WILLESDEN SHORT STORY COMP.. CLOSING 18 DEC

Stephen Moran, on Facebook: Somebody send some classy stories to the Willesden short story competition. Pretty please. Otherwise I'll have to shoot myself.

I think Stephen is saying that a lot of the entries so far are dire. Not all... some are smashing - but not enough of them. SO GET YOUR STORY IN!!

Details HERE

REWRITING LISTENING REWRITING LISTENING REWRITING

You may or may not be interested to know the provenance of the short story that has come second in the Fish Short Story Competition, The Return of the Baker Edwin Tregear.

The story was written about two years ago, after researching a mining accident that took place in a tin mine in Cornwall, in 1919.

It was entered for the Fish Historical short story competition in 2007. (too quickly)

It bombed.

It was entered for the Willesden Herald Competition in 2007. (too quickly, and not listening to the message...)

It bombed.

I could not stand back to 'see' that story. It was the first piece of researched historical fiction I had attempted.

So, I got a professional critique done. Plenty of things pointed out. Too many characters, overladen with detail in places. 'A novel packed into too small a package'.

Willesden Herald published a list of things wrong with their entries. The nicest ththing they could have done.

I used that list to reappraise the story together with feedback from the critique, and over a few months, I rewrote the story completely. I changed it from a third person narration to first person, forcing the main character to talk directly to me and to the reader. I dropped my 'favourite' character completely, deleting a whole 'sub plot'. (kill your darlings). I introduced one very minor but important character, device-wise. I changed the ending radically, to underpin the theme.

I entered it for Fish Historical Short Story competition again, mid 2008.

A few months later, Fish cancelled their Historical short story competition, offering entry fee back or the chance to sling your work into the main short story maelstrom and let it take its chances alongside 1500 (in the end) entries.

I left it in the running. And got on with things.

It wins a nice prize.

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Moral of the story, if there is one:

Don't think because you have won a few prizes, that you always write super stories.
Don't forget you can get things badly wrong, and that you are always learning.
Don't be too proud to ask for good, professional comment, and pay for it.
Don't be too proud to listen, and try to stand right back and disentangle yourself from the emotional tugs of some characters.
Don't be afraid to change a piece of work completely radically. How you see it is one thing. Others will see it totally fresh. Try to see how they will read it.

Do give yourself time, to put distance between you and your work.
Do rewrite well, thoroughly.

And do go on loving the story, and trying to get it as right as you can.


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The Willesden Herald article: How NOT to Win Short Story Competitions can be found HERE.




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HOW NOT TO WIN LITERARY COMPETITIONS

Mr Willesden Herald Has Spoken, ...

Stephen Moran has written a long article on writing for literary competitions.

It is a comprehensive list of reasons why stories do not make it. Please read it, and if you are in any way serious about writing literary fiction, copy and keep it.

It’s worth reading a few of the comments on THE WILLESDEN HERALD POST HERE, from editors of good literary magazines, agreeing with the list, saying they see these all too often. (and we are talking top ranking places here).

Heavily précised, these are the ways entries fell down: (My entry would have been discarded as 14, among others…!)

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1) NOT FOLLOWING THE RULES. Putting the name of the writer on the work, for example. Those would not even have been read. Straight into the bin.

2) OVERCROWDING THE CART. A short story can hold only so many characters.

3) POOR CHARACTER DIFFERENTIATION.

4) SOLIPSISM. UNRELENTING MONOTONY.

5) WELL ENOUGH WRITTEN BUT...SO WHAT? “The uncongenial protagonist or narrator, arrogant, cruel-minded, usually petty, often attempting gross-out effects, and usually going round in ever-diminishing circles before vanishing in a puff of studied triviality…”

6) POOR ENDINGS: Story peters out, or story rambles on past the natural finishing point.

7) POOR OPENINGS. The ‘Throat-clearers’, where the story actually started way down the text.

8) BORING, UNNECESSARY DETAIL. Stephen says, ‘We have lives of our own. We don’t need to substitute somebody else’s dreary domestic arrangements in our minds for our own..’

9) BANALITY. “Life can be banal, but we turn to fiction to find transcendence.”

10) MUSH and FAIRYTALES. To translate: Womaggery and elves.

11) FAILED EXPERIMENT: “It’s fine …to try an experimental format, but it’s not an excuse for slightness, skimpiness, overwriting, repetitiveness, underwriting, forced or boring content…”

12) UNCONVINCING. THIN. “This is fake, phoney baloney, unbelievable but presented as supposedly realistic. Often forced and plot-driven.”

13) WEAK PREMISE: “The triviality of some themes submitted is hard to believe. When you get a story that is 30 pages all about a minor ailment that has no apparent effects or significance, what are you to make of it? The writer is talking to himself…”

14) NOT A SHORT STORY. Essays, mini novels.

15) LITTERED WITH TYPOS, OTHER ERRORS

16) PANDERING TO THE JUDGES, Sending them copycatted stories.

17) POOR DIALOGUE. Tags. Undifferentiated voices.

18) UNEVENNESS IN TONE

19) SUMMATION. TELLING NOT SHOWING. “All sense of immediacy is lost.”

20) OVERWRITING. Purple prose etc

21) UNDERWRITING. Skimped, rushed.

22) GENRE WORK. 22. “Unicorns and elves, chick lit, police procedurals and bodice rippers. These should only be submitted to specialist competitions for their specific genres. The Willesden is for so-called literary stories.”

23) HACKNEYED WORK, whether in jolly bars in Ireland or in exotic locations, with stereotype beings peopling the pieces.

24) CLUMSY, STUFFY PROSE


Thank you to Stephen Moran for this fantastic article.

Gloating?

It has been a revelation, seeing how people are taking my attitude re: Willesden and Zadie Smith’s refusal to award the prize this year.

(I refer to a few blogs I've visited, intelligent people... a few well known people. And to an office of excellent writers from around the world on Zoetrope, working together on a multicultural project)

I supported her decision. I am apparently gloating. Just because I was a joint winner two years back and won a mug, I am now gloating that writers (including a super writer I know personally) have been hurt and disappointed.

Maybe people need to remember that I see hundreds of entries for Cadenza competitions every year and the standard of most is low. And those PAY to enter!! I therefore was able to imagine what happened with a free-to-enter competition…the bulk would have been not worth putting into the race.

Including my own.! Some you wins, some you doesn’t. You need time to see work for what it is...

But we are lucky. Cadenza has enough of a literary reputation that there have always been a cohort of strong stories vying for the little £200 prize.

Frequently, when we choose a winning story, we find the writer has won prizes before. Sometimes all three placed writers will be seasoned competition entrants. This time for example, I was delighted to find that the story we both picked blind as winner with no dispute at all, was written by GP Jo Cannon. She has won several awards.

Gloating? Come on.

If I wanted to, I could have hidden behind a pseudonym, or called myself anonymous to post on Willesden Herald. I didn’t.

The lady had a point, and I agreed with it. I SEE enough bad writing to be able to agree with impunity.