Audience-With-An-Agent Contest

Our first Audience with an Agent Contest is a rousing success!

Yesterday was the deadline, and the contest is now closed to entries.

The last entry arrived with only four hours to spare! Many of the entries made the most of the time afforded to polish and perfect those manuscripts - a wise choice, we think.

Now, we at Novel Matters will cuddle into our couches and start reading - and looking for treasures.

Here is how the contest will be judged:

While it would be fun to just go on warm fuzzy feelings (fun for us, anyway), we've devised a ruling grid that takes into account and grades the major points of novel writing (plot, story, characters, dialogue, grammar, storytelling, conflict, etc).

Each entry will be blind read six times (each Novel Matters' author will read each entry once, grading it without the name of the author at the top - so we won't know whose manuscript we are reading until all the grades are in and matched with the author). Grades will be assigned by each of us. We will pool our results, and the top six entries will be declared winners of the first round of the contest. Those lucky six (Luck? Hardly!) will have their synopsis and first chapter sent to Wendy Lawton of Books & Such Literary Agency. We will contact each of the six authors, and their names will be posted on the blog. The first round winners will be announced September 30th.

Wendy does not guarantee she will sign any of the authors. But she will read all six. She will finish with the manuscripts and announce any signings November 2, 2009.

Are you excited yet? We are!

So, the hard work is done - um, except you are all still working on those manuscripts, we hope! and it's all over but the waiting, and praying.

Ah, the praying. It is our prayer that God will lead you in perfect peace and perfect His plan for your life and your work. In all things, may His will be done.