pick me, pick me, pick me! - Shortlisted for the Fish, 2012
Yay, first shortlisting of 2012! I’ve made the Fish Publishing shortlist. No mean feat from around 1,900 entries, admittedly however, the shortlist is rather a long one with 145 stories to make it thus far (the long list was 550 apparently). David Mitchell is now judging and the winners will be announced on St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th to the un-Irish amongst you). Oooo I do like a good win…
Writing Competitions with a February/March deadline:
Let spring in...
Right, that’s January out of the way – a month where one recovers from Christmas. In fact, I’ve always found it a rather silly month in which to make plans and resolutions, as one doesn’t feel like doing much when it’s brass monkeys outside. February, however, is a different matter. In Ireland, February 1st, St. Bridget’s Day, is the first of spring. There’s not a helluva lot of differnce between winter and spring (or indeed summer) in Ireland – but it is the concept that is important. On February 1st, I get moving again.
And, if I’m moving, I’ve got to enter some comps. So, let’s have a look at competitions with deadlines running up until the end of March. You’ll notice that many of these are Irish competitions, this is partly because, obviously, I’m Irish and these are the comps I know of, but also because the short story and story telling is held in such esteem in Ireland, it’s got to have more writing contests per square foot than any other district of the universe. However, if you have information regarding prizes, contests or awards with a deadline before March 31st, running in your country – please feel free to add/comment.
Finally, please note that I’m merely collating information posted elsewhere on the Internet. I am not responsible for or affiliated with any of these competitions and have no more information than that on the website listed. Please do not send your entries to me and please do not write to ask about the specifics of individual contests. I won’t know. It’s best to go to the website address provided and inquire there.
And good luck!!!
Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook Short Story Competition
Prize: £500 plus a place on an Arvon course
Entry Fee: n/a
Deadline: February 14th 2012.
Website: http://www.writersandartists.co.uk
Irish Post/Stena Line Writing Competition
Prize: £500 & free travel to Listowel Writers’ Festival in Co. Kerry.
Entry Fee: £n/a
Deadline: 2nd March 2012
Website: http://www.irishpost.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=100
NOTE: Only open to Irish/Irish descent resident in Britain (ie the theme concerns the Irish immigrant experience in the UK).
The Bryan MacMahon Short Story Competition
Prize: €2,000
Entry Fee: €10.00
Deadline: 2nd March 2012
Website: http://writersweek.ie/the-bryan-mcmahon-short-story-competition
The Writers’ Week Originals Competition
Prize: €750
Entry Fee: €10.00
Deadline: 2nd March 2012
Website: http://writersweek.ie/writers-week-originals-competition
The Eamon Keane Full Length Play Competition
Prize: €500
Entry Fee: €20.00
Deadline: 2nd March 2012
Website: http://writersweek.ie/eamon-keane-full-length-play
Twisted Stringybark Short Story Award 2012
Prize: $300 AUS plus publication
Entry Fee: $9.75 AUS
Deadline: 4th March 2012
Website: http://www.stringybarkstories.net/The_Stringybark_Short_Story_Award
Prize: €500
Entry Fee: €10
Deadline: 5th March 2012
Website: http://www.cuirt.ie/component/content/article/3-newsflash/70-cuirt-new-writing-prize-2012
Limnisa / Bluethumbnail SHORT STORY Competition
Prize: One week full board writers’ retreat at LIMNISA
Entry Fee: £6
Deadline: March 15th, 2012
Website: http://www.bluethumbnail.com/Author/competitionpage.html
Mslexia 2012 Women’s Short Story Competiton
Prize: £2,000
Entry Fee: £10
Deadline: 19th March 2012
Website: http://mslexia.co.uk
Molly Keane Memorial Creative Writing Award (I won this last year!)
Prize: €500
Entry Fee: n/a
Deadline: 26th March 2012
Website: http://www.mollykeanewritersretreats.com/2012writingaward.htm
PJ O’Connor Radio Drama Awards
Prize: Professional production of the best three 40-minute plays with €5,000 to Winner
Entry Fee: n/a
Deadline: 30th March 2012
Website: http://www.rte.ie/radio1/pjoconnorawards/
The Bristol Short Story Prize
Prize: £1,000
Entry Fee: £7
Deadline: March 31st 2012.
Website: http://www.bristolprize.co.uk
Plymouth University’s Short Fiction Competition
Prize: £500
Entry Fee: £10
Deadline: March 31st 2012.
Website: http://www.shortfictionjournal.co.uk/
The Moth Short Story Prize
Prize: €1,000
Entry Fee: €8
Deadline: March 31st 2012.
Website: http://www.themothmagazine.com
The Short Fiction Journal Prize
Prize: £500 plus publication
Entry Fee: £10
Deadline: March 31st 2012.
Website: http://www.shortfictionjournal.co.uk/competition.html
And finally… not a competition per se, but a chance to have your work published in leading literary magazine. The Stinging Fly are accepting submissions up until March 31st: http://www.stingingfly.org/about-us/submission-guidelines
Grammar - Giving your work the final hose down
Warning: You enter this grammar post at your own risk.
Once you’ve had your feedback and have chopped, pruned, rewritten and reshaped your work, you’re ready to go, right? Wrong. Next, you need to don your pernickety gloves and work on grammar, spelling and punctuation.
This type of revision is called a proofread and it is separate from the critique your friends gave re characters, story, POV, tone and structure. A proofread regards layout and correct use of language. A proofread is the final polish.
Never hand in a submission blighted by incorrect or inconsistent punctuation, bad grammar and misspelled words – thinking the story will shine through. They (the slush pile readers) will be turned off by your sloppy copy and will probably never read on into your story, so it won’t get that chance to shine through. If you’ve spent a year writing a novel, respect your work enough to spend another couple of weeks proofreading. It’s only common sense.
As you’ve probably read your own work countless times, you may be blind to copy mistakes. A keen eyed friend is invaluable here. Also you could cut a sentence sized gap in a blank page and place it over your text to check every sentence individually, with the rest of the text blanked out. This may sound painstaking but it is a very good focusing tool.
Many emerging writers are concerned about grammar, unsure of their own knowledge and application. I’ve been an English (as a foreign language) teacher for fifteen years and can recommend the following grammar self-study book (known in the TEFL world as ‘the grammar bible’): Raymond Murphy Grammar in Use. You’ll be able to pick up a cheap copy on Amazon. Spend a night or two doing the exercises, it’ll stand to you.
Also, I could wax lyrical about whether to use double or single quotes for dialogue (or to use any at all) and the difference between US and UK conventions regarding the same. However, I think the best is for you to take ten novels down from your shelf and see how the majority of them format dialogue and then apply the same convention to your work. Whichever you choose, ensure it is then consistent throughout your text.
Finally, here are some of the most common problems:
****Are you using the right “Its”?
“It’s” (with an apostrophe) is short for “it is”.
“Its” (no apostrophe) is possessive (ie: the dog lost its bone).
NOTE: somewhat confusingly, when you want to use the possessive elsewhere, you do use an apostrophe: “Mary’s coat”, “John’s golf club”, “the dog’s bone.”
****Same sound, different spelling (homophones).
“They’re”, “Their” and “There”.
They’re (they are) sitting the car. They’re listening to their (possessive) music, they’ll be fine there (preposition of place) for a while yet.
****Using “done” instead of “did” and vice versa.
“Done” is the past participle of “do” and is normally used with the auxiliary verb “have”. “Did” is the past simple of “do”.
(And if you have no idea what any of that means, you really do need to order that book).
So, you say either “I have done my homework” or “I did my homework” – and never “I done my homework,” or “he done his homework.”
****Saying “could of” rather than “could have” when using the second conditional tense or “could” as a modal verb in the perfect tense (yeah, see that grammar book).
“He could of gone to the shop,” is wrong.
“He could have gone to the shop,” is correct.
And please accept sincerest apologies for sending any of you off into a coma of boredom with this grammary post – believe me, it hurt me more than it hurt you.
The Importance of Editing
‘Murder’ or ‘Kill your darlings’ is an adage attibuted to the literary critic Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, advising writers to cut the words / phrases to which they are most attached, in order to strenghten the work. It is good advice when editing, as often we writers shoehorn in a delicious description which doesn’t do an enromous amount for the piece as a whole. It is simply a bauble. Time to get the gun out.
Editing makes the job of writer a rather schizophrenic affair where one has to don two very different caps. The first cap is that of the creative free thinker who is focused on the big picture and is not too worried about the details. This is the person who comes up with the story, the theme, the basic structure, the person who invents characters and decides on the tone. This artist-writer will draw up the first draft of the story, writing only to please themselves. Finishing a draft wearing this cap is only some of the journey, however…
Next comes the cap of editor-writer. This is when the writer combs through the text, ruthlessly chopping, restructuring and cutting unnecessary/ unsuitable words, characters, scenes, phrases etc… or ‘murdering your darlings’. This is the writer preparing the text for other people. It is a good idea to leave a few weeks between your artist and editor incarnations.
Editing can be painful, and time-consuming. You’ve quite likely become attached to some characters, scenes, words and phrases and are loathe to see them go. Don’t worry, you can store them in your “writer’s bag” for use at a future time in a more suitable context. In the meantime, get pruning…
Chopping advice:
Cut all surplus adjectives and adverbs.
Examine the phrases you’ve shoehorned in just because you liked the sound of them – do they really fit that scene? Be honest. If not, bin them.
Take out all vague words such as “seem/seemingly” and try to do without your “justs”.
Look at all sentences that run for two or three lines. Do they really need to be that long? Can you reduce them or break them up? If you can, do so.
Active forms are better than passive forms, where possible (ie. “John cleaned the flat” rather than, “the flat was cleaned by John”).
Finally, every writer on Earth needs a reader or two – fresh eyeballs to run over your work and give you honest feedback. I suggest using three friends whom you trust will be frank with you. You don’t have to take everything they say on board. Do consider what they say, however, and if all three come back and say a character is not working. The character is not working. Rewrite.
Yay! My story ‘A Name in a Cave’ to be published in Duality 6 Anthology… A sweet way to wrap November.
Watch this space for more info… (and please excuse the boast post!)
Don't tell me, show me!
Telling: “Close the door,” she said nervously.
Showing: Her cigarette trembled in her hand: “Close the door.”
Telling: Peter was a fussy, neat sort of man.
Showing: Every Monday, Peter ironed and folded his towels into perfect squares and stacked them in the airing press, according to size and colour.
“Showing” your reader what your protagonist is thinking/doing, encourages your reader to engage more with your book/story/play, to interpret and picture what is going on. Showing also allows for more atmosphere and lends insight into character. Conversely, “telling” tends to deliver all the information neatly wrapped and can deny the reader all the fun of involvement and imagining.
Therefore, rather than telling the reader, ‘Bob was depressed,’ you might describe what Bob was doing and saying and the reader will also get a greater sense of ‘Bob’ if you do so.
Having said that, if the writer “shows” every inch of their novel it may bore the reader and slow the pace. There are times, for the sake of speed and economy, the writer needs to “tell”, so they can quickly move on to the next stage of the story.
If I could suggest a rule of thumb, it would be “show” the most important parts/events of the story and “tell” the minor linking passages. It’s your judgement call as to when and where to show or tell, but do give it thought.
Finally, please bear in mind the general consensus is that you always avoid telling via adverbs in speech attribution: “he said arrogantly”, “she shouted defiantly”, “we mumbled apologetically”. Instead, try to think of ways you could show this arrogance, defiance or apology.
It was the day John went to work in his boxer shorts.
The third person (he/she/it) is the most common narrative point-of-view. The third person observes the main character(s) from a distance, describing how others might see/consider your protagonist. In other words, it gives the narrator greater scope and view privileges than the first person narrator.
If you are writing an extended piece of fiction, you might find it easier and more accommodating to work with a third person narrator. The following are some varieties of this narrative point-of-view
* Nowadays, it is common to have a third person narrator that observes your main character whilst simultaneously looking over his/her shoulder and seeing the story almost from his/her point of view. This ‘over-the-shoulder’ third person narrator can provide some of the advantages of the first person without the drawbacks – however, it is somewhat limited as you are largely viewing events from your character’s POV. For emerging writers, this third person narrative may be a safer bet if wanting to attract an agent.
* You may want your narrator to be quite separate from your character, however. In which case, you could have your narrator follow him/her from a distance, observing actions as if a camera and not directly informing the reader of the character’s inner thoughts.
* Or you could have an omniscient third person narrator – a ‘God-like’ storyteller who sees all and knows all.
The “It” narrative
This is an unusual form of third person narration that tells a tale from the point of view of an object or an animal. An “it” narrative might conceivably be the story of a ring, told by the ring, as it recounts its many owners etc…
Multi narrators
Some books/plays/films are narratives told from various POVs. More common in Victorian prose than in contemporary writing, multi narrators allow for a vigorous description of a community and is useful if the author wants to concentrate on the interconnectivity of a place.
Whichever variety you choose, it is important to be style consistent throughout your work (or if you aren’t, have a reason for that).
Once you’ve found your character, the next decision you’ll make regards narrative point-of-view.
Think of your favourite novels. Do you favour 1st person (“I”) or 3rd person (“he/she/it”) books? Chances are, you’ll write more comfortably using the type of narrative point-of-view you prefer to read. 
Me at eighteen – seeing the world through her eyes…
If you chose the “I” narrative, or first person, your tale will be viewed through the eyes of one of your characters and events will be expressed in that character’s language and should reflect this character’s perceptions and opinions.
The first person can be very intimate and often allows access to the protagonist’s innermost thoughts, which is a helpful method of hooking the reader. On the negative side, all that “I, me, my” can be akin to listening to a monologue – and may bore the reader, if you’re not careful. Additionally, you are limited as to what you can tell the reader, as you can only “know” what your narrating character “knows”. Finally, littering the page with “I”s – neither looks nor “sounds” appealing. For the above reasons, the first person is often more suited to short stories rather than novels.
Having said that, there are wonderful first person novels out there and if you are determined to use a first person narrator, you really ought to read great examples of this narrative point-of-view to get a good ha
ndle on it: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway.
Also, a first person narrator could be a minor character observing a major character, which may remedy some of the pitfalls outlined above. Examples of this type of narrative include Sherlock Holmes and Wuthering Heights.
The Unreliable First Person Narrator My personal favourite first person narrator is the unreliable variety. It has great comic/tragic potential. With an unreliable narrator, the story is told by a character that doesn’t really “get” what is going on. The reader guesses the true state of affairs, however, and the narrator becomes the butt of the joke. An unreliable narrator is often a child or a naïve or foolish person who does fully comprehend how the world works (think Forrest Gump). The resulting book/play/short story can be quite funny and/or very moving. See the following examples: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon Good Behaviour by Molly Keane Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding
It was a dark and stormy night...
“Pathetic fallacy” is the posh academic term that refers to the technique of ascribing human emotions to inanimate objects, usually to reflect a character’s mood. For example, say your protagonist falls in love; you might describe flowers laughing and trees waving their branches gleefully. Or perhaps there’s been a loss, and suddenly the landscape looks bleak and there’s rain and clouds a-brewin.
“Pathetic fallacy” was very popular with the Victorian novelists – I always think of Thomas Hardy when asked to give an example. Therein, however, lies the problem – “pathetic fallacy” is a little out of fashion nowadays. This demise is partly due to the modern attention span. If you’ve ever read novels by the Brontes, Dickens, Elliot or Hardy – you’ll know all about lengthy landscape description and frankly, how dull it can be for modern readers. If you absolutely need to say how each field in the valley looked, then spread your descriptions out over the course of your work. Above all, as Elmore Leonard wrote, “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.”
Another reason “pathetic fallacy” is no longer de rigueur in the literary world, is that it can seem a tad cliché. For example, if your protag is heading home to see his wife and there’s a storm, and they fight… yawn. Your foreshadowing’s is derivative, predictable and boring.
Still, “pathetic fallacy” has its place in the literary toolbox. It can provide emphasis for mood. I suggest using it sparingly, with caution and avoid storm/argument, rain/depression, sunny days/falling-in-love clichés.
Personally, I like to turn PF on its head and have my character see beauty in rain or trouble in sunshine or make a storm a symbol of peace. In short, my advice would be to use PF by all means, but when you do, surprise your reader.
Oh, and whatever you do, never open with a “pathetic fallacy” weather report. That’s the biggest cliché in the cliché box. I mean, it’s just pathetic : )
Are you here?
A literary setting refers to the landscape and the people/characters that fill it.
The setting is the signature of many a writer: Stieg Larsson and Sweden (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Annie Rice and New Orleans (Interview with a Vampire), John le Carre, the world of spies.
Writing what you know
It is often said you should “write what you know”. A sensible approach, especially for the new writer. By placing your characters in scenes and situations with which you are familiar, you are more likely to invest a sense of realism in the story. Also, practically speaking, writing about familiar territory will save on research you might otherwise have to do on a subject/setting.
Some writers resist writing what they know as they feel their own environments are not “glamorous” or “extraordinary” enough to merit such attention. This is nonsense. Whatever you do and whoever you are, your life will seem exotic to someone else. The fact that you grew up on a council estate/project developent in Bolton/Kalamazoo is interesting to someone living on a farm in Siberia. Remember, the life of an immigrant taxi-driver would quite likely fascinate the Queen of England.
Also, you don’t necessarily have to set your story in your street or your workplace. Think of your Saturday morning football team, your chool, the nightclubs you frequent, a hospital you’ve spent time in or a prison. All are equally valuable settings for a short story, novel, play, film script or even poem or song. Your environment is your gold, mine it.
But I don’t want to write about my environment…
That’s fine too. There is also case for “writing what you don’t know”. Fantasy writers, for example, are (usually) not elves living in Middle Earth. Historical fiction writers have not lived in Tudor England. Yet, Fantasy/SciFi/Historical novels are written and enjoyed every year. For Fantasy/SciFi you need a familiarity with the genre and a vivid imagination. For historical fiction you need to like research. For all the above you’ll require the ability to convincingly create an unfamiliar world.
Bear in mind, however, that while a Fantasy writer won’t get complaints from angry elves about his misinformed stereotypes. A novelist who sets a story in a modern French monastery, and knows nothing about France or monks – is asking for trouble. Firstly, their prose may be riddled with (skewed) perceptions of France and the French, monks/Catholicism/wine-making etc… And not only is there danger of rehashing clichés, their writing might lack the detailed realism a reader finds so reassuring and intriguing.
So, if you want to write about banditos in the mountains of Sardinia, and you can’t go and live there for a year – then research, research, research. Read as much as you can on the topic, as well as any other fiction that has used the same environment as a setting.
Or here?
suehealy 