Day 275 – To win or not to win literary contests
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Get to the Point, Make ‘Em Laugh, and Ignore Fay Weldon (A Little Bit)
Let’s rip the bandage off right away: The most boring book wins literary contests.
That gem of a quote comes from the fiercely witty British novelist Fay Weldon. And honestly? She wasn’t wrong. Think about the last time you read a critically acclaimed, prize-winning heavyweight novel. Did it feel like a brisk jog through a comedy club, or did it feel like trudging through an intellectual swamp of heavy metaphors, agonizing grief, and sentences that stretch across three paragraphs?
Exactly.
We live in a culture obsessed with efficiency. Get to the point! Cut the fluff! Give me the TL;DR! But writing—especially the kind of writing you actually want to read and write—often rebels against this sterile efficiency.
So, what is the ultimate writing philosophy? Should we cut straight to the chase and inject a healthy dose of humor, or should we embrace the sprawling, solemn boredom that wins awards? Let’s dive in.
The Cult of “Get to the Point” (And Why Humor is Our Savior)
In the digital age, attention spans are shorter than a TikTok loop. If your opening paragraph doesn’t hook the reader, introduce a conflict, and promise emotional payoff, they’re gone. Click. Back to Instagram.
Because of this, modern copywriters, bloggers, and even fiction writers are told to get to the point. Brevity is king.
- The Problem: Being purely concise is dangerously close to being boring. A user manual is concise. A tax form gets straight to the point. Nobody stays up until 3:00 AM crying over the IRS instructions.
- The Solution: Humour.
Humour is the spoonful of sugar that helps the conciseness go down. It’s the human element. When you get to the point while making the reader snort coffee out of their nose, you’ve won. You’ve respected their time (by not rambling) while entertaining their soul (by being funny).
If Fay Weldon says boring books win prizes, humour is the rebellion against the prize committee. It says: I want people to actually enjoy this.
Why Fay Weldon Was Right About “Boring” Books
Let’s not throw Fay under the bus just yet. She knew the literary establishment’s inner workings better than most.
Literary prizes—think of the Booker, the Pulitzer, or heavy-hitting academic nods—often reward gravitas. A book about a happy couple who communicate well, pay their mortgage on time, and occasionally go to brunch does not win awards. Why? Because it lacks suffering and significance.
To win a literary contest, a book usually needs:
- Misery: Preferably historical, existential, or deeply psychological.
- Slow pacing: Often disguised as “rich atmospheric development.”
- Sentences that require a semicolon and a master’s degree to decode.
Weldon’s warning is a liberation for everyday writers. She is essentially telling us: Stop writing for the judges in ivory towers. Write for the human beings on the subway.
If your book is so thrilling, funny, and fast-paced that it disqualifies you from winning a dusty trophy in a wood-paneled room in London or New York… take it as a compliment.
Can You Have It All? (Point + Humor + Depth)
Is it a zero-sum game? Must we choose between being a humor-filled, punchy writer who people actually read, and a solemn literary genius who wins medals that nobody checks out at the library?
Not necessarily. The sweet spot of modern writing lies in the intersection of clarity, wit, and depth.
You can get to the point quickly, keep the reader laughing, and still deliver a profound emotional punch. Think of authors like David Sedaris, Nora Ephron, or Kurt Vonnegut. They didn’t write boring, prize-winning snoozefests. They wrote punchy, hilarious, deeply moving works that outlived the prize committees anyway.
How to Apply This to Your Writing:
- Respect the reader’s time: Get to the point. Don’t spend three pages describing a tree unless that tree is plotting a murder.
- Disarm with wit: Use humour as a vehicle for truth. If you have a heavy point to make, a joke is the best shock absorber.
- Ignore the gatekeepers: If you write something genuinely entertaining, fast-paced, and funny, the literary establishment might sniff at it. Let them. You’ll be too busy having an audience to notice.
The Verdict
So, what is the best thing to do?
Fay Weldon gave us great advice: don’t write the boring book just to impress the critics. But we also don’t need to live in a world of purely rushed, hyper-efficient bullet points, either.
The best thing to do is write the book you would want to read. Get to the point, make ’em laugh, and leave the boring, prize-winning misery to the people who enjoy sitting in silence.
What’s your take? Do you prefer a laugh-out-loud page-turner, or do you secretly love a 600-page historical epic about melancholy? Let us know in the comments below!
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