DEADLINES | Can you write a novel in a weekend?

Well, you can try. You could enter the 3-Day Novel Contest over the Labour Day weekend and join hundreds of other would-be-novelists competing for the writer’s Holy Grail: publication. To enter, simply fill out a registration form, pay a $50 entry fee, and write that novel. Over a long weekend.

According to the contest website, the challenge is to “produce a masterwork in a mere 72 hours.”

But past participants and organizers say the real challenge is producing anything at all.

Brian Kauffman, publisher of Anvil Press (the Vancouver publishing house that ran the contest for ten years between 1992 and 2002) says the competition is a great way to “stop the procrastination.” Even if you don’t win, he says, “you may at least get a first draft out of it.”

Melissa Edwards, managing editor of the 2004 competition, seems to agree. Though she didn’t win when she entered in 2002, Edwards says she takes some pleasure in being able to say that she has a novel kicking around. “You just have to get it down,” she explains. “And it’s great to see what can come out of you when you don’t have time to waffle about it.”

Book jacket: Struck, by Geoffrey Bromhead, 25th annual 3 Day Novel Contest Winner 2002.

2002 contest winner Geoffrey Bromhead echoes that sentiment. “If you can finish a book in three days, you have something that few others have … determination.”

“Most people can’t write a short story in three months … let along an entire novel over a weekend.”

As for advice for new entrants, Bromhead says “anyone can start a novel or a story.”

The important thing is to “prove that you are someone who can finish.”

According to Johnny Frem, past contest participant and the man behind the Vancouver organization Bolts of Fiction, “you finish the weekend feeling just high, creatively. You feel like you’re going to win.”

And though he too didn’t, Frem’s positive attitude toward the whole process hasn’t diminished. Bolts of Fiction is even holding a 3-Day Novel Pep Rally, Monday night at El Cocal on Commercial Drive. Though not officially affiliated with the competition, Frem is eager to provide as much support to the venture as possible. He hopes the rally will entice more Vancouver writers to participate.

Originally run by a series of small publishing houses, this year the contest has become an independent organization in and of itself.

At the moment, publisher Barbara Zatyko and Edwards (both of Geist magazine, though Geist is not affiliated with the contest) are funding the competition entirely out of pocket. Because of that the number of participants is a concern.

“The cost of running the competition is high,” Edwards says. “We’re hoping for about 500 [entrants] this year”. In the past the number of entrants has varied greatly, between 200 and 600 annually.

As for who’s entering, the contest demographic is wide-ranging.

“Obviously because it’s based in Vancouver, we get a lot of Vancouver entrants – maybe 10 to 15 percent.” Edwards says. “About 75 percent of the entrants are Canadian, 20 percent American, and 5 percent from Australia and the UK.”

She estimates most entrants to be in their late 20s or early 30s, and though winners have not been consistently Canadian, there hasn’t yet been a winner outside North America.

Entrants typically write from home, unsupervised.

As for upholding the honour system, Edwards says that it’s easy to spot a cheater because 3-Day novels all have a “particular tone or rhythm to them.” This is why she (and past publishers) have called the fruits of the contest the “only literary genre to originate in Canada.”

“[Submissions] can be mystery, sci-fi, anything,” she explains. “But they all have the same tone of being written in three days, under intense pressure.”

Regardless of whether or not you win, Edwards says the contest is simply for “people who really want to be challenged.”

With 10 years of contest experience under his belt, Brian Kauffman seems to agree. He sums up the experience with one simple statement: “It’s just a really great thing for writers to do.”

Information about the 3-Day Novel Contest and registration forms are available at www.3daynovel.com. The Bolts of Fiction Pep Rally will be held Monday, 9 p.m. at El Cocal, 1037 Commercial Dr. The contest runs from 12:01 a.m. Sept.4 to midnight Sept. 6. Last minute registration, Sept. 3 from 5 to 10 p.m., in person at Lugz Coffee Lounge, 2525 Main Street.

A version of “Can you write a novel in a weekend?” was  published in the Vancouver Sun, August, 2004. The original headline was “No time for waffling in the 3-day Novel Contest”. See below.

More Books & Authors articles by Jen Selk are here.