My apologies if you have never heard the classic Queen song, recorded for the cheesy 80’s classic film Flash Gordan. The title of this blog post probably makes no sense.
Here’s a link to the YouTube clip, Flash – Queen. No need to thank me.
I have recently decided that I don’t have enough on my literary plate, what, with doing two courses, writing the final installment of my trilogy and being DETERMINED to win the Impress Prize for New Writers this year (Oh, I haven’t mentioned that yet? I’ll do a whole other blog post on it soon.)
No, I decided, that I had that spare ten minutes between cleaning my teeth and babysitting my nieces to create something beautiful to enter into Short Story Competitions. I thought, very wrongly, that because I can write a full length novel, then a short story was going to be a breeze. Ten minutes tops and I’ll pump out something brilliant, and win myself some chocolate money. So very, very wrong. And here is why!
There are literally hundreds of writing competitions occurring every year, both in Australia and overseas. I had to get a diary purely to keep track of all the different competitions, their entry prices, prize money and word count. That leads me into my second point….
The word count! I find that the term “Short Story Competition” tends to be a bit of a misnomer. Most competitions want what is known as FLASH FICTION, a 1000 words or less. Let me tell you, 1000 words is not a lot of room to work with, especially if you have to fit in the standard three act structure that most literature follows these days, (orientation, rising tension and climax, resolution.) Gone were the rambling sentences which allowed me to really sink my teeth into the character’s voice. There are no superfluous words in flash fiction. Every single word matters, even the title. It is definitely an art form, writing good flash fiction. And it is all too easy to write bad flash fiction. The most famous flash fiction piece would have to be by Hemingway. It’s just six words. “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
Damn you Hemingway.
As if that isn’t bad enough, most competitions have themes. I’m unsure if this makes the process easier or more difficult. I’m leaning towards more difficult. It’s hard enough to write a 1000 word story, without having to make sure that it doesn’t wander away from a preordained theme.
Another inhibiting factor to my short story competition success, is the entry fees. Some are reasonable. $5 or $6 dollars to enter a competition to win $500, totally worth it. $20 to enter to win $200 is a bit of a rort, even if they do rely on the entry money to keep the organisation afloat. There’s charitable giving and there’s price gouging, in my opinion. On the other hand, some are free, which is fantastic.
A fellow writer likened entering short story competitions to “word gambling” or the far more catchy “Texas Word’em”. Indeed some of them are like that. For instance, take the new site Hour of Writes (hourofwrites.com). I like the concept, a peer reviewed writing competition, where you buy credits on the site to “enter” the weekly competitions, write for one specified hour on site. The winner, whose work is marked by their peers, and then selected by the Hour of Writes judges, is given the “pot” prize at the end of the night, which depends on how many entrants there were in the competition. My friend was right, it does sound a lot like a game of poker. I am still up in the air if I am going to register for this site. I’ll let you guys know.
However, all that aside, winning a legitimate competition would help give my work some credence, and put some dollars in my pocket. But I intend to pick and choose my battles, so I don’t end up stressed out, overworked, and even more impoverished than before.
Do you have a favourite short story or flash fiction? I’d love to know.
Until next time,
M x
Madeline Young Writes 