Whether it's your first time or your sixth time, writing a novella in 12 weeks isn't easy.
As a 2021 ONC Winner and 2023 Honorable Mention, I would know. After years of participation and reflection, I have lots of advice to share on how I did it. In...
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Hey there! This is the fourth mini-interview in a series with past ONC winners who have volunteered to reveal what they wish they knew before they started on their award-winning novella as well as their pro-tip about writing novella-length fiction in general.
In this installment, aptionia, Top 5 Winner of the 2022 ONC, tells all. Please consider checking out Zoe's work, especially if you're a dark/high fantasy fan!
Question One: What is one thing you wish you knew about the Open Novella Contest before you starting writing for it?
The biggest thing I wish I knew is that I didn't need to put as much stress on myself to finish as I had. I noticed that as soon as I stopped worrying about the deadline and just focused on making my story as interesting as it could be, it was written a lot faster and I had a lot more fun writing it. Forcing yourself to stick to deadlines does work, but for a lot of people, I was seeing similar results: stressed over the deadline which put a mental block in their mind that rendered them unable to finish their stories. I saw an unfortunate amount of stories that were never finished due to this
Question Two: What's your best piece of advice or your favorite writing tip when it comes to working on novellas or entering your work into a contest?
Similar to that, write for yourself and not the judges or anything like that. Pacing yourself and putting your all into your writing will yield better results than trying to write what you think judges will like if you don't have any interest in it. I hit a lucky spot where what I was interested in and what the judges were interested in aligned, but for people who can't get lucky like that, writing for yourself is far superior. Forcing yourself to hit deadlines and having your work quality suffer as a result is a lot worse than not hitting the deadline but still having a story you're proud of. I've entered other ambassador contests on Wattpad and the stories I've seen win, including my own, were the stories submitted closer to the deadline, but still a few days before. My best work comes when I'm not worried about deadlines
