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UNREAL WRITING COMPETITION – WINNERS ANNOUNCED

UNREAL COMPETITION – JUDGES REPORT

I’ve had a fantastic response to the ‘Unreal’ Writing Competition with around 600 entries received.

It was so inspiring to see so much enthusiasm and great work from young writers.

I came across some very strong writing voices, and there were some great characters and story ideas.

Some people submitted a whole story, some submitted part of a story and some submitted the first part of a novel. I received a lot of science fiction and space travel stories this time.

We had entries from China, Singapore, India, UK, USA, Turkey, Ukraine, The Maldives, Japan, New Zealand, Greece and Australia.

It’s always hard for writers to find the balance between giving reader too much information and not enough. And this is something that some writers can work on with their stories. Try to show action rather than have a character talking about what happened.  Also, you need to give the reader enough information so that they know what is going on in your story.

STORY LENGTH – DON’T GO OVER WORD LIMITS

Some stories didn’t score as well as they might have because they didn’t stick to the word limit.  The word limit for this competition was 500 words, but some entries were more than twice that length. It’s okay to go a few words over the word limit, but you need to try and stick to it as closely as you can. If your story is too long, look for words that don’t need to be there.

I accepted all stories, even those that were too long, but some judges and publishers won’t even read your story if it exceeds the word limit.

FORMATTING

There were a lot of problems with formatting. Again, some publishers and competitions will reject your submissions if they are not formatted correctly – so this is a really good skill to practice.

Always follow competition guidelines.

THE WINNERS

With so many high quality entries, judging was very difficult. The winners I selected had great stories and characters, and action and tension that made me want to keep reading.

Congratulations to all our worthy winners.

First Place winners will all receive a free online writing course of their choice.

The courses have six sessions for you to read and complete, and you will receive individual feedback on your work. You can find out more about them here: http://writingclassesforkids.com/products/writing-classes/

CERTIFICATES

Certificates have been awarded for Highly Commended, Commended and Great Participation.

Unfortunately, due to the huge number of entries I’m unable to provide personalised certificates but there is room on the certificate for you to insert your name. Certificates will be emailed to you over the next week.

Our First Place winners were:

AGE CATEGORY NAME OF WRITER NAME OF STORY
8-10 year olds Gemma Lovewell Why Ants Invade Houses
11-12 year olds Taylor Bird The World of Bouncyrinas
teen writers Samuel Chang Leeches and Sheers

The Short List

There were around 600 entries across the three age groups.

I chose the winners from a very impressive shortlist of contestants.

Shortlisted Writers  8-10 years

WRITER STORY NAME
Alexandra Champion Ice Cream Indecision
Asli Aydin The World of Fabricated Children
Bella Edwards The One Who Did Not Die
Ella Litt Magic Powers
Esther Choi The Mysterious Forest
Gemma Lovewell Why Ants Invade Houses
Harper Barton The Octopuses Adventure
Hugo Xiao The Lost Kingdom
Kellen South The Loss of Gravity
Lynnette Kim The Spider and Me
Saanvi Venkataraman Kheera and the Hermit
Serena Li The Other Night I Saw A Dragon

Shortlisted Writers 11-12 years

WRITER STORY NAME
Alex Kovacs Apocalypse
Althea Lampaya Friendly Moustache
Angela Dong Masked
April Hill Seeing Dead
Beth Lim To Call A Rose
Caitlin Tan The Snowglobe
Ceri Jones Secrets
David Wilkie Illusion
Deniz Yilmaz Hope
Elizabeth Parker Mary’s Curse
Emma Johnson The Day it Happened
Eva Cotsell Queen at 16
Finley Holt The Dragon
Grace Chae The President’s Daughter
Junu Choi Antarctic Journey
Keaton Smith Refuge
Laura Jones Caught
Lina Cho Her
Maeve O’Neill Extra ordinary not Extraordinary
Molly Glowacki The Mission Contest
Melissa Li The Red Post Box
Mollie Sandilands Warped
Nayun Eom Let it Be
Nithin Bala The Man
Poppy Hawkins Nymphie
Sage Monney The Serpent’s Fang
Tamarangi Keerthipala That Breath
Taylor Bird The World of Bouncyrinas
Tilly Munro Lawrence Cold Steps
Veon Chan Something Strange in Creaksville

 Shortlisted Teen Writers

WRITER STORY NAME
Haruna Otake “The Mysterious Skill”
Kazuki Hayashi “Strange Day”
Alexis Navarroza A Tread in the Shadows
Amanda Gonzalez Tree of Life
Andre Ferreira Blue, Grey and the End
Ashley White Dear Diary
Deborah Jeong Untold Story
Ella Chochrek, Otherworldly Creatures
Ella Shields The New Home Planet
Erin Harvey Reality Once More
Fiona O’hagan The Monster
Genevieve Schloesser A Hero’s Musing
Gillian Goh The Underground
Jahanara Rajwani; Adalhard
Isabella Stines A Dance of Death
Jaime Roy Adrenaline
Katie O’Malley Beneath the Blood
Lauren Cook Tick Tock Goes the Clock
Lily Bao One Cold Night
Molly Wancewicz, To See Saturn
Niar Chased through the night
Ravneet Sandhu The Crimson Succubi
Samuel Chang Leeches and Sheers
Sheridan Burdon The Innocent Prey
Supriya Tyagi Sharma Not Your Average Fairy Tale
Tasha Nazrul The Rainbow Road to Candyland

This was the final competition for 2013.  I will be running a new competition in May/June of next year so keep watching this blog for more information.

Thanks to everyone who entered this competition.

Keep writing:) I look forward to reading more of your stories.

Dee

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WRITING COMPETITION FOR ADULTS

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