Imposter Status?

I'm not doing well in the writing competition scene. I don't mean to be dramatic but how many failures is a judgement?

I don't mean to be dramatic but, let's be honest, how many times do you do the same thing and get the same result before you accept that you're not very goo...

Or maybe not.

I enter writing competitions that provide feedback (even if it costs a little extra).  The reasoning being, that I would like to get something back even if it is just some feedback. Generally, I find I don't disagree with any feedback I get. Most competitions use professional or semi-professional writers to assess and analyze the work and decide, not only who wins, but what is right/wrong with the stories.

One competition host, NYC Midnight, provides a huge amount of feedback, with small breakdowns of each story (normally only a few sentences) by putting the positive before the negative. Strangely, I find that when I'm writing very specific genres (sci-fi, horror) I pretty much get the same/similar feedback from everyone, whereas when I'm writing romance or drama, I get varied feedback on individual components of each story than I would when I'm writing genre fiction.

Not to say that the feedback from my genre fiction is wrong, I just find it hard to believe that everyone is on exactly the same page.

Or do I?

Horror in particular is a highly explored genre, with its emperor at the top. Not to judge Steven King! I love his fiction. I love the way he can build characters and tie them together into believable communities and then throw them into the most destructive turmoil and it all feels so incredibly plausible.

So, what did I expect?

Nothing?

Fine! Not nothing but I'm worried about what it says about horror fiction that the judges for this are all focussing on the same positives and negatives. Has one voice twisted the meaning of horror and defined its absolute boundaries into a carefully manicured nightmare, dark, cold and predictable? I would certainly hope not, as that would confine horror to something predictable, thus removing what makes it horrific.

Based on the feedback, there is room for this story to grow into something "more", and I intend to build on that and, perhaps, turn it into something "appreciable" if not marketable.