The pen is mightier than the sword....?
OK, I juuust got back from my first Power of the Pen tournament, so naturally I'm going to go off and rant about that....
Overall, it was a blast. Really. Even though, yeah, I had to get up at five on a weekend just to get ready and be at school on time (third time in my life I have been on that campus before sunrise. Sad, no?) it really was fun. The team of writers we have are great (spare maybe one or two?) and they're all great people (and if not, they serve as entertainment. What?) that are really a blast to hang out with. The best part is they don't mind talking about football, politics, or the adoption process (one of the guys wrote a totally, completely wrong practice story that acted like orphanages were a supermarket or something. Naturally, I corrected him.) so the four hours of down time that we had total over the whole thing went by relatively quickly.
Ok, but on to the competition part. After the two solid hours of writing (three different prompts, each forty minutes) we eventually went to the awards presentation. This is district level, with about 120 kids from each grade (2 of 'em) battling it out to get to regionals in a few months. They gave awards to the top fifteen out of each grade level, and in my level we had two people score, one in the top ten. Myself not included, but I have to say that I'm not embarassed to have lost to them; they're talented. (I did get a "Best of Round", which basically means they picked my response as best for one of the three prompts, but that's beside the point)
So after all of this fun was over, we were given our scoring sheets for each of our three responses. They scored us with numbers, 1-6 (6 being the lowest) and gave comments. My Best of Round response obviously scored very well, and the judge's comments were a definite ego-booster. The second prompt not so much, but I still did alright and her comments were justified.
But the third...ok, this is where I start to wonder if she was, in fact, justified. The prompt was "conduct a search for truth in your narrative". From day 1 my writing team coach told us to do plays on words and plot twists to get our creativity points up, as that was most important. In this one, the play on words was obvious, and I worked it in as a twist at the end: I made it sound, until the last two lines, like I was searching for "truth", figuratively. But in those last two lines I revealed that Truth was in fact a lost turtle. The judge gave me a 5 because SHE DIDN'T GET IT. Her comments read something like "You lead the reader to believe that what you were searching for was figurative, and then at the end revealed it to not be so. I don't see what a turtle has to do with it."
Um, I lead the reader to believe it was figurative? That was kind of the point! Look, tell me my writing was structured badly, tell me it had no voice, tell me I used the wrong wording to get my point across, but please don't score me so badly because you can't follow a joke!
I don't get it. I really don't.
Oh, and did I mention that her scoring could most definitely cost me a trip to regionals? Yeah. I'm a tad PO'd. The only consolation is that my writing coach is reviewing it. I'm not complaining that she gave me a low score. Really, I'll take it if i deserve it. But if it was something in the writing, I want to know what it was, and not just have her say "You put in a plot twist. I hate plot twists. I don't understand them. I'm going to score you very low, now."
Cut out of courtesy for those of you who don't care. I understand.
ETA: Ok, as it turns out, because of my "Best of Round" scoring, apparently I'm automatically qualified for regionals with the two others on my team who scored in the top fifteen. And I found out that the reason the judge scored me so low was because she for some reason felt I didn't stick to the prompt.
I'm still grinning my face off and watching a season of "The Office" to celebrate, though.
Overall, it was a blast. Really. Even though, yeah, I had to get up at five on a weekend just to get ready and be at school on time (third time in my life I have been on that campus before sunrise. Sad, no?) it really was fun. The team of writers we have are great (spare maybe one or two?) and they're all great people (and if not, they serve as entertainment. What?) that are really a blast to hang out with. The best part is they don't mind talking about football, politics, or the adoption process (one of the guys wrote a totally, completely wrong practice story that acted like orphanages were a supermarket or something. Naturally, I corrected him.) so the four hours of down time that we had total over the whole thing went by relatively quickly.
Ok, but on to the competition part. After the two solid hours of writing (three different prompts, each forty minutes) we eventually went to the awards presentation. This is district level, with about 120 kids from each grade (2 of 'em) battling it out to get to regionals in a few months. They gave awards to the top fifteen out of each grade level, and in my level we had two people score, one in the top ten. Myself not included, but I have to say that I'm not embarassed to have lost to them; they're talented. (I did get a "Best of Round", which basically means they picked my response as best for one of the three prompts, but that's beside the point)
So after all of this fun was over, we were given our scoring sheets for each of our three responses. They scored us with numbers, 1-6 (6 being the lowest) and gave comments. My Best of Round response obviously scored very well, and the judge's comments were a definite ego-booster. The second prompt not so much, but I still did alright and her comments were justified.
But the third...ok, this is where I start to wonder if she was, in fact, justified. The prompt was "conduct a search for truth in your narrative". From day 1 my writing team coach told us to do plays on words and plot twists to get our creativity points up, as that was most important. In this one, the play on words was obvious, and I worked it in as a twist at the end: I made it sound, until the last two lines, like I was searching for "truth", figuratively. But in those last two lines I revealed that Truth was in fact a lost turtle. The judge gave me a 5 because SHE DIDN'T GET IT. Her comments read something like "You lead the reader to believe that what you were searching for was figurative, and then at the end revealed it to not be so. I don't see what a turtle has to do with it."
Um, I lead the reader to believe it was figurative? That was kind of the point! Look, tell me my writing was structured badly, tell me it had no voice, tell me I used the wrong wording to get my point across, but please don't score me so badly because you can't follow a joke!
I don't get it. I really don't.
Oh, and did I mention that her scoring could most definitely cost me a trip to regionals? Yeah. I'm a tad PO'd. The only consolation is that my writing coach is reviewing it. I'm not complaining that she gave me a low score. Really, I'll take it if i deserve it. But if it was something in the writing, I want to know what it was, and not just have her say "You put in a plot twist. I hate plot twists. I don't understand them. I'm going to score you very low, now."
Cut out of courtesy for those of you who don't care. I understand.
ETA: Ok, as it turns out, because of my "Best of Round" scoring, apparently I'm automatically qualified for regionals with the two others on my team who scored in the top fifteen. And I found out that the reason the judge scored me so low was because she for some reason felt I didn't stick to the prompt.
I'm still grinning my face off and watching a season of "The Office" to celebrate, though.