FGC2012 #2 Submission
The Contemporary Romance Challenge
Challenge: To write contemporary romance.
Form: Open
Word Count: 2500 words
Judges: Emma Venables & Jodi Cleghorn
Congratulations to our F&GC#2 winners…
- Laura Meyer – winner of the Judges’ Choice Award for Sink or Swim
- Jodi Cleghorn – winner of the Readers’ Choice Award (with 50% of the vote) for Thirty-Eight Degree South
Honourable mentions to:
- Adam Byatt and Dalena Frost in the Judges’ Choice Section.
- Rebecca L Dobbie and Dalena Frost in the Readers’ Choice Section–both with 15% of the vote.
PARTICIPATING AUTHORS
| 1. Jodi Cleghorn (@jodicleghorn) 2. Kate Sherrod (@katesherrod) 3. Adam Byatt |
4. Carolyn Wagner 5. Laura Meyer 6. Dalena Frost |
7. Storm Dweller 8. Annie Evett 9. rebecca l Dobbie @rebeccaldobbie |
Report Date: Friday, 24th February, 2011
Challenge #2
Contemporary Romance
Judges: Jodi Cleghorn & Emma Venables
This week, the sparks flew when love came to town, with the intrepid FGC challengers facing down the contemporary romance genre (amid moans this precluded killing anyone and there might be random drownings from cheese). From the cursing, the whingeing, the twitter hissy fits and the mini meltdowns in the lead up to submission—from authors more comfortable on the darker side of the literary rails—nine stories emerged, seven eligible for judging.
The judging criteria expanded this week, with judges assessing each story on:
- the quality of the writing, and
- how well each writer interpreted & executed the genre.
The defining genre characteristics* the judges assessed each story on were:
- the story ends with ‘happily ever after’ or ‘happily for now’.
- the relationship is the focal plot point of the story.
- the hero and heroine face (and over come) an obstacle to be together.
- empathy with the characters.
- An emphasis on internal dialogue and conversation
- A simple plot: backstory or additional plot points kept to a minimum.
*(compliments of Australian contemporary romance author, Nicole R. Murphy)
The judges were pleased to see different interpretations of ‘boy meets girl’, including a story about a gay couple and a story with the main character in the throes of a sex change. While other competitions may have discounted these two stories as outside of the definite of contemporary romance (ie. only heterosexual romance), the Write Anything vision statement outlines the inclusive vision of this site. The judges were also pleased to see the shying away of ‘rescue’ stories’, where women are seen as less able to take care of their needs, or stories were men are emotionally repressed.
General comments
- Stories opened and closed strongly, as well as starting and ending in the right places.
- Location and setting were established early on, which grounded the reader in the context of the story.
- Characters were well rounded, with depth and believable internal and external conflicts.
- Dialogue flowed naturally and with authenticity.
- All stories were devoid of cheesy clichés.
In addition to the above comments, we’ve compiled a list of additional points as a guide for authors who wish to have their stories score highly in future rounds.
- Ensure your know and abide by the constraints of the genre. Contemporary romance precludes a story about a developing relationship between two people at any other time than the present day.
- Keeping the backstory and additional situational content pared down (but appropriate for clarity) frees the word count to focus and build momentum on the main plot point (in this round, the relationship between the characters).
- Where genre characteristics are relevant, apply all of the key characteristics to your story ie. romance means, a story focused almost entirely on the ups and downs of a relationship. The romance is not a sub plot!
- Where a relationship forms the central plot of a story, ensure the “other half of the relationship” appears as early as possible in the story.
- A well-paced story avoids a rushed ending, by judiciously allocating the word count to each part of the story. Michael Hauge’s Six Stage Plot Structure is an excellent guide for pacing a story and an invaluable redrafting tool.
- Heightening the central conflict of the story (in a sensible way) helps to create a better sense of tension and release for the reader.
- Layout is important. Clearly delineated dialogue from ‘action’ and ensure section breaks are added. These assist the reader in following the story.
- Tight, polished writing always scores higher. You can achieve this by:
- carve 10% off the top off the first draft.
- run the ‘find’ function on lazy words: ‘as’, ‘was’, ‘that’, ‘seemed’ especially—delete them outright or in the case of ‘was’ and ‘as’ strengthen the
- attached verb, or replace with an appropriate verb.
- remove anything which does not progress the story.
- have your story beta read.
What’s On a Judging Form
Please check out last week’s section to assist you when beta reading or editing your work in preparation for submission.
Write on and embrace the edge of writing dangerously.
~ Jodi Cleghorn & Emma Venables
When is the cut off for submission? Our time? I will need all the time I can get with this weeks challenge..:)
This one was seriously challenging. And I totally failed at my resolution to kill somebody, dang it!
Romance is not a genre I write. Tick that off the bucket list.
Adam B @revhappiness
My first ever romance.
so prou of myself.
Rebecca, about 10am Monday if my figures are correct.
Bloody hell that was like entering the pits of hell! But man am I glad I finished it. May the romance genre never set its shadow on my door step again!
Definitely would appreciate some feedback. I wasn’t too sure of this one.
So I tried to be as true to ‘romance form’ as I could get myself, but it still may have wound up a little atypical. To me, though, the story is still definitely a romance, even if most of the action does not actually take place around the interaction of the ‘hero’ and ‘heroine.’
Overview:
Nicole, a transsexual female, meets Michael, a policeman, during her shift at a local sports bar one evening. The chemistry that attracts them to each other is undeniable, but Nicole has other plans for the evening—plans she does not necessarily want the law involved in. Haunted by past rejections, Nicole is too scared, or cynical, to reach out. Is there any way for Nicole to get over her fear of rejection and allow someone to embrace her for the woman she is, rather than the woman she thinks she should be?
Inspired partially by the imagery and tone of the e.e. cummings poem, Of Nicolette.
Far out! well .. when in doubt.. sci fi it.. I’ll come and check out everyones stories tomorrow.. promise!!
I wanted to enter this one, but I have just had too much going on this week to do it justice. I will definteely be checking out every one else’s submissions though! And I’ll share it with my Facebook friends and hopefully some of them will read and vote.
Oh my God that was hard…minutes to spare but I got it in. Not happy with it…so very cliche but I am proud I got it done though.
I’m having troubles commenting on blogger sites (I use wordpress). Will try and leave a comment somehow. I have read them and enjoyed them.
Adam B @revhappiness
I’m having the same issues – I haven’t been able to comment on either of Storm Dwellers stories (as much as I’ve died to do so) – It either tells me I’ve got the silly capatcha thing wrong or my wordpress ID is wrong (which it isn’t).
I seem to have worked it out – I’ve logged in to my WordPress account and now I’m able to leave comments on Blogger blogs using my WP ID. Bit of a run around when you add in the capatcha’s but at least I can comment on these awesome stories (and the ones I wasn’t able to from last week!)
I had the same problem after rd #1′s stories. I logged in under WordPress and I couldn’t get my comments to submit on most blogger operated sites.
Hi Everyone,
Looking forward to getting around to read everyone’s work this week.
Just to let you know, we have it in the judging guidelines (still in draft form) that the judges don’t comment on the blogs until after the judging is over. So I’ll be getting around the traps this week, commenting on last week’s stories.
It sounds a bit backwards, but we want to ensure we’re on influenced by anything during the judging period (ie. other people’s comments) or giving people any type of unrealistic expectation about their work in the lead up to judging.
Hope this is okay with everyone.
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me…:)
Now, admin duties aside…
I didn’t struggle as much as I thought I would. It took two days to hone the initial opening section (took it down from 100 words down to just over 700). Once I had the scene set… it flowed really easily.
I had the luck of two characters who had been bugging me, hanging on the periphery for a while, to tell their stories. And I also have quite strong romance sub plots to my stories. Writing romance as the major plot though – really extended me and I’m glad I did it.
Ironically, the feed back this week has been great. All the friends on FB who don’t read my twisted, dark, spec fic have come out to enjoy a spot or romance. Go figure?!
Didn’t get mine finished either. But I want to continue it as I think it has the makings of something good. I’ll still put it up on my blog sometime or save it for something else.
Unfortunately, I was (blissfully) in a land without internet this long weekend so I wasn’t able to Mr Linky a submission. The story i wrote does have some promise, so I’m grateful for the prompt nonetheless!
I look forward to reading those who submitted tho!
If you’re ever away Douglas – you can ask someone in the group to post up a link for you. We did this in the past with [fiction] friday. All about working together as a community to support each other.
Sounds like it was a fruitful adventure regardless (I’m looking forward to being in a land without internet this weekend!)