Well, I didn’t reach the longlist with my novel The People of the Bull in any of the competitions I entered. I am, of course, surprised. But on reflection perhaps I shouldn’t be. I can console myself with the thought that perhaps the judges just didn’t understand the story, written in a simulation of the ancient language of the setting. Was it too literary? Not literary enough? Then again, perhaps it just wasn’t good enough.

How does a writer deal with rejection? Rejection or acceptance are nebulous categories—what one person enjoys, another may dislike. You can tell yourself you were just unlucky. But, better still, acceptance can be quantified.

If you divide the number of entries to a competition by the number of places in its shortlist, you get a measure of the probability of gaining a place in that shortlist.

Competition	Number of entries	Longlist Odds	Shortlist odds	Win odds
Bridport	3,038	0.66%	0.16%	0.16%
Bath	2,452	0.86%	0.16%	0.03%
Cheshire	1,984	0.76%	0.45%	0.10%
Blue Pencil	1.461	1.37%	0.34%	0.20%
Exeter	1,379	1.81%	0.44%	0.15%
Yeovil	1,048	2.96%	0.95%	0.29%

The number of entries was estimated from published data for past competitions, with an assumed increase year-on-year. The more entries there are, all things being equal, the lower your chance of placing. However, all things are not equal.

I can also quantify roughly how good I am as a writer. That’s one of the benefits of publishing short stories. You can find the acceptance rates of different publications through services like Duotrope (https://duotrope.com). The most demanding publication I was ever accepted by was Structo, with an acceptance rate of 3.85%. So that doesn’t quite qualify me to get into the longlist of any of these competitions until I improve the rating.

On the other hand, one of the competitions (Cheshire) does provide an individual critique, though not until later in the year. In the meantime, they did provide an interesting list of what they were looking for.

The Cheshire Novel Prize criteria   “I often get asked why certain novels made the longlist. Here are a few pointers as to why some novels sailed through and some did not: 1. An immediate strong and compelling voice; we need to know who is telling the story. 2. A strong sense of time, place and setting in the opening chapters plus seasons always help too to add atmosphere. 3. Good worldbuilding particularly for fantasy, dystopia and science fiction. 4. A little bit of status quo so we can see the character as they are now before the inciting incident happens to ignite the engine of the story and change your character’s world as they know it. 5. Conflict. 6. Stakes. 7. Ideally the inciting incident happens in the first 1000 -2000 words. 8. A quest – the journey your characters go on after the inciting incident changes their status quo. 9. Propulsive story – whether that be character driven or plot driven depending on genre. We need something to keep us wanting to turn the pages. 10. Profluence – cause and effect of events that happen. For example instead of having a list of things that happen (this happens and then this happens) we like to see, this happens and then BECAUSE of this, this happens and then BECAUSE of this, this happens etc. This was originated by John Gardner in his book, ‘The Art of Fiction.’ 11. Good description that adds depth and texture and moves the story on. 12. Dialogue that moves the story on and feels authentic 13. Questions raised for the reader to keep us reading on! 14. Some questions answered in the first 5000 words and more raised! 15. Does the synopsis start where the story starts? 16. Does the synopsis have a clear plot that is outlined with spoilers and the ending explained? 17. Good character arcs shown in the synopsis? 18. Can you show us in the synopsis how the character has changed?

The interesting thing about this list is points 4, 7 and 8. All the others are generic issues, but these three are tied much more explicitly to what appears to be the Hero’s Quest model of story structure. An inciting incident is the event or thing that forces the protagonist to leave the status quo and which drives the rest of the story forward (for example, engaging in a quest).

It is entirely true there is no traditional inciting incident in my novel, certainly not one that occurs in the first 2,000 words. The story is driven forward by two things that become intertwined: the material forces that are slowly changing the society and the way these become expressed by two battling siblings, one espousing change and the other revering continuity. Though there is a first chapter that leaps forward in the storyline, showing the consequence of the rivalry between the sisters, the unveiling of the material forces is on a slow burn. It might be argued that the introduction of the grandmother’s mummified corpse is the inciting incident. In fact, the grandmother is merely a motif for the struggle between the sisters.

I would argue that an inciting incident is not necessary for a story. I’ll be posting more about this later.