Bronze Medal in Mystery/Suspense/Thriller!

When Encore: A Contemporary Love Story of Hypnotic Abduction won the Bronze medal in the eLit Awards in 2019, I didn't tell anyone. I didn't announce it on social media, websites, newsletter or anything. But in fact, that's a huge deal. It's not only ranked third for one category but for three of the most popular genres. I think that means there's a little something wrong with me. I've won gold medals for novels, so Bronze seems like failure. I grew up being the best at writing and the arts and started winning awards at a young age. So, I have high standards for myself. That feeling isn't terrible for me, doesn't cause serious problems, and my self-esteem is stable. But it's a trait that helped me create the personality Flaw of the protagonist in the novel that won: Encore. Scientists showed that we subtly take on the characteristics of a main character in a novel for a good while reading it. Why would someone want to become more like a character with a Flaw? Almost all characters have Flaws - that's what drives the plot. For one thing, in Genre fiction, the characters usually learn lessons to overcome their Flaws, so by the end, we feel we can overcome ours as well, especially if it's similar. For another thing, we like to feel we're not alone. We're seen. We're understood. The author, narrator and character might be our friend if we met. Our secret inner thoughts are being dramatized on the page. We can appreciate the poignancy and love the character, get in touch with our deep feelings, experience shared humanity without being embarrassed. In some genres, like Literary, Horror or Noir, the protagonist, our proxy, may not overcome the Flaw. It may be a Tragedy. But that's OK. It functions as a warning that we should push ourselves to get over own Flaw -- like feeling like we're never good enough unless we're ideal. So, that's what I'm doing. Saying, Encore won Bronze. And that's sure as heck good enough for me. Is it good enough for you? If so, maybe you want to check out the book!