What Writing Judges Think
A peek behind the competition curtain.
I was fortunate to have to a runner-up in this year’s Hubert Butler Essay Prize. During the award ceremony, I got a chance to talk to the judges, made up of academics, bestselling authors, and even the family of the late Mr. Butler, where the topic of the fellow applicants who hadn’t been as lucky came up.
Usually I’m one of the unlucky ones, often left with white noise, assuming we were unsuccessful, so you can imagine what a delight it was to get a sneaky peek behind the judging curtain this was. Here is just a brief summary of what I learnt from those who decide our fates. These were the deciding factors that went into choosing the winning essays.
[Out of respect and privacy, names have been changed. Similarities are coincidental.]
Originality.
Sounds obvious doesn’t it, yet you’d be surprised. The nature of the competition required applicants to write under the same title, namely;
“ “During the plague I came into my own” (Anthony Hecht). Who or what benefited from Covid-19?”
My response can be read here. My take was to respond literally, talking about how I personally benefited. At first, while considering what to write about, I had thought of maybe going for the more obvious angle; monetary benefit. The media landscape has talked for months (coming up to years now) of the likes of Amazon and Netflix skyrocketing in profits as people relied on streaming and deliveries during lockdowns and economic restrictions.
According to judge “Sean”, this was the angle taken by many. While he noted that many were well written, he said the sheer echo of the other, similar essays muffled the merits of the better written examples. He even complimented me by saying that reading the same topic over and over again only made something different stand out more.
This is not to say quality is trumped by the pick-mes of the writing world, but rather that part of standing out isn’t just in how you write but what you write about. Maybe not everyone should be writing about Jeff Bezos or politicians you don’t agree with for the one hundred time (yes I’ve seen my previous posts, shut up).
Personal
Alison Williams was this year’s prize winner. Her essay, which you can read here (read it, it’s excellent), touches on elements of isolation, vulnerability, and her developing Parkinson’s. My essay features a frank discussion about my contemplations of suicide, mental breakdown, and struggle to rebuild my self-esteem. As described on the website;
“In marked contrast, Conor Matthews’s essay is unremittingly and sometimes laceratingly personal, arrestingly delineating an individual crisis in order to illuminate how the pandemic enforced a new attitude towards mortality: “If it wasn’t for Covid, I’d be dead”. The sobering experience of unemployment, alienation and uncertain mental health is re-read powerfully through the perspective of Covid and its discontents; it is an essay full of uncomfortable truths.”
First, I’m extremely flattered.
Second, while you don’t have to have a personal connection to everything you write, especially within non-fiction, it’s important that you show HOW it relates to you. Often when I write an article on Medium or Vocal (or whatever website you’re reading this on that I make no money from), I’m paranoid that I’m just writing to write. You need to have a reason for writing, for telling your story the way you want/need to. In the case of my entry, it came from wanting to address an uncomfortable truth about Covid; I improved in many ways because of it. Even this was acknowledged and addressed by the judges, many of whom complimented my essay, calling it “brave” and “personal”. I awkwardly said thank you, being not used to praise.
Even now, the point of this article is to share things I’ve learned from this random happenstance, hopefully able to reveal something to some novice, aspiring writer, while at the same time journaling a moment in my life that will definitely be a highlight of 2021, if not the 2020s for me in retrospect many years from now.
Not Crazy
This is a short one, but no less important than the other points. I had gotten speaking to “Tim” and asked him what the other entries were like. Apparently one was, in his words, “demented”! The essay in question quickly abandoned the title prompt and instead went on a 3,000 word tirade against the writer’s ex-girlfriend who had just broken up with him. In Tim’s words;
“It was so insane, we had to email him and suggest that he gets some help.”
You may think this goes without saying, but there’s something revealing in this story which places limits of the previous points. Be original, but not You-Need-Help original. Be personal, but not Not-Over-My-Ex personal. Sometimes writing is a balancing act between being honestly yourself and being reservedly on topic.
Luck
The entire time; from travelling to the event held at Kilkenny Castle, to booking into the hotel room, to an after-dinner with some Europe’s top authors, publishers, academics, scholars, and artists, a nagging sense of anxiety plagued me. I told my partner I felt as though at any minute someone would kick down the door and announce there’s been a terrible mistake.
It didn’t help that people were speaking highly and complimented me. It all felt strange, especially since, by their own admission, it was a difficult decision. There was brief glimpses during the conversations of noteworthy snippets from the other essays that could have won. This was something I always wanted to hear from a judge’s mouth; is it true that it was a close race.
I can been successful in the past; winning a scholarship to attend the Irish Film School, winning a place in a writer’s group at one of Dublin’s most famous theatre’s, Smock Alley, even being able to pitch projects to the likes of RTÉ, BBC, Virgin Media, and Channel 4. But for all those moments of success, there are many more failures.
While the judges were more focused on us, the winners of the evening, you couldn’t help but sense that everyone knew how lucky were all were. This was a prize open to citizens from all EU member states and the UK who entered in English. There was only one winner and two joint runner-up winners. I am one of three writers who won in all of Europe. Even a conservative estimate would say my odds of even being a runner-up was one in hundreds, possibly thousands. And while one could say I’m being too modest and that quality, skill, and merit improves those odds, luck is still a major factor.
But luck is a numbers game.
Don’t believe me? Why do you think I felt such Imposter Syndrome on the night? Because I had entered the year before and wasn’t successful. Due to the judges being “blind” (they have no idea who wrote what), the very same judges who raved about my entry this year may have thought nothing of my previous entry. To them I would have been just another entrant. And that’s the point. As the saying goes;
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
