so in the unlikely event that any judge is unprofessional enough to steal your words, you (and ROSA) would be able to prove plagiarism very easily, which would end that published author’s career. However, if you are still of the belief that the published authors within ROSA are potential plagiarists, then I suggest you do not submit your entry to our contest. In fact, to be truly safe, don’t submit your work anywhere, ever! (Since it's way more likely that you'll be plagiarised after you're published!)

In my next post, I'll look at another contest requirement that appeared to be a stumbling block for many of our entrants: the dreaded synopsis.