Judging Ain’t for Sissies

I learned a lot over the past two years while I was judging a writing contest. I learned that it’s harder to judge something that is obviously badly written than it is to judge something that I thought was good.

I had been given detailed instructions on how to evaluate a submission. There were specific categories so I could focus on just one aspect of a story at a time. Then I was told to make comments within each category, giving examples to back up my opinions. Finally, I was to assign a number to each category, from one to ten, then add all the numbers for a final score.

The good stories were hard to judge only because I didn’t want to give all of them perfect scores, and sometimes had to search for things to comment about so the writer could benefit, and thereafter write better stories.

I labored over the not-so-good stories. Sometimes it wasn’t difficult if I felt the story itself was well-written, but fell short because the writer left in a lot of mechanical errors (punctuation, spelling, etc.). Just that one category suffered. However, when everything was done correctly, but the story just wasn’t interesting, what could I say to help the writer do better next time?

One story in particular was agonizing for me. Yes, there was a good hook on the first page and thereafter the story flowed well, finally reaching a logical, though somewhat predictable, conclusion. The main problem was that most of the characters were so unlikable and one-dimensional that I didn’t even want to finish the story. I didn’t care about them. I was left with the feeling that I had wasted my time reading the book. An unsatisfied reader will not come back for a second dose from the same writer.

How to convey this and not discourage the author from writing other, possibly better, stories?

I had already gone through the book twice. My comments were appropriate and not too discouraging. My scores for each section were accurate. But the final score at the bottom of the page was unacceptable to me. If one of my stories received that score, I would immediately delete all my files from my computer. I had to go back through a third time and upgrade some sections so the total wouldn’t be too low and discouraging.

It took me three times as long to judge this book than it would have if it had been written better. I felt so discouraged, I questioned whether I wanted to judge again next year, even if asked. Well, I have a few months to ponder that.