I got listed as a finalist (but not winner) in a national science writing competition.

Now I'm more interested in writing fiction, but I wondered.. will this little near-success in non-fiction be actually useful in trying to get fiction published (either in magazines or novel form)?

Or is it best not to mention and pretend to all my friends that it never happened?

Oh they sent me a little certificate too. Well done me =)

Hi hmaster

It is brilliant that you did so well in the competition. It is a real affirmation of your skills.

And it is a good addition to a CV.

As to whether it will actively 'help' in getting fiction published, I think the answer has to be no... how can it help?

But if it goes into helping to build a solid CV, then that has to be a good thing, surely, so why do you have to not acknowledge the success with your writing friends?

congrats on the non-fiction finalist place, and loads of good luck with the fiction.

Vanessa

Thanks for that Vanessa. I guess that's what I was driving at - would it be useful to mention when submitting articles or novels for Attention. If I had won, I think I could mention it with fiction submissions; being a finalist would seem only applicable if submitting other non-fiction articles.

As for not telling friends, well, there's a sentence short of a smiley methinks =)

Your finalist place in the science writing competition is worth something, CV-wise. As I say, it's an indicator of your ability to use words - better, it could be argued, than all those who entered that competition and got nowhere.

It was a 'scientific writing' competition, you say... and yet, (I peeked!) your area of work is the financial sector. That in itself is interesting.

How you put your CV together will depend on the type of fiction you are submitting and the proposed market, I guess. But having something like that place under your belt raises you out of the 'completely untried and tested' zone.

There are so many routes within the writing world... one that some writers follow is that of building up short fiction publications before embarking on the longer work, (if that's what they are aiming at).

Others, (more, probably - but I dont know the statistics, that's just a personal view) seem to aim straight for the longer work.

Whichever you do, the competition success you have had is a feather in your cap.

Vanessa

A lot depends on the area your article covered and whether that relates to what you're submitting. For example, if you sent in a sci fi novel and you'd had science articles published on the central concepts within the novel - GM crops, say - it would show you were knowedgeable about and interested in the topic, and in a better position to create that convincing fiction world.

Always worth mentioning what you've had published in your covering letter, I'd have thought, but my editor's said several times that what matters to her is the manuscript itself.

I think Lammi's right: unless the subject's peculiarly relevant to your fiction, it's more something to put as a brick in the stack - however modest - of writing credits, than something to headline with. But certainly worth mentioning somehow: it shows you write decent prose, and have interesting interests.

Emma

To the DOCTOR

Not that I'd have a clue, but getting to the finalist of any writing competition whether non -fiction or not has got to be of use somehow. Shows you've got writing talent and are pro-active in getting your profile noticed! And you also have a great website to showcase your great writing, so whatever publicity you are able to garner for yourself has got to yield positive results.

Could we see this certificate? :-)

Jen

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. I'm not a natural at self-publicity and I wanted to check that my instincts that it wasn't something worth waving around (in my chosen field) was correct. I cut some of my writing teeth doing articles for computer publications about 15 years ago during my yoof but I don't consider mentioning those to any potential publisher either...

[I have a background in mathematics but my work is financial IT - the article was about financial derivatives. And no, Jen, you can't see my certificate. Not until my hard drive is come back to life.]

<Added>

Heaps of grammatical typos there. Nice.