Okay, I know last time I said I was going to talk about three act structure but…

There was, as my fellow youths say, some discourse on Bluesky (and maybe the dead bird site, too, but why would anyone be there?) about recognition. It’s one thing to finally make some money off my writing, but let’s be honest. It’s also nice when we finally get known for our writing. When we get those starred reviews and interviews and con invitations.

And the awards. Can’t forget about the awards. We just had a couple sci-fi/fantasy ones in a row, and I think that’s part of what spurred this little bit of discourse. That’s the big recognition, isn’t it? Getting to stand up there in front of our peers and give a speech and get applause and know that we’ve been acknowledged. Our work’s been judged and recognized and now we’ve got a little rocket/ obelisk/ haunted house on our shelf at home to remind us—to remind everyone—that we’re really good at this.

I felt like a lot of folks covered said discourse pretty well. But it kept nagging at me. I think it’s because it’s something I’ve got a fair amount of experience with. On both sides.

So let’s talk about screenplays for a few minutes.

If you’ve been following along here for a while, you know my partner and I both read for a couple different screenplay contests during our poverty years. Some of them were big enough contests you may have heard of them, if you follow such things. And some of them you probably haven’t heard of, even if you really follow such things.

Thing is, it gave me a real look behind the curtain at this sort of thing. How semifinalists and finalists and winners get chosen. And look, the simple truth is so many contests and awards and fellowships all have a bunch of inherent problems. Some of them have poorly written rules for the contestants and/ or poorly written instructions for the people judging them. The judges all have their own personal biases they may or may not be able to avoid to some extent. Hell, most contests and awards are very limiting by design—you may notice it’s been quite a few years since a sci-fi romance won the Stoker Award,

And this is before we even get into someone deliberately putting a thumb on the scales, which has happened… well, quite a few times in the recent past. People tend to abuse systems. Sometimes they abuse systems that let them abuse other systems. And all of that, again, affects the final scores and results of all these judging systems.

Now to be very, very clear, I’m not saying that contests or awards are bad things. They’re absolutely not. I think it’s fantastic to recognize achievements and it can be a gigantic morale boost for lots of people when a book or writer you really relate to gets that recognition. Hell, especially you if it’s you who gets the recognition.

But I also think it’s important to remember that not getting recognized isn’t necessarily a sign of failure or that my work’s lacking something. It can literally just mean one (just one) of the key people who looked at my screenplay (or novel or whatever) didn’t connect with it. Or maybe connected too much in the wrong way. It could just mean three people sat around a table and said “well, that one’s a little less sci-fi than this one…”

In a way, this is a lot like deciding what gets to be art, which I talked about a few months back. Art is a completely random, subjective term that gets redefined constantly. Some things will get recognition now. Others get acknowledged years later. And yeah, some things should get recognized in a much bigger way and just never are.

(quick note that not getting recognized also doesn’t automatically mean everything was rigged and my work is flawless and brilliant and I’m a genius who deserved to win. Don’t be that guy)

Anyway, my personal take has always been that awards and recognition are great, but they really shouldn’t be seen as the end all-be all of writing. I definitely shouldn’t let it drag me down if I didn’t win. Or even get nominated. Being a writer’s tough enough without beating myself up because some random strangers decided they liked someone else’s book slightly more than mine.

And that’s my thoughts on that.

Oh, I also updated the FAQ, if that’s of any interest to you.

Next time, three act structure. Really.

Until then, go write.