WRiTE CLUB, right? A slushpile reader’s caution

After a lot of hemming and hawing, I finally took the plunge – I’m now officially one of the 20 initial judges (aka, slushpile readers) for DL Hammons readers’ choice contest, WRiTE CLUB. At first, my fear was that I’d never find the time to read the more than 200 500-word entries he anticipates. As DL noted, the task would be equivalent to reading an entire book. 

Scratch that – my real first fear stemmed from the realization that I couldn’t both be a judge and a participant in WRiTE CLUB, which I have participated in at least three times, twice making not only the initial cut but surviving more than one round of readership votes. But since DL and I are fellow critique group members, how much new stuff do I have that he (and probably other judges) wouldn’t recognize? Might as well pay it forward.

So I might as well warn all readers now furiously polishing their prose of the obstacles you’ll face. Yes, you will have barely two pages worth of a story. And with those, you must gain the approval of 20 slushpile readers who will winnow those 200+ entries into an initial 30. Then, still more harrowing, you will face dozens, perhaps hundreds of readers who will vote for their favorites in the ensuing one-on-one story bouts. Followed by the final judgment by a panel of publishing professionals.

But I’m not here to discourage anybody. I’m here to offer you a fighting chance.

No, I can’t tell you how to write an enticing hook or an unforgettable character speaking breathless dialogue and engaging in heart-stopping action in 500 words. (Seriously, if you know how to do all that, contact me ASAP!)

What I can do is tell you how to overcome my own final fear as a WRiTE CLUB slushpile reader: check your spelling, punctuation and grammar. Please. Because my new nightmare is that entries with all the characteristics of the above paragraph will hit my Dropbox from writers who not only failed to proofread their work, but also disdained the suggestions of their word processing programs.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Really.

Not that proofreading and writing programs are foolproof. Yes, I have gnashed my teeth through the ages over writings of fellow critique members that made me wonder why they didn’t just spell check. Or what comes to mind more recently – why they didn’t check punctuation. 

I mean, theirs vs. there’s? How hard can that be?

At least that’s what I thought until I ran samples of my own writing through both my Word and Grammarly programs. (I even popped for Grammarly Premium, which just shows you how much I’m willing to do for readers of this blog.)

Here’s what happened, using a song fragment from one of my historical works in progress (misspellings are my deliberate inventions):

It’s a long way to Tipperary, a long way to go.

Its a long way to Tipperary, to the sweetest girl I know.

Whats the use of worrying, it never was worthwhile.

So, pack up you’re troubles in your old kit bag and smile, brother, smile!

Easy, peasy, you say? Not. Microsoft Word’s spelling & grammar check caught “Its”, “Whats” and “you’re” correctly, recommending “It’s” (for a contraction), “What’s” (also for a contraction), and “your” for a possessive. However, to my surprise, it was baffled by “know,” recommending “knows” because it apparently took the subject to be that sweetest “girl” instead of the immediately preceding “I”.

Grammarly Premium also correctly caught “Its” and “Whats” and had no problems with “know.” But again to my astonishment, it failed to remark on the “you’re,” which in this case is written incorrectly as a contraction instead of the correct “your” for a possessive. 


User beware! But don’t throw the sweetest girl out with your old kit bag. Use whatever software editing program you have. And use your eyes. WRiTE CLUB opens for entries March 18. Keep an eye on DL’s site for specifics.


(Note: In the course of checking this post for errors, Grammarly informed me that I appear to have plagiarized two phrases. “After a lot of hemming and hawing, I finally,” matches a phrase used in the article “My Experience with Progressive Lenses,” and “why they didn’t just spell check” was used in a post by fellow blogger Denita Stevens. Although I don’t recall ever seeing those articles, I apologize to the writers.)