Discoveries/Lucy Cavendish novel competitions

[AppropriateAdult]

Anyone entered either of these novel contests this year? I've been working on a new novel so I entered it in for both of these. The LC has been running for years but Discoveries is new this year, run by the Women's Prize and Curtis Brown.

At least the deadlines motivated me to get the first chunk of the novel written - will have to try to keep going with it now...

Yes, I've entered the Discoveries Prize! Like you it was useful motivation. Although I think there is a risk of it being severely demotivating in the likely event I don't get anywhere!! I had intended to get a decent chunk more written before the LL is announced to try and avoid the demotivation, but homeschooling is scuppering that at the moment. I'm going to try and be strict with myself this year and enter NO MORE novel competitions until I've (hopefully) blitzed a first draft. We'll see how I hold out!!!
I saw the LC and was tempted, despite my resolution, but was saved from myself by the fact that I didn't have anywhere near enough to submit

Good luck in them both @AppropriateAdult!

Oh great! Best of luck. Yeah, I had the bare minimum for the LC, although it was the synopsis that really gave me trouble - the novel is lit fic and not very plotty, so it really forced me to think about where I was going to go with it. Which is probably a good thing!

I tried LC but got the impression I was too sf genre, I think they only want literary genre...

Entering competitions and submitting to agents is exciting and great for motivation but after a while all the rejections start to come in and it has the opposite effect...

@Skysblue

I tried LC but got the impression I was too sf genre, I think they only want literary genre...

Entering competitions and submitting to agents is exciting and great for motivation but after a while all the rejections start to come in and it has the opposite effect...

Ah, having written two full novels I failed to get an agent interested in, I’ve become fairly comfortable with rejection The occasional nugget of positive feedback makes it all worthwhile.

Yes! I also entered the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize and was excited to hit 'send'!

I wanted to enter a few years ago but it wasn't the right time. Now it's the tight time and like PP, I'm using the time between now and any announcements to get the book finished!

Good luck to both of you in your competitions. Let's hope that someone on the Creative Writing board comes back in the summer and tells us they placed!

Sorry- I meant 'all of you'! There were more replies than I expected when I replied!

Good luck! And if you don’t get anywhere, take heart from me - I didn’t make the LC longlist but a couple of months later signed with an agent for the book I entered and got a publishing deal shortly afterwards so if you don’t get anywhere, it means you weren’t right for the competition but NOT that your writing isn’t good enough.

Good luck everyone! Yes, it would be great to hear someone from the CW board has done well, will make it feel like something that happens to mythical 'other people'. I love the querying threads for the same reason, even though I'm a long way off contributing to them!!
@CaptainBrickbeard - that's great to keep in mind - it feels like with competitions, like with writing in general, you need some good mind tricks to keep you going!

Great to see some others in the running! At least the Discoveries longlist is out fairly soon (March/April); I entered a short story comp the other day which will announce a winner in August - feels a lifetime away right now...

Looks like there's been a record number of entries for the Lucy Cavendish prize this year - more than 700.

Does anyone know how polished the entries have to be for these work-in-progress competitions? If you're still writing the novel, then surely it must be a first draft, with plot holes, inconsistencies & all sorts of things that would be put right once you'd finished the manuscript and had started to edit. So - do people send their ms in as is, or re-draft/polish/edit their first few chapters before submitting to the comps?

Just seen a free Facebook event next week on The Diary of a Debut Novelist group - 'Writing competitions - can they bag you a book deal?'

Very topical for this thread!

Could be worth a watch to see if they discuss your question @Bucolicky - and looks like there is a Q&A opportunity.

FWIW I'm sure my entry had problems with pacing and plot holes, but I hadn't written much so wasn't much to play with - like you say, I can only really see that being fixed when the first draft is done. I did a lot of general editing and polishing though.

@Bucolicky

Looks like there's been a record number of entries for the Lucy Cavendish prize this year - more than 700.

Does anyone know how polished the entries have to be for these work-in-progress competitions? If you're still writing the novel, then surely it must be a first draft, with plot holes, inconsistencies & all sorts of things that would be put right once you'd finished the manuscript and had started to edit. So - do people send their ms in as is, or re-draft/polish/edit their first few chapters before submitting to the comps?

Yeah, when I'm writing I usually try to get to the end of a complete draft and then go back and start editing it. So this was a bit different, sending off something that's only partly written. I did try to polish up the prose fairly thoroughly, but I'm sure there must be structural issues and plot points that will have changed by the time the whole manuscript is finished.

Thanks folks. I'll check out the FB event - sounds like it'll be interesting.

Good luck to all who entered the comps. It'd be great if someone on here made it on to the longlists/shortlists/won.

hello. So pleased to find this thread. CaptainBrickbeard, what you say is so true. I know someone who judges major literary prizes, and they say that if the right person happens to be the first reader then your novel has a greater chance of progressing to the next stage. I think competitions are great for deadlines and the practice of the dreaded synopsis, but my confidence has been seriously knocked by rejection in the past, even when receiving full read requests from agents for the same novel. I remember reading about a book that won one of the big competitions but ultimately failed to find a publisher, so now I try and keep my hopeful expectations in check because a knock to your confidence can throw a first draft off course. We all know it's a bit of a delicate time. I'm going to give it another go this year. Best of luck to everyone.

For anyone who entered Discoveries, I've just spotted that the Discoveries website has been updated to say that the longlist will be announced on 28 April (with those who have been longlisted having been contacted). Good to have a date to forget about till as March/April was an agonisingly big window 🙂

I’ve not heard of these before, I’m just starting to write my first. I might give them a go next year.

I am wondering if I’d find not getting through in a competition less painful than rejection from publishers TBH. I’m not sure I’ll ever have the confidence to even try the latter (still want to write it though).

Any competition advice for a total newbie please? :)

Discoveries longlist announcement has been updated again - now saying May 5th.

Lucy Cavendish longlist to be announced April 19th.

Well, no joy for me in the Lucy Cavendish this year. Anyone else have better luck?

No joy for me either. But I’m 70,000 words into my novel now and really enjoying the writing of it. I don’t think I’ll ever find myself on a long or shortlist for a competition somehow, but I’ve had enough encouragement from agents to stay positive and to keep going. Good luck to everyone with your writing. There are different routes to success.....