Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Flash Fiction and Blog Hops

I was so excited to sign in today and see that there are 28 people signed up for the A to Z Visitors Blog Hop! Yay! I hope everyone who has signed up has found some great blogs.

Speaking of blog hops, there is a blog fest going on this Friday, June 24, which you can sign up for over at Elizabeth Mueller's blog. It's a one-day thing, where you answer questions about your main character. Sounds interesting!

I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but I agreed to be the Flash Fiction Chair for my Pen Women group this next year. I'm not sure what I was thinking, as I already have too much on my plate, but it should be fun. Expect me to pick your brains over the next few months, as my experience with flash fiction is extremely limited, and I'm hoping to liven it up a bit and get more entries than we did this last year. I will definitely post about it on here when the contest has opened up. We have a fun prompt this year, that I think can be translated in all kinds of ways.

For now, I wanted to ask about what prize makes a writing contest, whether flash fiction or otherwise, worth the time and effort to enter. Are you more interested in the cash prize, publication, the prompt or getting your name out there? What typically turns you off about contests? I am rather limited on changes I can make to this particular contest, because the national organization is fairly strict on certain things, but I will do my best to make this contest something worthwhile that people will enjoy participating in. I'd love any feedback you can give me on your expectations for a flash fiction contest.

Happy Writing!

12 comments:

M.J. Fifield said...

I haven't entered very many contests (so I'm probably not the best person to respond to this) but when I do, it's because I like the prompt. The other things you mentioned are certainly nice, don't get me wrong, but if the prompt doesn't catch my attention and imagination, I usually pass.

welcome to my world of poetry said...

Many of the ones I have tried I can't get through OR when I comment and go to the select profile I click on Google then I have to put my email address and password then the comment goes through as anonymous, your select profile has the name/url and that works. why the others haven't got that option I don't know,
Yvonne.

Beverly Diehl said...

Prizes are nice - esp. to Amazon or such (can a writer ever have enough books?) but I like the challenge of a good prompt. If it sounds interesting, that's enough to pull me from all the writing projects I should be working on - if not, nope!

Girl Parker said...

Hey Shannon - love your blog! Glad I found you. One of my best friends is a YA author as well, and has her first manuscript being shopped by her agent to the pubs. Hoping for good news for her. =) Best of luck on your writing!

Unknown said...

Good luck on your journey to publication - and with the Flash Fiction contest, too.

Gregg Metcalf said...

I haven't entered a contest myself so I can't speak to this.

Jordan McMakin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jordan McMakin said...

Hi Shannon,

I wanted to give you the Stylish Blogger Award! Stop by my blog when you have a chance :)

Shannon Lawrence said...

Thank you to everyone for your feedback. It's a great help. I appreciate you taking the time to respond!

Girl Parker, good luck to your friend!

Charmalot, thank you! I'll stop by today.

Hilary said...

Hi Shannon .. well done with all your writing .. and Tina's just been over at my Reflections post - just waited for you both to call & you have.

One minor thing .. could you unembed your comment box - Google has changed Blogger's template coding and we can all comment if it is unembedded (as a pop up box) or full page .. I use the first.

It's under Settings, Comments and third set of choices down ... I have to go into another browser and I have to type in my name and URL .. whereas if it's unembedded it's automatic as such ...

Prizes .. I comment when I want to rather than for the prize and some are only available to N Am bloggers .. recently I've been lucky and had prizes from South Africa and from the UK.

It is really nice to know they are there though and people are generous enough to give ..

I haven't joined the blog hop - I may get to do some on my own later in the year but I have the list of 1200!!

Good luck with everything and enjoy the summer - cheers Hilary

Stacy S. Jensen said...

I just saw your tweet, so I'm late to this topic. Large entry fees are a turn off. It's also important to read the fine print on "rights." Some contests - the really sucky ones — claim ownership of anything you submit. I like keeping an eye out for contests as a way to find deadlines to submit - a little motivation.

Shannon Lawrence said...

Stacy, helpful information, thanks! I need to remember to stress the rights in the contest so everyone knows they keep their own rights to their stories.