NOVELIST COMPETITIONS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1443, 18 May 1912, Page 9

NOVELIST COMPETITIONS.

A correspondent'of the "Author" makes two excellent points against the novelist competitions of which we hear occasionally. They apply equally well (an American critic adds) to the more frequent short-story contests. Such competitions eot up false standards before both the writers and the public. In the first place, it is too much to expect that the nominal judges should wade through the entire mass of say fifteen thousand manuscripts. Hence there must be a. preliminary weed-ing-but, made by inferior readers. Just here is a tremendous chanco for the overlooking of some at least of tho really best productions submitted. The almost inevitable result is that the distinguished board of judges have placed before them the stories that have struck tho fancy of tho first set of readers, rather than the remains of a judicial sifting. It would be almost better, one might think, if it wero possible for the most capable judges to do the first reading, leaving the final decision to more ordinary readers. This is, in fact, the process followed now and then when a magazine asks its subscribers to be the' ultimate judges of a series of etorics which have lieen selected for tliem by. experienced readers. The other aspect of the harm in such competitions is their "bringing temporarily. to tho front writers who have usually no particular message, and who are, by their sudden success, led to believe themselves literary giants, to the discouragement'Of real talent and, occasionally, of genius." Prize-winning stories are notorious for expiring early, and their authors aro seldom heard of again. A double injustice is thus done 011 tho one hand to the good story that does not impress the preliminary set of readers, and on the other to the writer, who is wrongly acclaimed as a great discovery. It is true that the public is continually making this same sort of double error, 'but competitions, bv focussing attention upon a huge orray of specially evoked literary endeavours, sharpen the opportunities for it. It is admittedly necessary to eliminate tho offerings that are hopelessly poor, but it is among thoso that are above this class, but different from the kind that the professional reader happens to know or like, that mistakes are easiest.