WRITING CHALLENGE

The Blogable Fiction Marathon

An annual challenge for all fiction writers

For several years, I organized the Smut Marathon — four years for the Dutch writing community and then for the English community in 2018 and 2019. In 2020, I had to break it off in the middle of the sixth assignment, because of circumstances.

I thought I would never organize a marathon again, no matter how much I enjoyed doing it before, but then I teamed up with two wonderful ladies to create the website, Blogable, and the Blogable Fiction Marathon was born.

What is the Fiction Marathon?

A regular marathon is a race where not everyone who is at the start reaches the finish. Some don’t reach the end because they aren’t fit enough, others get knocked out because they are too far behind. The same goes for the Fiction Marathon — it’s a knockout race, a competition, starting with between 15 and 50 writers, and ending with much fewer writers.

How does it work?

A maximum of 50 writers may enter the Fiction Marathon, which consists out of six writing rounds. For each round, the writers get a specific assignment. The assignment states the theme, the maximum number of words and other requirements, like the percentage of dialog or specific words writers should include in their stories.

Writers may not talk about the assignments anywhere, or reveal which story they have written. This is the most important rule of the marathon.

With every writing round, the stories get longer, and there are fewer writers, as writers have to leave the competition, depending on their result for that round.

A jury, as well as the public, determine the results of each round. We anonymize all stories and send them to four jury members, who rate every story with a mark between 0 and 10. We average the top three points of the individual jury results.

Stories get published on the Blogable website, without mentioning the author, and then the public can vote for the stories they rate the best three of that round. Once the voting round has closed, we convert the number of votes to points between 0 and 10. We add up the jury and public points, and that’s the writer’s result for that round.

In the first four rounds, writers accumulate points, and those at the bottom of the accumulated points have to leave the marathon, depending on the number of writers allowed in the next round.

In the fifth round — the semi-final — the ten remaining writers start with a clean slate. At the end of this round, five writers are knocked out, leaving five writers to fight for the winning position of that year’s competition.

Marathon writing tips

I have been writing for a long time, but you will never hear me tell you I’m an expert on writing. However, over the past years, I have accumulated enough experience to give some advice to the marathon writers (and you can also apply this advice to other writing competitions or submission calls).

These are my tips:

• When you receive the assignment, read it. All of it. From top to bottom. Make a note of the assignment, and of the special requirements. Then read it again to make sure you have missed nothing. Just to be sure, read the assignment a third time!
• On seeing the assignment, some ideas might form in your head. Jot those down. Keywords will do. There is nothing more frustrating for a writer when you have an idea now, and later you can’t remember what it was.
• Write your story within a day or two after you received the assignment. Don’t think about the number of words allowed, or your grammar or spelling, or tightening up your plot. Just write. Then leave it.
• Come back to it the next day, or two days later, and start editing. For the Blogable A to Z, I have done a post on editing and self-editing. I’m sure those tips will help you ‘polish up’ your story.
• One tip May More frequently gives writers is to read your story backward. This is a way to find repeated words, but it can also point out misused words.

It’s challenging, but also fun

Being in a writing competition and writing following specific requirements is challenging. You might feel totally flabbergasted when you receive an assignment, not knowing what to write.

Don’t despair.

Ideas will come to you.

I know they will — I’ve been there.

The fun thing is, you might surprise yourself. After a day or two, you might come up with something so out of the box, you blow everyone else away, but most of all yourself.

It’s not only about the competition element but also about the sense of community. Look for and follow each other on Twitter or other social media, talk to the other writers, encourage them not to give up, and support each other during the voting rounds. Challenge yourself to write for each assignment, because sending in something is always better than sending in nothing!

Most of all, have fun!

And for the readers? Support the writers, vote for the stories you like most, and leave them feedback. With feedback, writers can improve, and serve you with even more fun stories to read!

The Blogable Fiction Marathon 2021

We are in the final round of this year’s competition. The voting round opened on the 11th and closes on 19 October 2021.

In this final round, the five writers had to write a story about time traveling, so please hop on over, and vote for the three stories you like most. Your vote helps determine the winner of the first-ever edition of the Blogable Fiction Marathon!

Next year’s competition

The Blogable Fiction Marathon is an annual institution and will be for as long as May More and I have the time and opportunity to do the administration — a lot of work, but oh so rewarding!

If you are interested in participating next year, please keep an eye on our website. Entries open on 14 February 2022, and the first 50 who sign up will be the participants for the Blogable Fiction Marathon 2022.

Join us and stretch your writing muscles!

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