When you are asked to produce an excerpt

[Daphnesmate]

A writing competition that I am interested in entering are asking for an excerpt of x amount of words.
Does anyone know how this works? Is it one long chunk of work from your novel or can it be snippets of different sections?

[HollowTalk]

It's usually from the start of your novel. I've never seen any competition where you can pick and choose chapters. It's the same when you write off to an agent - you can't say "I'm sending chapters 9-11 as they're my best!

[Daphnesmate]

Yes, that's what I thought but the competition rules weren't specific, just asked for an excerpt of x thousand words whereas submitting to an agent they usually request the first three chapters, so I am a bit confused. Also, with my novel, the amount of words they are asking for would mean, I would be 300 words over the limit in order to submit my first three chapters, it would seem a bit odd stopping toward the end of the chapter. Perhaps, I will e-mail them and ask them for specifics.

[HollowTalk]

Is that because people might submit short stories?

In any case each chapter is important. They're not going to get much out of chapter 30 if they haven't read the previous chapters. I'd aim to get the first few chapters as perfect as you can. Is this the DM novel competition? I've seen a few competitions at the moment.

[Daphnesmate]

Hi Hollow, it is just a local one but as the book is set locally and it is sponsored by a fairly well known local author, I just fancied entering it.