So what makes a good short story?
Writing is truly a global pastime and we are beginning to see that as our competition develops.
In addition to entries from the UK, Australia and New Zealand, I have also been contacted by writers from as far afield as India and the United States, all expressing interest in what we are doing.
That is very gratifying and next month we will be able to announce our first winner of the £100 prize. We are looking forward to that moment
What has been a strong theme in the entries so far is that writers are clearly excited by the power of their stories, by a desire to tell tales.
I believe that, to make a story work, you need three things. For a start, you need a good strong story, one that will sustain the narrative without losing the reader’s interest.
Then you need a strong sense of being, characters that are real and take over your story. If you are writing well, those characters should be speaking to you, writing their own dialogue, twisting your plot their way.
Then there is the third corner of the triangle, a sense of place. Your reader needs to know where the story is happening, to feel you take them by the hand and walk them into your world.
Once you have got those corners in place, everything else flows from them - narrative, drama, pace, tension, depth and the like.
Happy writing!
John Dean