We know that when you’re entering a writing competition, it’s sometimes hard to make your submission stand out from the crowd. With submissions open for the Owned Voices Novel Award, we thought now would be a good time to share some of our top tips for writers keen to submit! Here are a few simple tips you can use to put your best foot forward when submitting to our competition (and other competitions, too!):
Use an easy-to-read font – It can be tempting to choose a jazzy style for your manuscript, but this can be distracting from your work.
Use a simple layout – Similarly, you might want to add a splash of colour to your manuscript or give the text a special layout, but plain is best and lets your work speak for itself.
Try to nail your one-line pitch – We know, this is an incredibly difficult task, even for seasoned professionals! But if you can open your pitch with a punchy one-line sell of your book that clearly communicates what the heart of the story is about, this will get you bonus points.
Talk about similar books – When it comes to your pitch, it’s great to hear about other books or authors who you feel your work is close to! It helps us get a clearer sense of where your book might sit on a bookshelf. And if you feel your novel is similar to a runaway Netflix success or a blockbuster film, then it doesn’t hurt to mention this, either!
Don’t be afraid to get specific – Genre can be a really tricky thing to pin down as an author, and knowing which subgenre your book sits in can be even harder, but specificity helps us to have a clearer vision for your novel. If you’re a crime thriller author, is your writing closer to the police procedural or psychological suspense end of the spectrum? If you write historical fiction, is it more historical romance or historical action? If you can’t tell, what you can do is look at the retailer pages for the novels you feel are closest to yours. How do they describe themselves? Which categories do they sit in?
Give us the whole story – It can be tempting to treat your synopsis as a long blurb, holding back key bits of information. Please outline all the key plot points from the story instead, even if that means giving away big spoilers.
Open with a bang – You only have a short period of time to get us hooked reading your story, so don’t waste your word count! Ensure that your novel opening is as gripping as possible so that we can’t help but keep on reading.
Read aloud – If you can, read your pitch and the first page or two of your manuscript aloud to yourself. This will often highlight phrasing that would benefit from being tweaked or sharpened up, letting you feel more confident that you’re putting your best foot forward with your submission.
Watch your word count – We certainly won’t be disqualifying any manuscripts that feel a little short or a little long for this competition, but it’s worth bearing in mind that most adult genre fiction should sit somewhere between 80,000 and 110,000 words long.
Take a break – If you have the luxury of a bit of time, it’s incredibly helpful to finish your submission and then leave it alone for a few days, or weeks. You can then come back to your work with fresh eyes, and you might just be surprised by what you discover with your new perspective!
So that’s it! Our top submission tips. If you’d like to put them into practice, then get your application in for the Owned Voices Novel Award now! More information about the award can be found here: https://ownedvoices.com/novel-award.