{"id":14548,"date":"2022-09-01T08:25:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T22:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/?p=14548"},"modified":"2024-08-30T10:47:38","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T00:47:38","slug":"what-matters-in-a-writing-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/what-matters-in-a-writing-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"What Matters In A Writing Competition #MYAL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What does it take for a short story to win a writing competition? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot. Not only does a story have to be incredibly well written, but the judge has to connect with it, and it has to be so memorable that they feel unable to turn away and award first place to any other story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having now judged literary competitions since 2015 \u2013 including the Mosman Youth Awards in Literature<\/a> for six years, the Northern Beaches Writers\u2019 Competition<\/a> and the Australasian Horror Writers\u2019 Association Award for Short Fiction<\/a> \u2013 I\u2019m even more amazed than ever that I\u2019ve won over a dozen national writing awards<\/a> myself, because it\u2019s just so hard to achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n

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For that reason, usually this time of year I offer writers my \u2018top tips\u2019 for writing a winning story, based on that year\u2019s worth of entries, and I list what writers can do and avoid doing to increase their chances of success (just search for the word ‘competition’ on my blog). But there\u2019s also a certain feeling I get when reading a winning story, when I mutter to myself \u2018that\u2019s it!\u2019, and that feeling is perhaps more important than any other insight I can offer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A ‘that’s it!’ story may not open with a \u2018sizzling start\u2019 like they teach in creative writing classes. It needn\u2019t even orientate me with a setting or character, using a flurry of excellently applied literary techniques as classes also often recommend. I may not even know exactly what\u2019s going on\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was in fourth grade, nine years old at the time. It was around this time that boys and girls started to show interest in one another, beyond just being friends. There was lots of giggling, and whispering, and secrets.<\/p>

2020 Winner of the Mosman Youth Awards in Literature, Senior Prose: ‘Invisible’ by Leilani Nyman<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Wake.<\/p>

Where am I? Not home. New place. Is it home? Four white, padded walls. White floor. Everything white. The only colour is coming from my orange jumpsuit. I\u2019m lying down. A dull, throbbing pain appears in the back of my head. Why am I here? What do I remember? Nothing. Who am I? Nothing.<\/p>

2019 Winner of the Mosman Youth Awards in Literature, Senior Prose: ‘The 4784 Incident’ by Isaiah Woods<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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But I will know one important thing: there is a character who is worried about something that\u2019s important to them, and that will be enough to pull me through to the next line, and the next, until the story is ending and I\u2019ve discovered all the rest without even realising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A story like this will demand my attention, even after a long day of editing other stories or helping writers create words, even when my family are moving around the house getting ready for school, or sport, or dinner, or bed, even when my mind is full of the thousand and one things I still have to do with my own writing. Everything else will disappear other than that story<\/em>, because its character is worried about something important to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know that comfortable silence? Like, the hush before a movie starts in the cinema. Or, when you run out of conversation, but the quiet says more than words could. I first felt it lying on my bed that day. I was staring up at the ceiling, tracing the lines of shadows cast across my room, feeling mad at you and him for everything you\u2019ve done.<\/p>

2021 Winner of the Mosman Youth Awards in Literature, Senior Prose: ‘Dear Friend’ by Matilda Meikle<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The subject of the story in question won\u2019t matter. It may even be clich\u00e9 \u2013 after all, there are few stories that haven\u2019t already been told. This year\u2019s entries to the Mosman Youth Awards in Literature, for example, covered all the standard topics and more: relationships, family, abuse, death, grief, ageing, poverty, sexuality, politics, suicide, immigration, refugees, indigenous issues, war, theft, fishing, blindness, HIV, Nazis & the holocaust, school, segregation, and social media. Sometimes, of course, the subject can be very unique\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arrival of the 1st<\/sup> of March grows more horrific as I get older. Last year\u2019s Annual Genocide of the Weak (or the AGW) was the worst to date. My father and my sister. My mother went the year before. It\u2019s a televised event. I watched my family die on the entertainment channel.<\/p>

2018 Winner of the Mosman Youth Awards in Literature, Senior Prose: ‘What Happens at the Everton Pier’ by Sophie Sheppard<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But whatever the subject, when explored in a winning story, it will clearly and decisively matter to the writer. Or seem to matter. Indeed, whether or not it does actually matter to the writer, I may never know! But when I\u2019m reading this type of story, I am utterly convinced that it does matter. The writer cares, the character cares, and therefore I care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I\u2019m writing stories myself, I do this by putting myself completely in the head of a character before I start to write: I imagine myself as that character and, in that moment, everything they believe: I believe<\/em>. It\u2019s the most fun I have when creating stories, and the best way to ensure that what matters to my character goes on the page.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Otherwise, readers may not grasp what, if anything, matters; and if nothing matters, why write, why create, and why submit what you create for a competition, an anthology or magazine? Perhaps what you wrote was just a writing exercise instead, well executed but not truly felt? Perhaps someone else suggested the story\u2019s subject and, though the writer though it a good idea, they didn\u2019t truly feel it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either way, I can tell when something does or doesn\u2019t matter, and that makes all the difference to me as a judge, and a reader. Fellow readers, doesn’t it make a difference to you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What does it take for a short story to win a writing competition? A lot. Not only does a story have to be incredibly well written, but the judge has to connect with it, and it has to be so memorable that they feel unable to turn away and award\u2026<\/p>\n

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