Holiday Writing Competition – Winners Announced!

Thank you to the hundreds of writers who entered the Holiday writing competition.

The standard of the work was amazing and everyone who entered should be congratulated.

Everyone who entered will receive a certificate and these will be forwarded to you within the next few days.

There were so many great stories that judging was very difficult. I wanted to give as many writers as possible the chance to be published, so 27 stories have been selected for the anthology.

If your story wasn’t selected, please don’t be disheartened. It doesn’t mean your story wasn’t great, it’s just that I couldn’t include everybody’s work in the anthology.

When selecting the winners, I tried to include a variety of different kinds of stories from boys and girls across different age groups and from different parts of the world.

Stories were also selected on originality of ideas. So your story might have been fantastic, but it might not have been selected because there was a story that was a lot like it or because it might have been based on characters that had already been created by someone else.

There was such a great variety.

Taking the time to write a story and enter it in a competition like this is a fantastic achievement.

EVERYONE who entered the competition will receive a certificate.

TEACHERS

If you are encouraging students to enter the competition, please ensure they follow the guidelines, and that you provide all necessary information including ages of your students.

This is essential because age is a factor that is taken into account during the judging process as expectations are different for a 7 year-old students work as opposed to a 17 year-old.

WRITING TIPS

Unfortunately, I can’t give individual feedback on your stories, but some things to look out for in your writing:

1.  Editing. Make sure you have read your story over and over again and revised it so it’s the best it can be. You might like to get others to read your story and make suggestions before you send it in. You don’t have to agree with everyone’s suggestions, but getting someone else to read your work will help you to understand where the writing needs to be clearer to get your meaning across.

2.  Read your story out loud. This will help you pick up where you have accidentally left words or letters out or the words are in the wrong order or you have accidentally written the wrong word. Reading your story out loud will pick these things up and ensure that your story is the best it can be.

3. Try to keep your tenses consistent. Decide whether your story has already happened (past tense), is happening right now (present tense) or will happen in the future (future tense).

4.  Instead of telling the reader what happened, try to show them what happened. Here’s what I mean:

Telling:  He fell of his horse and broke his arm.

Showing:  The horse bucked and tossed its head. He gripped harder with his knees but he couldn’t hang on. He grasped desperately at the saddle as he felt himself slipping. Thud! He hit the ground, his arm twisted under him.

5.  Use specific descriptions. For example, instead of saying that the tree looked interesting, show the reader why it was interesting.  “The bark on the tree was thorny like the skin of a crocodile. It was sharp to touch and it smelled like peppermint.”  See how this description gives the reader a much clearer picture in their mind of what the tree is really like.

6. Use strong verbs. For example, instead of saying that the horse ‘ran quickly’, say that it ‘galloped’.

7.  Confusion with ‘their, there and they’re’. Their means, it belongs to them For example, ‘their dog, their house’. They’re is short for they are. There refers to a place or time. For example, ‘ My dog is over there in his kennel’.

8. Paragraphs

If you skip to a new topic, time or place, start a new paragraph. When a new person is talking always start that piece of speech on a new line. If you read a paragraph and it sounds too complicated, you might want to try and break it up into a few paragraphs to make it clearer for the reader.

I hope you find these tips helpful.

THE WINNERS

Congratulations to the following writers whose stories have been selected for publication in the Holiday anthology:

MR BADGER’S HOLIDAY SCARE – by Sasha Borman – aged 7

SISTERS ON A HOLIDAY ADVENTURE – by Pranuthi Emani – aged 8

LUCY’S DREAM HOLIDAY – by Snigdha Gannavarapu – aged 8

JOURNEY FROM PARIS – by Zoe London – aged 8

WHY THE WILLOWS SANG – by Minethra Epa – aged 9

JACK’S HOLIDAY IN PARIS – by Emily Henley – aged 9

A MEMORABLE HOLIDAY – by Sarah Khawaja – aged 9

MY HOLIDAY TO SEA WORLD – by Saffron Maitland – aged 9

TREASURE HUNTER – by Clara Cho – aged 10THE P

BUFF’S HOLIDAY – by Jessica Foreman – aged 10

TIME TRAVELATOR – MY EGYPTIAN HOLIDAY ADVENTURE – by Tvish Iyer – aged 10

THE PETTING ZOO – by Jack Zhouand – aged 10

WE ARE ONE! by Dinethra Epa – aged 11

FIRST SNOW – by Camille F – aged 11

HOLIDAY IN AN UNKNOWN LAND – by Diya Goel – aged 11

MY HOLIDAY SPY CAMP – by Tami McCosker – aged 11

HOLIDAY FROM HELL – by Jessica Watson aged 11

OPPOSITE HOLIDAY – by Sarah Chuang – aged 12

THE POACHER – by Anna Daniel – aged 12

A CHILLY NEW YEAR – by Brooke McLean – aged 12

I WAS ONLY 13 – by Olivia Johnson – aged 11

TWIN OR CLONE – by Purvi Malviya – aged 13

LE VOYAGE – by Eva Cotsell – aged 14

NIGHTMARE HOLIDAY – by Emily Jones – aged 14

EID SAMOSAS – by Fatima – Abu Bakr – aged 15

TAKING CHANCES – by Amy Kong – aged 15

SOME HOLIDAY – by Maryam Lahham – aged 15

HOLIDAY? NEVER HEARD OF IT – by Mary Abigail Cloninger – aged 16