<p>Like the title, I've worked on a novel for some time now. I'm currently a sophomore in high school, and I'm just wondering if I ended up publishing this thing, how good would that look to schools?</p>
<p>Like many things: It depends.</p>
<p>The main thing is: who publishes it? Anyone with money can get even very poor books into print. Something remarkable would be that your work is actually bought by a legitimate publishing house. Otherwise, submit your work to various writing competitions or journals.</p>
<p>Outside and objective evaluation will be the key.</p>
<p>^ yes. If someone like Scholastic or Pengiun publishes it, that would be a great thing to have behind you. It does have to be published though for it to mean anything. Anyone can “write a novel” in Microsoft office and have no one see it.</p>
<p>IMO, self-publishing your novel through a “vanity” publisher would be OK. It would show you have the ability to stick with a project over time and see it through to completion. That’s not nothing. But, as the others have said, it would pale in comparison to having your novel published by a legit publisher.</p>
<p>Yeah I see what you both are saying. </p>
<p>Obviously, getting something published by Scholastic/Penguin would be near impossible, but would a well-respected, albeit small, publisher look good to a school?</p>
<p>The fact that you are investing significant time, effort and creativity into what you hope will be a work of art (ideally with massive commercial and critical success!), is definitely worth talking about in your application, whether you get it published or not. Just be prepared to talk about what you’ve learned about yourself, about the writing process, about your future goals and objectives as a result of this initiative.</p>
<p>Son, who is a senior, just ‘finished’ his novel last month. He worked on it for 5 years. After meeting with a local author/friend recently, she told him he has much more to write - novels need to be about 60,000 words (son’s novel is 30,000), so despite thinking he was done, he has more writing to do and a lot of editing as well.</p>
<p>Son has also written poetry, essays and short stories. Some colleges allow for the submission of writing portfolios - each school has different rules about this, so you’ll have to look into the ones you’re interested in. Since anyone can self-publish a book, via websites like lulu, self-publishing your book is not terribly impressive and can be fairly expensive. </p>
<p>Earning national writing awards does impress colleges, so you should start submitting your writing to the many contests that are out there and available to writers as young a middle school. Some of these contests include Scholastic’s Art & Writing awards, Davidson Fellows, National Fdtn for the Young Arts, Letters About Literature, national high school poetry contests, etc. Colleges were very impressed with the awards our son earned in some of these contests. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize these contests were open to younger writers and waited until his senior year to enter them - almost too late for college admissions. </p>
<p>Regarding your writing submissions to a contest or a college, prior to doing so, find a good editor (can be a teacher a your school if they’re willing to help you) and really polish your novel and/or other writing prior to submitting. As unusual as it seems, there are more teenagers than you think writing novels. For example, in Scholastic’s novel competition this year, there were 800 novel submissions nationally and 12 winners (1.5%). Our experience has been that it’s easier to win/get recognition for poetry, short stories and essays. You will need teacher recommendations for some of these contests, so you should establish good relationships with one or teachers who know your writing ability very well and can attest to it in their recommendations.</p>
<p>Also, try to find a writer’s group where you live - some offer excellent workshops and interaction with other writers - all of which helps you become a better writer.</p>
<p>One thing I wish my son had done, which he didn’t, was to write his college essay about why he loves to write so much. That could be really powerful and tell a lot about you and your passion for writing. Hope all of this helps and congrats on being so young and working on a book!</p>