This is the perfect time to start reviewing your best stories, designs, and photos and collecting tearsheets and URLs to enter in the 2016 AHP Awards Contest for material published in 2015.
While the contest provides constructive critiques on every entry, we’ve asked a couple of our award judges to elaborate on what makes an award-winning story, photo, or design. Their tips may help you to select your entries for the upcoming contest as well as shed some light on how to improve your skills in the year ahead.
How to Write an Award-Worthy Story
All members have an opportunity to enter the contest. Rules and entry forms will be available for the 2016 Awards Contest by the first week in January.
How to Write an Award-Worthy Story
Every judge is different, as is every reader and every writer. The ingredients that go into an award-winning story – and the factors that may knock a writer out of competition – are fairly similar. Here are some tips for elevating your work and winning the judge over:
- A strong lede is your best weapon. Think of your first few lines as a brief commercial to alert the reader that your story is worth his or her time. SELL IT!
- Never start off your story with a quote, unless it is a very dramatic or clever one. Avoid using famous quotes or clichés. It’s a lazy way to kick things off.
- Bring energy to your story. This can be difficult if you are writing about fly spray for the third time in three years. If you write it as if you’re bored, your reader will know.
- Eliminate “and” and “but” as transition words. Highlight those two words after you finish your story. Strike out their usage in the first sentence of paragraphs. You can get away with one or two, but usually they are just filler words. Lose them.
- Use as many “voices,” or sources, as possible. Even if you are writing a feature on one person or issue, dig for as many people to comment or provide insight as you can.
- Don’t ever, and I mean EVER, use the phrase “as everyone knows” or something akin to it. It gets automatic demerits from me when I see that in a story.
- Strive for the unusual approach, especially if you are covering a prominent story like California Chrome winning the Kentucky Derby. A good hook may be hard to find, but it’s worth the struggle. Avoid “pack journalism.” Ask one more question, find one more person to talk to, then write what interests YOU most about the subject and you’ll find the passion you need for a special piece.
- Don’t overwhelm your reader with a lot of information or jargon in the first few paragraphs. If you are writing about a big topic, especially one that may require a lot of scientific or “dense” writing, keep your focus small at first. An anecdote or a veterinary case about a disease told by the people who were forced to deal with it will be more compelling than a catalog of information with little or no “color.”
- If you’re unsure if your story flows well, read it aloud. (Preferably when you are alone, or if you have very patient dog or cat who is a good listener). This will help locate and zap those run-on sentences or clumsy transitions.
I hope these ideas will help you. Now go find a space on your wall for those AHP plaques.
Key Factors for Editorial Design Excellence
When I judge editorial design, I always look for certain key factors.
- The first is consistency in design; are the design elements throughout the layout, starting with the opening page right through to the last page, creating a visual flow that is smooth and connected?
- Then I highly consider the use of typography and the proper use of families of fonts and ornate headlines; is the text content clean when the designer chooses to use artistic license? This is a place where a novice designer can really “over-do” causing visual discomfort.
- Next, I look at the treatment and placement of photos; if the designer uses runarounds or manipulates the photo in any way is it technically correct without any glitches?
- Most importantly, does the design adhere to and enhance the subject matter of the editorial content. I have seen some editorial designs that were so narrative that the visual implication would stop the reader in their tracks and summon them to give attention to the story.
- Overall, I look to see what type of visual experience the reader will have when they look at the editorial design. A good designer understands that much of how they communicate is subliminal for the person viewing their work. It is the designer’s job to entice the reader and ensure they will have an easy, full experience in the brief period of connection with that particular editorial.
Capturing the Award Shot in Photography
Judging the photography submissions for American Horse Publications is an interesting endeavor because the entries can range from portraiture, to environmental, to action sports photography. Each genre has a little different criterion from which I make my decisions.
- The photographer has the most control with portraiture (horse or human, or a combination of). The lighting, pose and composition should all be well thought-out producing a stellar result that adheres to the rule of the golden mean and appears so real you could reach out and touch the subject matter.
- The environmental photography (i.e. a person at work or an instructional composition) the photographer has less control of the lighting and pose, and the capture has to be more spontaneous. Environmental photography is narrative; the photographer gives the viewer insight into a scenario or a personality. This is where I can tell if the photographer can really think on their feet, pay attention to the composition and all background peripherals and make the best out of available lighting, possibly manipulating it if the situation allows. The key to dubbing a shot great environmental photography is if the visual narration is strong.
- The photographer has the least control over everything in the genera of action sports photography and yet it is one of the most exciting arenas in photography. To get the edge on “the money shot” the photographer uses great forethought in self-positioning, camera settings and proper equipment. Sometimes that great action shot seems like luck, but more often than not, someone who knew where to be and had the skills not to miss that pivotal moment shot it. I look for the strength of action and emotion in those images. Having that apparent is 90% of a successful action sport shot… it can even negate some of the technical things I might look for in a more controlled situation.