Are you here in 2017? Some rules have changed, but the content below has been updated for 2017.

If you have any additional questions, comment below or tweet me!

What you need to enter:

• Your e-mail address (this is private and used only to verify entries or notify winners)
• Your code name from poetry—THIS IS NEW FOR 2017; before it was from song lyrics. 5-7 words. (This contest is anonymous—choose something unique and difficult to trace back to you. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” is probably going to be too common—we want to avoid repeats!)
• Your novel’s intended audience—Middle Grade, Teen, or Adult (Adult is 18+)
• Your novel’s word count, rounded to the nearest thousand (71,469 becomes 71K)
• Your novel’s genre (I have a guide to major genres here and the sub-genres of science fiction and fantasy here)
• Seven words describing your MC—(DO NOT include character’s name. Can be a list of words or a phrase. See tips on your seven-word description below.)
• Your 70th page with extra spaces between paragraphs (choose up to 257 consecutive words from your 69th or 70th page, or a section spanning both. It will appear single-spaced.)

When and where to enter:

On June 7, 7:00 am Eastern Standard Time, I’ll post the submission form on my blog for all age categories.—THIS IS NEW FOR 2017

I will remove the submission form on June 8th.

Tips for getting your entry ready

The seven words describing your MC should do one of the following:

• help ground the reader,
• show that your main character is interesting or sympathetic, or
• show your ability as a writer who effectively and efficiently crafts words and punctuation.

You can structure it however you like. For example, you might give setting or genre details:

Baffles regency norms, her mother, gentlemen suitors.

You might make it like a pitch:

Witty girl overcomes first impressions, falls hard.

Or you could list adjectives and get creative with punctuation:

Clever, judgmental, poor. Loved anyway (by snob…)

THIS IS NEW FOR 2017: Participating in the Twitter contest is optional, but the seven-word phrase is still a required part of your entry.

Your 69th/70th page is going to be what matters most in the contest.

Choose up to 257 consecutive words from your novel’s 69th-70th page. You may complete cut-off sentences that fall on the 68th or 80th pages, but do not exceed 257 words. We may email finalists and request their full manuscript to verify that their excerpt falls on one of those pages.

For example, if saw that a chapter ended on my 70th page, I’d take from both the 69th and 70th pages.

Editing your Excerpt

You can ask friends to help you edit your excerpt or 7-word pitch, but please do so privately, not using public tweets or including the hashtag in a blog post asking for feedback. Because this is a blind contest, don’t risk a judge seeing your entry—or your code name—before the results are posted, or you’ll be disqualified.

You can edit an excerpt down to make it 257 words or fewer.

See examples of how I’d edit someone’s page in the 7th on 7th series.

In my Revision Checklist for Writing Contests, you’ll see my top-secret tips for hard-core revising.

You can also search winning entries from 2015 and 2016 by searching my blog 🙂

If you have any more questions, comment below. Now an excerpt from one of my trunked novels as an example on how you might edit your entry.

I had 193 words on page 70 and 221 words on the page before it. If I’d started with “Where did they go?” and stopped at the end of the chapter, I’d have 259 words. But I really like the context of some dialogue before, so to include that, I needed to make some cuts from the middle.

Here’s the original excerpt, showing what I cut to make room for that line of dialogue:

“Where did they go?” asked Gareth.

“To his quarters, I’d imagine. I’m sure she’ll be back tomorrow.”

Warmth radiated on the back of Gareth’s neck. “Where does this guy live?” He hadn’t meant to shout.

Faye put her hand on his arm and spoke to him gingerly. “In the keep. The castle keep.”

Someone waved Mary over, and she left.

“Why would he take her there?”

Faye’s silence, her look of pity, confirmed it.

“Get Robin. We’re gonna get in there, and I’m gonna smash some heads. If he so much as touches my sister I—” He was already out of town and back on the road by the time he’d finished talking. Faye caught up with him about a quarter mile later.

She was riding her pack horse. Gareth stopped, wondering what she did with the cart. What’d she do with the cart? She pushed off the horse, landing in the dirt, reached out to Gareth, but then dropped her hand at her side. “Gareth, if you even got past the front threshold, trying to remove your sister will get you—or the pair of you—killed. If you challenge the king’s man, you challenge the king.”

The sun was throwing threw yellow light on the lime-washed walls of the city on the coast. Gareth didn’t stir.

“Gareth.”

He clasped his hands over the top of his head, and behind his neck, his forehead creased in worry, in hopelessness. “Let’s get Robin. He’ll know what to do.”

They had just turned back, leading the horse behind, with the horse when the ground below them opened up, dropping them into darkness.

Here’s what the new excerpt looks like:

“She is in the company of the king’s steward. He’s harmless enough. If they’d stayed here, she would have only been gone a few minutes. But she left with him.”

“Where did they go?” asked Gareth.

“To his quarters, I’d imagine. I’m sure she’ll be back tomorrow.”

Warmth radiated on the back of Gareth’s neck. “Where does this guy live?” He hadn’t meant to shout.

Faye put her hand on his arm and spoke to him gingerly. “In the keep. The castle keep.”

“Why would he take her there?”

Faye’s silence, her look of pity, confirmed it.

“Get Robin. We’re gonna get in there, and I’m gonna smash some heads. If he so much as touches my sister I—” He was already out of town and back on the road by the time he’d finished talking. Faye caught up with him about a quarter mile later.

She was riding her pack horse. Gareth stopped. *What’d she do with the cart?* She pushed off the horse, landing in the dirt. “Gareth, if you even got past the front threshold, trying to remove your sister will get you—or the pair of you—killed. If you challenge the king’s man, you challenge the king.”

The sun threw yellow light on the lime-washed walls of the city. Gareth didn’t stir.

“Gareth.”

He clasped his hands behind his neck, his forehead creased in worry, in hopelessness. “Let’s get Robin. He’ll know what to do.”

They had just turned back with the horse when the ground below them opened up, dropping them into darkness.

I hope this was helpful!