Re: Nicholl Fellowship 2012 open for submissions
I believe I've addressed this question in this forum a number of times over the years. Let me do it again.
There is no "rush" period. It is a little slower for individual readers when each begins because we build gradually into larger stacks. But the most scripts we ever assign is 24 a week, in separate groups of 12. A reader must finish a previously assigned stack before she will receive a new stack. Thus "full-time" Nicholl readers are judging 24 scripts most weeks throughout the competition. Many readers, though, are not reading "full-time" and only judge 8 or 12 or 16 scripts in a week.
As I've mentioned previously, other factors may be at work. Some readers may be a little tougher early in the competition, leaving "room" for higher scoring scripts they expect to come later. With scripts read later in the competition, it is possible that an individual reader will already have seen a script in the same genre dealing with similar subject matter. The second script may not seem as "fresh" as the script read earlier. Last year, there seemed to be a good number of zombie and vampire scripts. It is possible that some horror "specialist" readers (which means that they might have been assigned one horror script in every batch of 12 scripts) could have grown increasingly weary of vampires and zombies over the course of the competition.
Once the May 1 deadline passes, we also continuously mix early and middle and later submissions in every batch of 12. At that point, it doesn't matter when you entered - with the exception of scripts entered in the last hour or two prior to the deadline. Those will mostly be among the last scripts read during the first round.
In other words, negatives and positives are possible for any reader at any point in the competition.
The one suggestion I always make is not to wait until the final few hours. Even then, it doesn't really matter, as scripts entered early, in the middle and late have advanced in the competition.
Given that we're reading every script at least twice, that may change all of the above slightly. For instance, we could read every script once and then begin all of the second reads. If so, then the second reads will be totally mixed in terms of first score and arrival date. Or we might be assigning second reads simultaneously with first reads in order to keep readers reading prior to the May 1 deadline. We won't know this until we see how submissions arrive and reading unfolds.
My advice: if your script is finished and you're no longer tweaking, enter near the early March 15 deadline to take advantage of the lower entry fee. If you aren't ready for the early deadline, then enter in the area of April 25-29, so that you have plenty of time to tweak and so that you won't be among the last 1500 or so entries.
Originally posted by NikeeGoddess
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There is no "rush" period. It is a little slower for individual readers when each begins because we build gradually into larger stacks. But the most scripts we ever assign is 24 a week, in separate groups of 12. A reader must finish a previously assigned stack before she will receive a new stack. Thus "full-time" Nicholl readers are judging 24 scripts most weeks throughout the competition. Many readers, though, are not reading "full-time" and only judge 8 or 12 or 16 scripts in a week.
As I've mentioned previously, other factors may be at work. Some readers may be a little tougher early in the competition, leaving "room" for higher scoring scripts they expect to come later. With scripts read later in the competition, it is possible that an individual reader will already have seen a script in the same genre dealing with similar subject matter. The second script may not seem as "fresh" as the script read earlier. Last year, there seemed to be a good number of zombie and vampire scripts. It is possible that some horror "specialist" readers (which means that they might have been assigned one horror script in every batch of 12 scripts) could have grown increasingly weary of vampires and zombies over the course of the competition.
Once the May 1 deadline passes, we also continuously mix early and middle and later submissions in every batch of 12. At that point, it doesn't matter when you entered - with the exception of scripts entered in the last hour or two prior to the deadline. Those will mostly be among the last scripts read during the first round.
In other words, negatives and positives are possible for any reader at any point in the competition.
The one suggestion I always make is not to wait until the final few hours. Even then, it doesn't really matter, as scripts entered early, in the middle and late have advanced in the competition.
Given that we're reading every script at least twice, that may change all of the above slightly. For instance, we could read every script once and then begin all of the second reads. If so, then the second reads will be totally mixed in terms of first score and arrival date. Or we might be assigning second reads simultaneously with first reads in order to keep readers reading prior to the May 1 deadline. We won't know this until we see how submissions arrive and reading unfolds.
My advice: if your script is finished and you're no longer tweaking, enter near the early March 15 deadline to take advantage of the lower entry fee. If you aren't ready for the early deadline, then enter in the area of April 25-29, so that you have plenty of time to tweak and so that you won't be among the last 1500 or so entries.
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