There’s nothing quite like the thrill of being short listed, placed or winning a poetry or short story writing contest yet many writers quickly become discouraged by the lack of success which greets most of their efforts.
The truth is, no matter how good your imagination or your grasp of language, there is an art to winning writing contests of which many writers remain totally unaware.
Fortunately, the skill to get your work, at least on the judge’s short list isn’t difficult to acquire. Mostly you just need to use a little common sense and be prepared to do some research.
Research? Aren’t we talking fiction and the muse? Well yes, but if you really want to win a good short story writing contest offering a decent cash prize or a poetry competition you really need to give your work some depth and verisimilitude by furnishing it with a believable plot and credible characters.
This is even more vital if you are venturing into the realm of fantasy or the ever popular ghost story. These types of stories have the potential to really stretch the imagination and take the reader to places where they really wouldn’t like to go in real life. The opportunity to experience voyeuristically between the relative safety of the pages is another matter entirely!
Unfortunately, few stories of this type live up to expectations with many authors trotting out the same old diet of blood, gore and weird beasties with hairy antennae and six eyes sporting names such as Zygog and Phlybub!
So what’s to be done? It’s back to research! Read the winning entries and the judges reports on the types of writing contests you wish to enter and analyse what makes them work for you and what caught the judge’s eye.
You can start with the Xmas Chillers ghost story contest. This has been running for several years and the top three from previous year’s winners list are always posted on the contest site.
last time, i joined a writing contests on the internet and i won a small price for writing a nice piece of writing –’