There has been much criticism of Lit Idol as a way of judging literary talent. But “Lit Idol, for all the apparent crassness of its format, is as good a means as any to truffle out new talent, and is only a pop-culture-friendly revamp of the short story competitions run by newspapers in the old days. But it has reinforced the perception that in contemporary writing, the words are no longer enough. The author must be all-singing, all-dancing, good looking if possible and, if not, with a sufficiently troubled past to keep the public interested.”