Literally, 15 minutes ago, Round 1 of Query Kombat ended on Michelle's blog.
I'm sure there were many biting of nails and refreshing of pages over on the entrants' side of the computer. And on the Twitter side under #QueryKombat, I was SO SO amazed and blessed and happy to see people cheering each other on, EVEN THEIR KOMBATANT!
I never saw anything like this, but the writer's community is amazing, so maybe I should have expected it.
You guys are seriously amazing and awesome.
The judges are too. They had to read and critique 64 entries. So go over here and thank them by following their blogs, Twitters, etc! They deserve it (I feel they do, at least).
But what I want to ask is this:
How was your experience in Query Kombat Round 1? Give us feedback! What did you like and not like?
I'm blown away by the generosity of the organizers -- SO MUCH WORK and you do it for your fellow writers. I'm also blown away by the commitment of 12 judges to review so many entries. I'm one of the lucky ones to move on -- but I do agree with some of the Twitter chatter to try to match genres better. Women's fiction against urban fantasy is a good example of 'how in the heck do I compare THESE?' The timeframe for the judges to vote seemed VERY LONG for the kombatants (but probably very short for the judges). It was truly amazing to have the judges make such in-depth comments instead of thumbs up/thumbs down voting. I think EVERY entry came away with ideas on how to improve. Other contests I've entered haven't given as much solid constructive feedback.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the talk on Twitter and as Durango Writer mentioned to try to match genres better, but other than that everything has been amazing.
ReplyDeleteAgain I agree with Durango Writer. You, the organizers, have been AWESOME. As have the judges. The dedication is amazing and not going unnoticed. You have done amazingly.
I also love the support I've been seeing all around. I know I would have been a little sad had I not moved forward, but uber happy for my fellow kombantant whose story was AWESOME (I really like that word). The writing community is amazing thing and I'm proud to be part of it. This has been awesome and you guys have been awesome.
I agree with Durango Writer, too. I think the timeframe for the judges to vote seemed very long, but I understand they had a LOT of work to do so it might've seemed quite short to them.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the work everyone has put into this contest, and with the exception of the one comment that was deleted, I saw nothing but pure encouragement and *useful* criticism, and all done in support of one another, both in the comments and on Twitter, which is amazing if you think about how sensitive we writers can be :) and how many people were involved. Awesome job! *applause*
I think not matching up the genres made it more realistic to real life. An agent's inbox is going to be a scramble of genres, yet that agent can't help but compare them against one another. You have to be able to stand out against all genres. Something to think about.
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