Several writers have written books that sell extremely well with the title (or a version of the title) “How Everything Works.” These writers include Clive Gifford (objects, environment, and machines), Louis A. Bloomfield (physics), and David Mccauley (windmills to Wi-Fi). I’m not surprised these books are popular. Most of us are curious about life.
There’s an old saying: Curiosity Killed the Cat. The best saying in reaction is: Satisfaction Brought it Back.
Because I am a writing contest aficionado, I am always curious about how writing contests work. I volunteered twice to be the Contest Chair for a local writing group. I sacrificed not being able to enter to get a bird’s-eye view of how this contest worked.
My suspicions that everything was subjective were confirmed. I collected (and read) the entries and located qualified judges. Even so, when the judges returned their results to me, I was surprised. Some of the entries that I thought would/should get first place didn’t even get an Honorable Mention, and vice versa.
This particular contest only had one judge for each category. So, if you won, that meant one person liked your story. One person! If you lost, that meant one person didn’t like your story as much. One person! In other words, win or lose means nothing in the overall scheme of life. (I still prefer to win, though).
In a different state than where I live, I was asked to judge a poetry contest. No out-of-state entries were allowed. This contest had five judges for the category. The result was chaos. All five judges chose different winners. The heads of the contest tried to come up with a rating system with numbers to determine a winner. We were sent a variety of different methods to attempt to determine an overall winner. The path to determining the winner was so complex that we five judges ended up getting paid for the ordeal we went through. (Originally, we were all judging for free). I began to see why many contests use only one judge, even though that is no way to tackle the problem of ensuring objectivity.
My point is that if you enjoy entering writing contests, never feel defeated if you don’t win. To paraphrase what Rick said in Casa Blanca, such problems as not winning “don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” Cry if you want. Grit your teeth. Then, get back to writing.
Adversely, never feel overly proud if you do win, although take time to enjoy a win because your writing was appealing to at least one person. Post your wins. Smile. Then, get back to writing.
Keep in mind that this world is not always fair. At my job, before I retired, when an employee would bemoan that something was not fair, my old boss used to say, “Fair is where you go to see farm animals.”
Win or lose, there’s always a possibility that you will get excellent feedback from a judge about how to improve your writing (although you have to use discretion to determine the value of any advice given). Don’t be surprised to read the standard judge line, “Show, don’t tell.” Read the evaluation you receive, then get back to writing.
I believe I have a picture of that same long horn from the Oklahoma State Fair. It's true what you say about judging being subjective, which is why it is a good practice to enter a work into more that one contest. I've had the same difficulty with finding judges for a writing contest. The best advice is pay attention to the work of the people who have won in the past as the judges often come from a similar pool for the same contest.
One of my poems won fourth place in the national contest by The Writer's Digest. When I entered it into the OWFI contest, the judge disliked it because I was being "self-pitying.' They did not catch the irony of the work.