WVW Contest F.A.Q. #5

Continuing the series of Frequently Asked Questions about the West Virginia Writers, Inc., Annual Writing Competitions.

QUESTION: I'm interested in entering a short story from a series that I'm writing, but although some are under 5,000 words my favorite one is just under 7,100 words.  Is there a category under which such a story could be entered...or am I just out of luck there?
 
ANSWER: I'm afraid this is indeed a situation where we don't have a category to fit the bill. When I used to enter, it was forever the bane of my existence that many of my own favorite stories were over the 5000 limit, too. The reason we have the limit is because of the number of entries we receive. For short stories, we average 100 entries per year, all of which have to be read by our judge. If even half the entries are at the 5000 word limit, that's a LOT of words for a judge to get through in the month and a half they will have. The 5000 word limit can still lead to a fairly overwhelming experience for the judge, but it is manageable.