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PSA: Chose the realistic fiction prompt over fantasy for a contest entry last week and it flopped hard.
Picked a grounded story about a guy fixing his dads old truck instead of my usual dragon plot and the judges said it lacked imagination - has anyone else bombed switching genres for a deadline?
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janahenderson13d ago
Look at who the judges were for that contest, not just the genre. Some panels are made up of writers who specialize in high fantasy and they're subconsciously biased toward anything with magic or dragons. Your story about the truck probably had more emotional weight than their winner did, but they were comparing apples to oranges in their own heads.
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faithrodriguez10d ago
You know @janahenderson, you just made me realize my contest entry about a sentient washing machine probably lost because the judges were all fantasy writers who couldn't get past the fact it didn't have scales. Totally my fault for not adding a dragon to the rinse cycle I guess. Did you ever submit to a contest where the genre bias was super obvious like that?
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