attention writers...!

for all those writing paranormal romance or urban fantasy, there's a worthwhile comp happening over at Fangs, Fur and Fey. Here's the details from the site:

For those of you who've seen Miss Snark's Crap-O-Meter or Lit Agent X's GOT HOOK? extravaganza, you'll have an idea of the format. Writers are invited to submit up to a 300 word 'hook' to us describing your novel. What's a hook? Consider it a movie trailer for your book. It's a brief description meant to entice and interest someone into wanting to read your novel. A hook does NOT list every character, subplot or setting detail - that's a synopsis, and we don't want those. You also don't need to list your book's title or word count. Just list the genre, your name and email address (these will not count toward your total word tally) and then go right to your hook. That 300 max word count will be strictly enforced, too - anything over it won't be eligible.

All 180 hooks will be critiqued by our volunteer judges, members of Fangs, Fur and Fey. Now, though we love Miss Snark, these critiques will not be in her famous "WTF?" style, but will be overviews of what did or didn't work for the hook and why. The critiqued hooks will be posted online at FFF on Monday, April 23rd. The author's name and email address will NOT be made public. Instead, each hook will listed by number, and each author will be informed of their number when we receive his/her submission. Furthermore, the name of the particular judge who critiqued your hook will also not be listed, privately or publicly. Only the judges' comments, the hook, and the hook number will be posted. Due to size, most hooks and comments will be under a cut - we don't want to receive hate mail by clogging up everyone's Friend pages with an extremely long Hook contest post.

Watchers will also be invited to offer comments on what did/didn't work for them on hooks, BUT NO FLAMING, PEOPLE! This is supposed to be helpful, informative and fun, not rude, cruel or insulting. Any abusive comments will be deleted as fast as we see them.

You may be wondering, how can we call this a contest if there isn't a prize? Well, aside from the feedback given by the judges and your own peers, don't worry, we do have a prize! Out of those 180 hooks, judges will choose the best 12 to advance to the next round. Those writers will have thru Thursday, April 26th, to turn in the first 5 pages of their novel (double-spaced), also emailed to fangsfurandfey@yahoo.com . These pages will be critiqued by our judges and posted online Sunday, May 6th in the same manner as the hooks. Out of those 12, judges will choose the best one overall. The final winner will then be announced on Thursday, May 9th and he/she will receive...

Rachel Vater at Lowenstein-Yost has agreed to critique and offer feedback (NOT posted online at FFF, but directly to the writer) of the author's first three chapters/50 double-spaced pages of their manuscript, plus their synopsis, if desired. Since most authors very much want a professional agent's take on their novel, we think this is a prize that will really benefit the winning participant.

To check out the rules, the genres they're accepting, who the judges are and other contest related stuff, just head on over to Fur, Fangs and Fey. The contest closes Friday 13th April, so you'll have to get a move on if you want to enter!