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Meet the Novel Writing Competition Winners 2022

The winners of our Novel Writing Competition introduced their readers to intriguing, unfamiliar settings, and impressed Guest Judge Julie Strauss-Gabel with their detailed narratives and comprehensive peer reviews. “I often find that my opinion on the novels I read is mostly determined by the strength of the narrative voice,” says Everett Lane, who won first place for their novel excerpt. “When I write, I try to establish a distinct and unique narrative voice that can catch the reader’s attention and retain it throughout the piece.”

Read on to meet the winners of our November competition, and to learn more about their writing and reviewing styles.

Q&A with Novel Writing Winner, Everett Lane:

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How did you develop the concept for your winning novel excerpt?

I went to summer camp and someone in my cabin did tarot readings for the whole group. This ended up sparking something in my head, and I had the idea of a competitive game based on tarot readings within a fantasy world. I outlined the game and developed the world around it. Even though most of the actual game isn’t included in the excerpt, it still influenced the creation of the world, the characters, and the story in general.

Guest Judge Julie Strauss-Gabel was impressed with your piece’s “firm command of its narrative voice”, which ensured that “everything the reader comes to understand about the world and the plot is framed within Ebba’s distinct POV”. How did you establish this strong sense of character and perspective, and how do you plan to adapt or expand the reader’s viewpoint as the novel carries on?

I would definitely consider myself to be a character-driven writer and reader. I often find that my opinion on the novels I read is mostly determined by the strength of the narrative voice. When I write, I try to establish a distinct and unique narrative voice that can catch the reader’s attention and retain it throughout the piece. For this story, I focused on Ebba’s analytical, reserved personality and how it could influence her narration. Many events in this piece are shown, through Ebba’s eyes, in a generally cynical light. A holiday celebration is framed as a dismissal of religion; a charming stranger is viewed by Ebba as annoying and artificial. These details help the reader to understand and connect with Ebba, and by extension, the story as a whole.

As the story continues, I want to continue to expand on the world the characters live in and how this world has shaped them. Worldbuilding has always been difficult for me, so I hope to develop the reader’s viewpoint on the world in a subtle and natural way.

What other writing projects are you working on at the moment?

I have one long-term project that I’ve been neglecting for the past few months in favor of writing essays for school. Over the past year, I’ve been writing more poems and short stories. It’s been really interesting to see common themes emerging in my poetry; it gives me a lot of inspiration for longer projects in the future.

Q&A with Best Peer Review winner, Inez Singer:

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How would you describe your peer reviewing style?

I’m not sure if I even have one yet! I think that personally, the most important aspect of my reviewing is considering the wider context of the writing. Helping a writer with narrative and setting, constructing a detailed and engaging world - these always take precedence over typos and surface-level editing. Anne Lamott refers to three drafts when writing, the ‘down draft’, 'up draft’, and 'dental draft’, in that order. Getting the writing 'down’ on the page, polishing it up, and then doing a 'dental’ examination of each word and sentence. I like thinking about this concept when I review writing - first reading through the piece as a whole, then addressing major themes, and finally checking spelling and syntax.

Julie Strauss-Gabel praised the “artful equilibrium between micro and macro feedback” in your winning review. How do you strike a balance between sentence-level feedback and broader, more thematic critiques?

Reading over the whole piece first is a must for me - understanding the thematic choices a writer makes is key to giving them efficient feedback. Sometimes elements of formatting, word choice or structural plot decisions can be deliberate and beneficial, but it’s hard to know until I read them through and see how they work together. I like to consider that if the writing needs to fit together coherently, edits do too. Layering feedback, so each comment adds to the next, helps construct a network of suggestions for the writer - allowing them to choose what they want to take on board.

Can you tell us about one of your favorite books?

I recently read Bewitched and Bedevilled: Women Write the Gillard Years. It’s a collection of short essays by female Australian writers and political commentators, reflecting on Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard. Gillard was in office from 2010 to 2013 and the book was published in 2013, so I think it’s an interesting snapshot of that moment in time socially and politically. I loved reading the different contributions and perspectives on the impact of a woman in power - despite a wide spectrum of authors, the sentiment against misogyny and sexism is so united throughout the whole book. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, but this stuck with me because it felt both local and global.



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