Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Submission Guidelines: Drop the Needle

Let's call this round REVELATION.

In short, choose a scene which is a moment of revelation for your MC or important supporting character.  This could be anything--from realizing she's in love with Frodenius to figuring out a final clue to the discovery that lame Aunt Dillie has been faking it all these years.

Preface your 250-word excerpt with a BRIEF lead-in, so we understand where you're dropping us.  (We don't need entire backstory.  Just set the stage.)

GUIDELINES:

  • Submissions will open at 6:00 PM EST today.
  • 25 entries and 1 alternate will be accepted.
  • Please do not enter if you participated in last month's FIRST KISS round.
  • Send your entry to authoress.submissions(at)gmail.com
  • No erotica.  All expletives will be transformed into asterisks at my discretion

Format as follows:

SCREEN NAME: (type your screen name here)
TITLE: (type your title here)
GENRE: (type your genre here)

(Type a brief lead-in to your scene here.)

(Type your 250-word scene here.)

Yes, I've padded the word count to accommodate the lead-in.

Post your questions below!

38 comments:

  1. Awesome! I've got my scene ready to go! Love these contests, Authoress, thanks for showing us a good time.

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  2. OOOOooo...too good to pass up. This should be fun.

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  3. Thank you, Authoress! I'm excited for this one.

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  4. I'm still a newbie here...(sorry if these have been asked/answered a gazillion times before!)

    Must this be from a finished manuscript?

    Can you enter a different excerpt from a previously-critiqued Secret Agent novel?

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  5. Man, it's hard to have a revelation in only 250 words. ;-)

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  6. Is there something specific we need to put in the subject line? Like "Drop the Needle?"

    Sorry if that's a lame oft asked question, but this is the first time I've ever seriously thought about submitting something. Thanks.

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  7. That's a good question, Cat--my ms. was in a Secret Agent contest too. Thanks for thinking of it.

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  8. Cat -- No, it doesn't have to be finished for the in-house crits.

    Courtney -- LOL!

    Bittersweet -- Doesn't matter, since it goes straight to the bot. Just don't use "RE:" in it anywhere, or the bot will think it's a reply email and will reject you!

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  9. Another newbie question: body of email or attachment?

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  10. Body of email. Always.

    The bot will not accept attachments. Ever.

    :)

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  11. GAH! Of course 6 is right when I leave for karate, lol! Looks like I'll have to submit it and run! :P

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  12. And another question:

    The post says "EDT" but usually you say "EST" and as far as I know we east-coasters aren't on EDT yet. So is that a typo or is it definitely EDT?

    (Just want to make sure I don't miss the window!)

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  13. Hmm. I might do this and see if I can get in...

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  14. Damn. I found a good 244 words of revelation and discover that the submission opens two hours from now. That's noon for me over here and it's shopping day.

    *sigh*

    I swear, I'm fated to never enter anything here.

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  15. about how much word padding to we have for the lead in? I don't plan to go crazy with it but it'd be good to have an idea...

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  16. Right when I pick up the kid from school! I shall figure out a way!

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  17. thankx, authoress. *waiting, waiting, checking clock, waiting*

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  18. Thanks as always for doing these authoress! I'm hoping to get mine in, missed out on the First Kiss round.

    I have a question about another possible contest/round....would it be possible at some point to do a round for Find a Critique Partner or something similar? Maybe post a logline and the first 250 of a WIP and other entrants have first dibs at going through and petitioning the authors of entries they really like to take a look at their entries and see if they'd maybe like to try being crit partners for their current WIPs. And then once all the entrants have a chance to make requests, you can open it up to other blog readers to approach anyone they like who hasn't found a good match yet?

    Or some variation of that anyways. I just know that I've gotten a lot of good criticism from people on my one SA entry so far and think a submission round geared towards matching potential critique partners up could be really invaluable for a lot of people.

    Anyways, just an idea!

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  19. Shoot! I was home and ready but it didn't work! I was rejected 3 times because my word count was too high- 365 instead of 355. I didn't know there was a word count for the intro (my intro was 118 words, and my entry 250 exactly, so I don't know how it came up with 365!)

    I'll certainly look forward to reading the ones that did make it in, however!

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  20. I giggle each time I read the name Frodenius, btw.

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  21. Ow.. this all went down while I was sleeping peacefully. Next time.

    Thanks for hosting another cool crit round authoress.

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  22. Well, I tried just before, at, and just after the deadline, and got bounced. Not to be, alas. Good luck to the entrants!

    I might try my luck again, if these ever go to randomization, but it's fun just to watch.

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  23. Dang! Missed it! This one sounded like fun too and had the perfect scene! Oh, wells, kids needed to eat, I guess. ;)

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  24. Miracles DO happen. I'm in (sent it at *exactly* 6pm and got the #16 spot). Intrigued to see how this goes down... =D

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  25. I stashed my laptop under my desk in a strict no-laptops seminar, open to my drafts folder in my email. At exactly 3 p.m. PST, I pretended to drop my pencil, hit send, and got 21st :)

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  26. I sent mine at 3:00 pst on the dot, first time entering these contests, and...nothing? Didn't get rejected, but didn't get a return email. Not sure what to expect. I should have asked earlier!

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  27. I did get in. Couldn't hang around for the bot to reply so I've only just found out. Sent at 6pm EST exactly and got number 22 (my birthday) so I'm stoked to participate for once.
    Only 245 words including intro in my entry though, I couldn't get the extra 30 on either side without chopping a paragraph in half.

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  28. I'm very tempted to try - but when does the window close? End of the week? Today?

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  29. Macaronipants--check your spam folder. (I'm trying to save Authoress one reply cuz that's what she usually tells us.) Good luck!

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  30. John - The window closed last night around 7:01 EST when the 25 spots were filled. Authoress' contests fill up fast.

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  31. Sorry to be asking questions that have already been answered before. Unfortunately, my spam folder is self cleaning. I'm curious if you get an automatic response one way or another from the bot?

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  32. Hey macaronipants -- The bot always sends a response, no matter what. Every so often I get an email from someone who says they never got anything. It baffles me, because the bot is the bot. But there you have it. Frustrating. :(

    Kalen -- Thanks for your idea! Finding crit partners is actually tricky business, since you really need to "click" before you swap. Not sure how, exactly, this forum could facilitate that sort of pairing up, but it's definitely something to think about!

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  33. One last question - what email address does the bot send from? At least this way I can enter it into my address book for the future. Even though I'm still scratching my head as I don't have a maximum security spam filter. Ah well! So begins the rolling-with-it part of this journey :)

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  34. Good question,macaroni, and I should probably post this:

    bot-no-reply@misssnarksfirstsvictim.blogspot.com

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  35. Fast fill-up as usual. But it was somehow comforting to get a reply from the bot anyway, even though it says I'm slot 32.

    Thanks, Authoress! You rock.

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