Hi all!
I don't know if this is the correct place for this post - apologies if not.
I'm hoping for a small bit of advice... I've just entered a short story competition whose winner will be chosen by a combo of judging panel and Facebook likes. (Strange, I know - but it's a $10K first prize, plus anthology publication guaranteed for the top 20 stories, so nothing to lose!) My story has just gone up on the competition's website - and the formatting is a horror show. Multiple characters' dialogue on the same line, dialogue tags/action beats incorrectly placed, etc. It's distracting, messy and makes my writing look completely unprofessional.
What would you do? Simply cop it? (I'd noticed several other entries with similar issues but had assumed incompetence, oops.) Or would you politely ask them to reproduce your work exactly as supplied, drawing attention to the specific errors? Obviously I don't want to malign my chances by annoying them, but I am pretty p'd off to see my story looking so shabby in public (with the added potential consequence of friends and family thinking I'm a shit writer).
Thanks in advance for your wisdom!
I don't know if this is the correct place for this post - apologies if not.
I'm hoping for a small bit of advice... I've just entered a short story competition whose winner will be chosen by a combo of judging panel and Facebook likes. (Strange, I know - but it's a $10K first prize, plus anthology publication guaranteed for the top 20 stories, so nothing to lose!) My story has just gone up on the competition's website - and the formatting is a horror show. Multiple characters' dialogue on the same line, dialogue tags/action beats incorrectly placed, etc. It's distracting, messy and makes my writing look completely unprofessional.
What would you do? Simply cop it? (I'd noticed several other entries with similar issues but had assumed incompetence, oops.) Or would you politely ask them to reproduce your work exactly as supplied, drawing attention to the specific errors? Obviously I don't want to malign my chances by annoying them, but I am pretty p'd off to see my story looking so shabby in public (with the added potential consequence of friends and family thinking I'm a shit writer).
Thanks in advance for your wisdom!
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