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Over $2,000 in Prizes, Feedback, and Prestige.
July 30, 2011: Contest winners announced. Congratulations to the 2011 winners. They are: Main Competition: - QUANTRILL'S RAIDERS by crazeesharon - Moby's Dick: The Short, Absurd Life (and death) of Moby Gunderson by Jeni Decker Previous Winners
What is the Strongest Start Novel Competition? It is the only live, online novel writing competition for unfinished books and novels. That means you can enter with a draft or unfinished manuscript and that you will receive feedback on your submission as the competition progresses. Feedback that you can use to improve you submission before the competition deaadline. The competition is meant to motivate writers to finish their books and to edit what they have written. And of course, to reward the writers who have done a fantastic job of honing their three starting chapters to page turning perfection Stay in the Know. The 2011 competition is over, but leave us your email and receive advanced news on the 2012 Strongest Start Novel Competition.
We know that writing a compelling start isn't easy. So, for the fifth year we've put together a motivational competition to help you hone your first three chapters to perfection (if you haven't already). We're looking for opening chapters that will create a burning need to find out what happens, how the characters turn out, how the novel resolves itself. The kind of start that gets an agent to call back, a publisher to show interest, and a reader to plunk down their hard earned money. Above all, give us three opening chapters that will keep us reading. As part of the competition you'll have the opportunity to receive feedback on your submissions, receive access to the Strongest Start Novel Forum, and to meet and share ideas with other writers who are also trying to create that perfect, compelling opening. New for 2011 And this year, we've added several new sub-categories. They are:
One grand prize winner be selected as well as winners in each of the sub-categories.
About Our Prize Provider
Take your novel from manuscript to the masses with CreateSpace, a sponsor of the Strongest Start Novel Competition and a member of the Amazon group of companies. CreateSpace provides a full array of tools and services to help everyone from individual authors to publishers, distribute their creative content on-demand to millions of potential customers on Amazon.com and other channels. CreateSpace is the place to independently publish and distribute your work. Learn more about CreateSpace today.
The CompetitionThe winner of the Strongest Start Novel Competition will be the writer who is judged to have the strongest three opening chapters. In addition, one winning writer will be selected from each of the three category competitions. Two runner-ups will be selected from the main competition as well as from each category competitions. To participate in the Competition, submit your first three chapters to TheNextBigWriter.com. Writers are not required to have finished their novel or to submit more than the first three chapters. The competition is open to non-fiction. To see the full Contest Rules and Regulations, please click here. The AwardsMain Competition Winner
Category Competition Winners The winner in each Category will receive:
Please note: If your manuscript if not finished or ready to be published or evaluated, you can save the prize for when it is ready. Everyone
Frequently Asked QuestionsIs there a cost to this competition? You must be a member of TheNextBigWriter to enter this contest. There is a nominal fee for membership which provides you with entry into one of the most advanced online writing workshops on the Web. As a member, some of what you'll receive includes:
For more on TheNextBigWriter membership, please click here. Or to preview the site for free, sign up as a Review Member . What is the difference between the Main Competition and the Category Competitions? The main competition encomposses all genres and categories. Any book can enter the Main Competition. Category Competitions are designed for specific genres or book categories. Writers may enter both the Main Competition and a Category Competition although a writer cannot win in more than one Competition. Writers may not enter more than one Category Competition. If your book fits into multiple categories, choose the most appropriate one. Do I have to review other writers to submit my first three chapters? Yes, TheNextBigWriter is an online workshop. To submit your chapters you'll have to read and provide feedback on other work submitted to the site. Writers tell us they enjoy this process and learn as much from reviewing others as from the reviews they receive. How much will I have to review and how much time will it take? As a rule of thumb, you'll have to review 4 similar-length chapters to post one of your own. You accumulate credits by reviewing other writers and use these credits to post your own chapters. New members receive bonus credits and can post their first chapter without having to do any reviews. Time-pressed members can purchase credits from the credit bank instead of reviewing. Reviewing generally takes 30-40 minutes for a typical chapter, depending on your reading speed. Reviews are usually between 100-300 words. What if I have work on TheNextBigWriter that is posted before April 16, 2010? Can it still be entered? Yes, but you'll have to either repost the first three chapters or post it as a fresh entry. If I post more than 3 chapters will it impact the competition? No, you may submit more than 3 chapters but we will only be judging the first three. Can I submit a non-fiction book to the competition? Yes. You may submit non-fiction as long as it is a compelling read. This year we have a Category Competition just for non-fiction and memoir. How do I use the tags to post? Tags are keyword phrases that are used to group content on TheNextBigWriter. When submitting a new piece of content, you are asked to submit tags (keyword is a more common name for tags). Look for the tag box and then submit the appropriate tag for the competition(s) you wish to enter. Thed tags are:
Be sure to seperate the words using the the underscore _ symbol. Once you add the tag and publish, your writing will be added to the official list for that Category and it will be entered. You only need to enter a tag once and will not need to do so for subsequent chapters. If you forget to add a tag you can add it after the work has been published. To do so, go to Your Account, click the title of the content, click the link that says: Edit Main Content Information, and then find the box entitled tags. Fill in the tag and then save the page. I'm from a country that isn't eligible to enter the competition. Why are some countries excluded? This has to do with international competition law. Each country in the world has different regulations regarding competitions and we do not have the resources to research all of them at the moment. For example, the Province of Quebec requires that all competition material be duplicated in French, something we don't have the money or expertise to do. We picked the largest English speaking countries and researched those to ensure we were in compliance. We apologize if your country is not on the list and will do our best to add you in the future. Until then, we hope you will use the rest of the features on TheNextBigWriter.com. Can I re-enter a submission from last year? Yes, but you will probably need to repost it or post it again so that it is dated on or after April 16, 2008. Do I give up any rights to my work by entering this contest? No, per our member agreement, you retain all rights to everything you post. If you have additional questions, please post them in our Strongest Start Novel Competition Forum hosted on TheNextBigWriter.com. |
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Random First Lines:
In an apartment a man and woman stand facing one another.
He asked me what I wanted : Romance »
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Beth Cholette is a Top 10 reviewer on Amazon.com. An avid reader, she originally started writing Amazon reviews as a means to keep track of books she had read. Eventually, her reviews expanded to include fitness DVDs (she exercises at home daily) and other products, and she was briefly ranked as Amazon's #1 Reviewer. She also contributes reviews to several other sites, including Metapsychology Online Reviews and iHanuman.com, where she is the Official Yoga Media Reviewer. Beth works full-time as a clinical psychologist at a college counseling center. She lives in Rochester, New York with her husband, a writer. 
Melissa Miller is the CEO of Solstice Publishing, the fastest growing mid-market publisher in the United States. With almost 80 authors covering every category of fiction and rapidly expanding into nonfiction, Solstice is quickly gaining a reputation for fast paced suspense thrillers, sizzling romance, action adventure, science fiction, and a spooky collection of horror and paranormal reads. 
Paul Bagdon has published 34 novels. His novel Deserter was an international finalist in the Western Writers of America Silver Spur award. He was an instructor at the Writers Digest Online Workshop and his critiques and reviews of manuscripts provided to him by Writers Digest have appeared dozens of times in the last few years. He enjoys working with writers and several of his students have sold novels, short stories, and articles.
Andy Wasif attended Syracuse University originally with an eye on sports journalism, but began his career as a stand-up comedian, having spent several years performing in venues across the country. He soon turned his attention to writing comedic scripts for all media.
Since then, he's written a trilogy of humor books highlighting the relationship between Red Sox and Yankees fans entitled, "How to Talk to a Yankee Fan," "Red Sox University," and "Red Sox Fans are From Mars, Yankees Fans are From Uranus." His next published piece will be an entry in "Curb Your Enthusiasm and Philosophy" (Open Court Press, 2011). His regular sports blog "Wasif's World" appears on Yahoo!'s on-line sports magazine "The PostGame" and he also contributes articles to Yahoo! Movies. Currently, Andy lives in Los Angeles as he continues to write books and scripts for the small and big screens. You can see all of his works on 
