How to Succeed At Vocal Challenges

I promised myself I wouldn't write this article until I'd earned it.

After placing in nine Challenges, winning one, a Vocal Spotlight, a Vocal Podcast and with half a dozen Top Stories under my belt, I think it's fair to say I've figured out a thing or two about how to catch Vocal's attention.

I joined Vocal last summer, when I saw an ad for the Color Is Pride Challenge; I was seduced, like many of us, by the prospect of big prizes and a new platform. The poem I wrote for it was so clunky I'm not even going to link it here. Call it an early shame.

But I was intrigued. I saw intriguing-looking upcoming challenges, and decided it might be a fun way to stretch myself. I'd never written original fiction before Vocal (shoutout to my fellow fanfic folks!) and I'd only done limited nonfiction.

I decided to make my own challenge: to join Vocal+ for a year, and to enter every challenge. I gave myself a pass on photo challenges, but other than that, I had to figure out SOMETHING to write for each one.

But you're not here for my personal story.

You want to win.

Babe, I get it. I do, too.

So without further torturous side quests into my personal story, here are the four important things I do when publishing on Vocal.

1. Research the judges.

This one feels like a no-brainer, but I didn't even think of it until late last fall. Any time Vocal announces a contest judge, GOOGLE THEM. Get a cursory idea of who they are and what's important to them.

Sometimes, this helps me really early in the process; Vocal's prompts are often incredibly vague or broad and I get stuck. Thinking of the judges as my audience, and looking for some angle or way to connect with their experience helps narrow the field. It makes it easier to focus.

I got lucky with the We Have A Dream Challenge because I'd already written my essay when the amazing interview with the contest judge was published. As I read through that article, I realized my essay hit on a major theme - the immigrant experience - that was important to the judge.

2. Short. Efffing. Paragraphs.

I can't tell you how many stories I've read here that had such long blocks of text I constantly lost track of where I was. Here's a few basic rules I stick to:

• Start a new paragraph when you start a quote. No back-and-forth conversations between characters without a paragraph break EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. YOU. SWITCH. SPEAKERS.

• Paragraphs shouldn't be more than 4-6 sentences online; if you're reading on a phone, that's already like, two swipes of your thumb to get through one paragraph.

• Sentences should vary in length, but on average, a paragraph shouldn't be more than 100-ish words. Not a hard and fast rule, but if I see a chunk of text that looks longer, I pause and scrutinize it to make sure every single word NEEDS to be in there.

3. Guide your reader's eye.

Short paragraphs help the reader stay with you. You know what else does? Doing the work for them. Bold the most important lines, or italicize them. Use headings.

Make an emphatic point by giving a single-sentence idea its own paragraph.

Or phrase.

Y'know?

4. Read your work out loud.

I catch most of my typos when I read my work out loud. It's an old trick, a classic for a reason, and not enough people do it. You want a leg up on your competition? Suck it up and read your work aloud.

And any time you find yourself gasping for breath, consider a semicolon.

Or another paragraph break.

5. Finally, respect the prompt.

I can't tell you the number of times I've seen people post challenge entries and acknowledge that they haven't followed the prompt.

Don't do this.

Don't entertain yourself with the idea that you can win without following the prompt because brilliance or cleverness is more important.

Interpreting the prompt? Go for it. But don't put entries about cats into dog challenges, don't enter limericks in haiku challenges, and for the love of all that's holy, if they give you first line, use that first line. (You can complain about the first line to your friends though. That's kosher and halfway tradition at this point.)

Respect the prompt, respect your reader, and respect your own time and effort. Good luck! I'll see you out there in Challenge world.