Open Novella Journal 2024

Yes, They DO Read All the Stories

So, I'm not going to name anybody specifically, but I'm really tired every year of the accusation being thrown around that the ambassadors don't read all the stories.

And no, the fact the winner/ambassador picks use the words "looked through" rather than "read through" is NOT proof they didn't read through all the entries, but it really bothers me that certainly, individuals do NOT understand these MEAN THE EXACT SAME THING, but proof?

What is the definition of "read"? It means, as Oxford Languages says, to "look and comprehend the meaning of."

And yeah, I know there are some who will want to point out, "But one of your stories is a Round 1 winner this year and another was an ambassador pick for Round 2," so...

I've also participated every single year, and while I've managed to Longlist with some of my stories and some of those ended up Shortlisting, this is the first year I've ever been selected as a round winner or had a story selected as an ambassador pick.

More importantly, while there is a factor of chance, in this case, there is a 1 in 700 chance of being the top-scoring story for ONC, it should not be ignored that one needs to be the top-scoring story, something that is difficult to do, but by claiming that's not the case, that instead, things are unfair and rigged--

And why do people claim it's rigged?

Because their stories don't ever make it, and they must be that talented, right? Or because their friend's stories never make it, and their friend, as far as they're concerned, must be that talented.

And the ones that do, they can't possibly be talented enough, as talented as either the person making the claim, or as talented as the friend of the person making the claim, many times never reading any of the stories that win, or judging those stories based on whether something is their cup of tea or not, rather than the quality of the writing.

That's rather egotistical, isn't it?

In some ways, this goes back to what I said in an earlier post, that some writers are too focused on the number of reads and kudos for their own good, but I'll take it a step further and point out that some writers think they're good writers because of this. Twilight, though, is popular yet Stephanie Meyers is not a good writer. The fact she's not a good writer, of course, doesn't stop people like myself from enjoying what she wrote, but in turn, her books also shouldn't be winning accolades for good writing either.

But the above point - popularity isn't a measure of success for writer.

And neither is having that perfect grammar that English teacher drilled into your head either, but surprise!

Surprise, surprise, one high school English teacher was very, very wrong about many of the things that they taught you, instead teaching some very bad writing habits that you NEED to break yourself of, yet some writers are never aware of this because they are so focused on grammar and spelling the most basic element to writing.

More importantly, a good writer never thinks of their writing as perfect, are constantly looking to grow as a writer, but anybody who goes into ONC, or any other Wattpad contest thinking they're the bee's knees and should sweep the competition easily--

That writer's set themself up for failure instead, because the moment a writer thinks of their writing as perfect, they're not looking at their writing in an objective manner, but this view of their writing is a form of bias...

Yet, despite this, that thinking one's writing is perfect is a form of bias, or that their friend's writing is perfect is a form of bias, they're going and claiming the judges are biased?

That doesn't honestly make sense.

But--

Uh, accusing the ambassadors of having a bias? I think some writers forgot right there. In the introduction, it talks about not tolerating abusive language towards the judges.

*cough*

Yeah. That can get one in hot water for contests as well, and not just the current one, but potentially future ones.

Added note. One of the reasons writers claim their story wasn't read is because they didn't see the reads go up, but someone asked whether the stories were read in another part of the ONC book, and an ambassador noted that the judges actually have a tool that allows them to read the stories without adding to the read count of a story.

...

Oh, and it's rather hard to take claims that the judges are being biased when I'm actually familiar with one of the stories and the writer who has been selected as a round winner for both the first and second rounds. On one side, we're talking about a writer who certainly honed their craft and deserves to be up there, whose popularity comes explicitly from the fact they're known for this, but on the other side, they're not the type of writer a rigged contest would favor.

There is a writer, someone who started ONC last year. They didn't fare as well as they would have liked, and for a brief moment, questioned whether writing was for them because they didn't succeed the way they wanted. And then--

Then a family member asked them an important question, the question of why they write what they do, whether it is for all the popularity or because they actually loved writing.

I bring this up, because to those who are throwing out the accusation that the contest is rigged, why do you write? Is it because you seek the fame of becoming a famous writer, who has a great following?

That's great, but...

The thing about that is that writing a good story is hard work, similar to how being a pop idol is hard work. And like a pop idol, one is always perfecting what can never be perfected. It's great to believe in oneself, ones talents, but one also has to be looking at everything they do in an objective matter.

And yes, that's completely possible. Yes, I know there are some who claim, "what is good writing is subjective", but that is a lie. True, what's one person's cup of tea is subjective in nature, but what is actually good writing, quality writing, there are objective standards. And these objective standards are what our stories are judged on for ONC.

For example, as a reader who is dyslexic, a major turn-off for me is writers who aren't careful regarding word choice, aka they don't pay attention to what a word means, thus falling into things like thesaurus abuse or using words that don't mean what the writer thinks, whereas I as a dyslexic writer depend on words to mean what they should mean.

But there are other things, like rambling -- aka adding things that add nothing to the actual story one's telling. Characters need to remain in character unless an even would logically result in out of character behavior. Plus a whole wide range of things, for which there are tons of essays out there, such as grammar myths one should avoid, and other things to improve ones writing, yet something makes me suspect those claiming things are rigged aren't doing that, maybe even relying on the first draft of whatever they wrote?

And oh!

One of the things I've noticed among fanfic writers is this habit of forcing the characters to go where the writer wants the story to go, rather than letting the character direct the direction of the story, but this applies to writing as well.

I'm stopping here as I'm starting to ramble, and I want to keep things focused on the important things.

Edit: And just in case a story you read is well crafted, as you're claiming, that still doesn't mean things are rigged, but none of us know how close a story is to actually being close enough to have knocked another story out of contention if it scored just a sliver higher than it did and claiming things are rigged is just as much of an insult to those stories you liked that are well crafted as they are to the stories that did win, so please. Stop.