And the winners are....

Sorry to be so late with this.

For the first paragraph, a couple of general comments, first. Most of you went waaaayyyy beyond one paragraph. Also, a couple of them were very good except for a tendency to ricochet between present and past tenses.

Among those who disqualified themselves through length but whom I wish to mention as very, very good are Brendan and Behind The Pyramids. Among the verb tense disqualify the best was Ori's.

So -- now, the winner and the runners up. Email me at sahoyt - at- hotmail - dot - com for what your choice of my book is. The first place gets one of my books and Dragon's Ring. The others get one of my books, excepting the Shakespeare trilogy AND the first of the musketeers' mysteries (sorry, guys, but I'm down to two copies.)

First place -- Synova, for your first entry. You really couldn't improve on that!

Then Pam and Mike (for Mike's last. The others were way too long)


Now, Rowena's contest -- the winners are fourth guy and Brendan. Please email her at rowena -at- corydaniells (dot) com with your snail mail.

Beginnings

Write an opening paragraph that includes the following:

• a guillotine,
• a ray gun
• a pink feather boa
• at least one stiletto heel
• a gnome
• and a flea

The person who makes it the most engaging and who makes us want to read the story will get a copy of Sarah's book of his choice (including DOITD) and a copy of Dave's book, Dragon Ring.

Remember, one paragraph only. Grab us and make us beg for more. The winner will be announced next Saturday. Good luck and get writing!

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

**
Or, in this case, the rules....

This past week has seen me on the other end of the writing game. Usually, I'm one of those sending out short stories, anxiously awaiting to hear from an editor or contest judge about how I've done. This week was my turn to play judge. More than that, I was the only "real writer" -- not my words, but the words of some of my judges -- to read the entries. In its own way, judging these stories was as difficult as waiting to hear how one of my stories has done.

To start, I have to say I'm thrilled with the response we had this year. Ours is a little library, one of a number located between Dallas and Fort Worth. So we never expect to have a lot of entries. This year, however, we quadrupled the number of entries over last year. That's a big feather in the cap of everyone who helped organize the contest.

But, with the increased number of entries came the increased need to apply the rules of the contest across the board. Hence the title -- and most particularly the subtitle -- of this post. You can follow your muse down the yellow brick road, but you have to follow the rules as well. Don't count on the beauty of your prose to blind the judges to the fact your entry is too long -- or too short, your margins don't meet the requirement or -- and this is a very BIG one -- you submitted it in font so tiny the judges need a magnifying glass to read it.

I guess my point is that I hadn't realized just how badly I wanted some of the writers who submitted to follow our very simple rules. We had some good stories that simply could not be passed into the final round of judging because they had failed to read the guidelines. Even worse, there were several stories where it really seemed like the authors didn't include all their pages. In the middle of a scene, the story just stopped. Never again am I going to assume I know the guidelines or that I've included everything I'm supposed to. It's a checklist for me from now on.

So, for those of you who have submitted to contests before -- or to editors or agents -- what is the strangest thing you've seen in their guidelines? Conversely, what piece of advice would you have for those who are trying to successfully submit their short stories to either a contest or an editor?

**(Image is, of course, from The Wizard of Oz.)