: Re: Are contests an effective way to gauge the quality of your writing? I'm gearing up to start writing after a bit of a hiatus. But rather than just jump in and start on a novel (which will

@Moriarity138

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It very much depends on the quality of the contest, and that depends in turn on the quality of the judges and whether they provide any sort of feedback to the authors. "Did I win or not?" is pretty crude measure of quality.

I was at the Writers of the Future awards ceremony recently here in Los Angeles, and I was struck by the fact that every winner mentioned how much the feedback they got from the contest judges and organizers had helped them improve the quality of their writing, to the point where here they were, two or four or size stories later, prize-winning authors. In this case, it doesn't hurt a bit that the judges are themselves established best-selling authors (not critics or academics), stellar names in the F&SF field.

A local writers group (many of the WOTF winners thanked their writers groups) is a much faster way to get feedback on the effectiveness of your writing than a contest.

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