I wrote:
Would it be very inquisitive to ask how many stories were submitted for the first contest?
I received this response in email.
Dear Meredith,
I wanted to respond to your question about wanting to know how many stories were submitted for the first category. Your question deserves an answer. I have given the matter a lot of thought and this is my answer:
In keeping with the fairness of the contest, I am going to turn down this request, except to make this statement: there were a lot more losers than winners. The request is declined simply because I want to spare the feelings of those who did not win or didn’t even come close. How would you feel if you knew you’d won because only four entries were submitted? That’s not much of a contest. How would you feel if you found out that your total score placed you #19 out of 22, #45 out of 50? These stories are very precious to the writers and knowing they came in next-to-last would be heartbreaking. This information would possibly discourage anyone from entering it again, which defeats the whole purpose of the Merriweather. The whole point of the contest was simply to have fun, not to create hurt feelings on anyone’s part.
Thanks for taking the time to submit a story and many, many congratulations on your win! I hope that you’ll enter more stories in future categories. Good luck!
Sincerely,
Chairman, Merriweather Committee
Of course, the disappointment of those who come last is the self-same reasoning the Kerth Committee used in deciding not to release full voting figures for the Kerths.
But I wasn't suggesting a list of scores be released, only the number of entrants, so I'm a little disappointed with the response. This gets to the nub of it:
How would you feel if you knew you’d won because only four entries were submitted? That’s not much of a contest.
That's exactly why I want to know!
Anyway, it gives me another reason to appreciate hearing about other contestants. Keep posting those stories, people!
Mere
