Sample article for Squills Newsletter

The Contest of... my Avvie

This avvie contest's deadline is over, it was November 10.

Timmy here

Let's take this idea you have and discover what the purpose of a contest column would be, okay? So I would say the main purpose of one is to encourage members to take part in the contests you advertise, because they look interesting. That would be the purpose, I think. Promote contests. This won't cut it. What you have here is the bare-bones beginning to an article, and you need to add more. You want your readers to be interested in these contests? Give them a reason.

The first thing you need to do is tell them more about these contests, give them information on it, and sound excited while you do so. Be interested. It's something if you can get someone excited about an article - any article, and not just yours. But the first thing you need to do is ensure they all finish your article. So keep it lively, keep it interesting, and keep it informative... all the while adding your own "style" to it. Think you can't put your style of writing in an article? Wrong. Use your writing style in your articles, and don't stick to the basic essay-styled writing that you've come to use in school and essays and such. Use your style of writing while you do these articles, and I think not only will it help your article gather more depth, but it will keep things lively and interesting.

When you have a contest or anything which involves someone else (the creator of the contest in this case), I think you could try to involve them as much as possible in your article. Use their words. Advertise on their behalf. You want a killer article? Using these three contests, you should take ideas from their authors and extrapolate on them. Give your readers a reason to continue, and I think you could keep them interested if you did things like went and did interviews with the creators, asked them questions, have a quote from them - anything to spark interest for the contest.

You have a good start here. You just need to flesh it out and add life, like Lumi and Niteowl said.
~Darth Timmyjake

You definitely need more flesh in order to call this an article.

Niteowl's suggestions are sound, but you seem so rushed to publish this that it appears you don't care. A Contest column would be a nice asset for Squills, but you need to take your time in development before just throwing around "publishable" works. Beyond taking more time for your actual content, you need to pay attention to your grammar. I'd be embarrassed to read "And there has been some contest going around!" in Squills.

So slow down and take it easy. Investigate your contests and make sure you know what you're talking about--and that goes for all kinds of writing. Apply this advice to everything you crank out. Slow down. You'll be thankful later.

Try again if you want to get into Squills.

Hi there unknown! Niteowl here to review this article idea!

Disclaimer: I am not involved with Squills in any way. Heck, I've gotten pretty bad about even reading it, but I am trying to check it out more often.

That said, I think this is is a great idea! Contests are a lot of fun and we could always use more of them! If it doesn't already exist, a sort of "Contest Corner" discussing contests and highlighting new ones would be a great addition to Squills.

That said, I think this needs a little more depth. Right now, it feels more like the "This Week's Roundup", which points out notable links (including contests) from YWS and is already a regular feature.

My suggestion: talk a little more about contests in depth and then feature a "Contest of the Week". You could explore questions like:

What gets people interested in a contest?
How should you promote contests?
What makes a good contest reward?
How should you judge your contest entries?

You could write about your own thoughts and also seek the opinions of other YWSers. If you look at current Squills writers, they frequently ask other members what they think about certain topics and quote them in their articles. This makes the articles more complete and more interesting to read.

One last note: Be careful with promoting contests, as they have deadlines. Aurora's contest, for example, ended a month ago, so your readers can't enter it anymore. You could, however say something like "This was a really unique idea for a contest!".

Overall, I like this idea and I think you could easily build upon it to make a new Squills column. Keep writing and good luck joining the Squills team!