Thanks and congratulations to everyone who entered our 3rd Quarter Fact in Fiction Writing Competition.
Once again we had a large number of very high standard entries in this competition so please don’t be disheartened if you didn’t win a prize.
Entries that stood out were those with strong characters and voices where there was a piece of action or something to hook the reader in straight away.
Cancer was a subject that featured strongly in many works. If yours was a cancer story or you have written one on this theme, you might consider entering it in the annual Daffodil Day writing competition run by The Cancer Council.
There were some very powerful stories with strong themes and great writing and this made judging difficult but enjoyable.
TIPS FOR FUTURE COMPETITIONS
These are based on some of the things that prevented stories in this competition from being the best they could be.
- Stories must always be submitted according to submission guidelines stated. This means them must be the stated length of 500 words and they must be set out correctly. “Double spaced” refers to the gap between the lines of text. If you select “Paragraph” from your “Format” menu, it should give you the option of choosing “line spacing”. Select “double”.
- Be consistent with the tense you are writing the story in…don’t change from past to present and back again.
- Always check your punctuation and spelling before submitting your entry. Read your story out aloud and this will help you pick up places where words have been accidentally missed out or the story doesn’t make sense.
- Too much telling and not showing. Don’t talk about what your characters said. Show them talking with dialogue. Don’t tell the reader about the things that have happened to a character, show them happening. This will involve the reader more in your story.
- Check your story for tension and conflict. These are the things that will keep your reader reading to find out what happens next.
- You don’t have much time to hook your reader so get to the action as soon as possible.
I hope you find these hints helpful for future writing.
If you want to enter future competitions of any kind please check the submissions guidelines. Judges may mark you down if your manuscript isn’t formatted correctly.
Congratulations to all the worthy winners and to every one who wrote a story and had the courage to enter it.
Dee:)
COMPETITION RESULTS
Age 8-12
PLACE | NAME | STORY |
1st Place | Emily Ryan | Sky Star |
Highly Commended | Caitlin Casady | The Mesa |
Highly Commended | Kathleen Cuppen | Breast Cancer |
Highly Commended | Lorna Armstrong | That Day |
Highly Commended | Stella Elgood Field | The Raid |
Highly Commended | Eliza Fletcher-Hobbs | Bound for Botany Bay |
Highly Commended | Salina Poletta | In Icy Waters |
Highly Commended | Gemma Boase-Bowden | Smash |
Highly Commended | Frank Cooper | The Sunday Disaster |
Commended | Erin Mckelvie | The Rail to Safety |
Commended | Dominic Beaudequin | Inside the Eureka Stockade |
Commended | Bryce Thomson | Beck Granger |
Commended | Olivia Tollardo | Love and Death |
Commended | Savannah W Havemann | Eric the Red |
Commended | Matthew Dimotakis | Rilamba |
Commended | Nicholas Dimotakis | Scar |
Commended | Olivia Black | Crazy Adventure |
Commended | Annie Quartermaine | Crocodillus |
Commended | Lauren Tinkler | Halfway Down the Banister |
Commended | Josie Cooper | An Excerpt from Hugo |
Commended | Indiana Harris | Wonders in a Forest |
Teen Category
PLACE | NAME | STORY |
1st Place | Melodie Liu | A Temporary Affliction |
Highly Commended | Kim Rance | Connected by blood |
Highly Commended | Julie McNamee | The Sun Will Shine Again |
Highly Commended | Phoebe. O. Morakinyo | Black Cats |
Commended | Mikaela Hannen-Woolf | Dolphin Song |
Commended | Reena Mukherjee | Violet Miller, The Cook Of The Court |
Commended | Devindi Gunarathne | Let it be |
Adult Category
PLACE | NAME | STORY |
1st Place | Jo-Ann Spataro | The Car that Ate Vegetables |
Highly Commended | Dimity Powell | Undead Ed |
Highly Commended | Melissa Wray | Cheese Ball Challenge |
Commended | Patricia Simmons | Mona the China Elephant |
Thanks again for entering our competition. All prize winners certificates will be sent out this week and book winners should receive their prizes shortly.
First place winner in the children’s and teen categories also receive a five-page manuscript assessment. Our adult winner receives a ten-page assessment. Please email your five pages, double-spaced in 12 point font with 3cm margins all round to dee@deescribe.com.au
Details of our NEW COMPETITION will also be advised soon.
Happy writing:)
Dee