BLOG: Pulling Back the Curtain on Life as a New Voices Writer

If you're considering entering the New Voices award but aren't sure whether it's for you, read on. Past winner, author Matthew Monteiro, pulls back the curtain on the year he spent as a New Voices writer.

A Year in the Life of a Wilbur Niso Smith New Voices Award Winner

When I first learned I was one of the winners of the 2023-2024 Wilbur Niso Smith New Voices award, a wave of questions flooded my brain. Had there been a mistake? Were the judges aware that I’ve never actually completed a novel before? Perhaps they had attributed the wrong opening chapters and synopsis to my name? These are the doubts that creep into an aspiring author’s mind, driven by imposter syndrome.

The past year has been a whirlwind of writing, editing, and most importantly, investing my time to better learn the craft. Looking back, I didn’t have a great sense of what being a New Voices winner would entail, so I thought it might be helpful to prospective applicants for me to pull back the curtain and reveal what it was like to spend a year as a Wilbur Niso Smith New Voices Award winner – a writing experience that has a hugely impacted my writing trajectory.

The objective of the award is straightforward: start with a well-thought-out idea for an adventure novel, add an ample serving of professional mentoring and editorial guidance from the foundation, and ultimately complete a solid first draft of your novel. Like some of my fellow award winners, I continued working on my novel after applying for the award, and had drafted a good chunk of the novel by the time the editorial process began, with the rest of the novel carefully outlined. That said, there was a ton of work to do and a number of writing pitfalls that had me on edge.

The timetable set up by the foundation is aggressive but manageable.  The goal is to complete an approximately 80,000 word novel, breaking it up into 20,000 work tranches to be submitted every 2-3 months. While these dates are flexible, I found having target dates as deadlines really amped up my accountability and motivated me to write at every opportunity. After submitting each tranche I would receive detailed notes from Martin, a highly experienced and really fantastic editor followed by zoom meetings with my amazing mentor Georgina to discuss those editorial suggestions and troubleshoot the next tranche. For me, the key to completing the process was having a well-mapped outline to work from – I’m a plotter in the strictest sense, and I’m not sure this format would be as workable for a pure pantser. Following this aggressive timeline was just the kick in the pants I needed to complete my first novel.

A quick word about the editorial feedback: any writer, particularly a previously unpublished one like myself, will get a few knots in the stomach when opening their work up to criticism. I remember hovering my finger over the “send” button prior to sending out my first big tranche, thinking “what if they think this is terrible?” Those worries were quickly laid to rest. The feedback I received was professional, detailed, and above all encouraging. This is not to say there wasn’t plenty of constructive criticism and thoughtful suggestions from the editorial team.  Over time, each “send” click created a few less knots and a lot more self-confidence. In May, after the final tranche was submitted, Martin, Georgina and I had a great zoom meeting putting it all together, discussing additional big-picture edits for the next draft, and game planning the future of my novel.

But the mentoring wasn’t done after the editing process. The foundation arranged for industry feedback of my draft from Bonnier Books, who sponsor the New Voices award. I cannot stress how valuable it was to have an honest-to-goodness publishing house editor read my entire novel and give me specific suggestions about what works, what doesn’t work, and where my novel might fit in the industry. I can’t think of anything a debut author needs more than this real-world feedback. In addition, the WNS Foundation arranged for a zoom meeting with Kevin, a literary agent who offered pitch letter feedback and words of wisdom for debut authors who are trying to break into the market. I also received literary agency recommendations curated by the foundation to jump start my querying process.

As you might imagine, spending a year drafting a novel had some ups and downs. Writing that much in a limited time frame is definitely a grind. Low points for me had to do with editing out sections of my novel which I had grown attached to. In particular, facing a bloating word count and a meandering middle act, I took the advice of my editing team to chop out a large central section of my novel that didn’t propel the story toward its conclusion.  Though painful, this certainly led to a tighter finished product. High points for me were many. Working with Georgina was wonderful – she was excited to champion my work and troubleshoot the challenging sections. Working with Martin was also incredible. He anticipated a lot of the sticky points which were already niggling in the back of my mind. The feedback from Bonnier Books was really edifying as well. But the highest of the high points was the accomplishment of completing a professionally edited, tightly plotted draft of my debut novel, The Fedora.

If you are an unrepresented writer with a well-crafted idea and you’re ready to work hard, I highly recommend applying for the Wilbur Niso Smith New Voices Award. The beauty of the award is the ongoing mentoring and editorial guidance provided by a team of industry experts. It’s just the thing a budding writer needs to take their writing to the next level. I firmly believe that this opportunity helped to transform me from a writer to an author. What’s more, it cured me of my imposter syndrome – until I start drafting my next novel, at least!

- Matthew Monteiro