Questions

I tend to punctuate poems. In the rare ***?mes when I leave a poem unpunctuated, I feel ***? if I have illegally passed a stop sign. What’s your take on this?
WARNING: DO NOT ACCESS THAT WEBSITE. IT IS VIRAL.
It was taken off the board. Beware of gray ghosts and unfamiliar websites.
- Elaine P…is for Poetry

At the end of our second short story competition, I put together these guidelines based on comments from our readers and administrators about what makes them want to recommend - or throw out - a competition entry. Some of these points may seems obvious but it really is worth checking your entry to see how it measures up.

Practical Things

Read the competition rules before you start, when you finish, and once more as you prepare to send in your entry. Keep a competition check-list, and as you parcel up your precious work refer to the list at every move - format, word-count, required cover-sheet information, closing date, fee, who is the cheque to be made out to? Please do this - we all make a lot more administration errors than we ever know about. Why waste the hours you have put into your work by sending it to the wrong address, misdirecting the cheque or missing the closing date? And don’t expect the readers to make an exception for you because your story is so good - if the entry breaches the rules, it will probably be sidelined by an administrator before it gets to the readers so your brilliance won’t be discovered.

Don’t trust your computer’s spelling and grammar check. We’ve all heard those hilarious stories - ‘I mis-spelled Gabriel and my computer corrected it to Garfield’, ‘it’s turned burglar into bugger,’ etc. It will give the readers a laugh but not a big enough laugh for your story to win the competition. And if you don’t know how to handle punctuation and capitalization, find out. If you let the computer do it for you, it won’t do it well enough. Readers might take on a story that needs correction but it has to be exceptionally good for them to make those kind of allowances. Why set extra obstacles to your progress?

Don’t use fancy fonts, complicated formats or great new gizmos you’ve just downloaded. Whether you are sending paper or e-copy, the easiest format for most people to handle is a Word document (the file tag should be .doc or .rtf) on standard A4 paper with automatic (not hard) returns at line-ends. Anything else makes extra work and risks annoying (or at worst defeating) the competition administrators.

Creative and Style Points

Look long and hard at your title and first paragraph. Readers have a huge pile of work to consider and although they try to look at each one with equal enthusiasm, it’s hard to stay fresh. All our readers speak with delight of those moments when they start a new story and the opening startles them awake. It’s neat, smooth and original, it entices them to read on…. Is your opening that special?

Now look at the ending. It might be happy, it might be tragic or it might point to untold events in an imagined future but it must leave an impression. Don’t let the story just tail off - the reader will get to the end and instantly forget it.

Try to avoid telling the reader too much. Find a way of getting characters and events to unfold your ideas for you. It is much more fun for readers if you lay a path for them to make their own discoveries. Remember that old line from schooldays - don’t tell me, show me.

Introduce a question in the reader’s mind as soon as you can. It doesn’t have to be as obvious as the ‘whodunit’ of a murder mystery but there must be something to suggest that the reader will discover a treasure if they read on.

Read the direct speech of your characters aloud. Ask yourself if those people would really talk like that. Many stories are rejected because the writer has forced the characters to spool out information in an unnatural way. Make sure you have set out the dialogue in a logical and consistent way. For example, if you start out using double quotes for speech and italics for thought, keep it like that. Changing half way confuses the reader and infuriates the typesetter.

Ask yourself what is unique about your story. If there is nothing in the plot, the characters, the setting or the language itself that you believe is new, you can bet there won’t be anything the judges haven’t seen 50 times over.

If your word-count is near the maximum for the competition, look for opportunities to edit. Where two stories are being compared, the shorter, more tightly edited one is likely to be chosen.

Make sure you know why you are writing the story. It may not have a plot but it must have a point. If you know the point, it will be easier to see where you have wandered off the track. Cut irrelevant paragraphs and keep it clean and focused.

Avoid bashing on about the big topic of the moment unless you really have something new to say or an unusual angle on the topic.

Finally, don’t send work that doesn’t impress you. When you’ve finished your story, put it away for a few weeks then get it out and pretend you’ve never seen it before. Read it because you want to enjoy a good read. If you don’t enjoy it, the judges probably won’t. Be really honest with yourself about this. When you read your work you will either get a sinking feeling and start praying for blind luck (you aren’t going to win) or you will get excited butterflies, thinking this really is a special piece of work (you may well be going to win). If you get the sinking feeling, do yourself a favour. Ask yourself - and your best friends if they are honest - do you lack confidence in yourself or do you have doubts because there are faults in the work? If you suspect it is the latter, do take the time to re-think and re-write. When that cheque and/or that offer of publication come your way, you will be so glad you did.

Now, write that winning story and send it in.

Why not send your next entry to us at Earlyworks Press? We usually have poetry and short fiction competitions running and we set occasional specialist genre competitions and web-based challenges. We are story addicts and we are looking forward to a good read!


- Kay Green

One day you wake up and announce to the world that you would like to write a novel. Pardon the pun, but that is a novel idea. At some point in time that is what everyone dreams about. Let’s face it; we all have a story to tell, don’t we?

In reality though, how does it all really come about?

For me, the writing itself is relatively easy. The sentence structure; the punctuation; the correct spelling are all general tools that don’t cause much of a problem for me. And I assume that is true for a lot of other writers.

In my opinion the challenging part of writing is dreaming up the topic. It takes much thought to come up with a story line and develop a plot. Creating scenes is a taxing exercise of the mind. Putting the actions in a readable sequence is also tricky. The story must flow and force the reader to stay interested enough to turn the pages.

In my personal experience it may take anywhere from a few weeks to several months to figure out how I’m going to make a story work. Once I identify the subject matter that I want to write about a subconscious energy sort of kicks in. Even though I continue to live daily life, the inner thought process is constantly at work trying to figure out the details of the story.

One trick that I found was that exercise helps me to reach a state of relaxation that allows for my mind to reach an open phase. While jogging I have found that the demands on the respiratory system and muscle groups have allowed for me to reach a freedom from within.

Another valuable time of discovery is in the middle of the night or shortly after awakening in the morning. For some reason the mind is not clogged and burdened with the goings-on of everyday life. Still another mind-enlightening time is while I am driving down the interstate in my car. During those moments I have found that it is always a good idea to have a pen and pad of paper easily accessible to jot down ideas.

At any rate, as I mentioned earlier, the time that it takes to sort events out in my mind varies. One of the things that I love to do is create characters. I can actually see them and hear them. Once the scenes are figured out and put into the proper sequence, then I have the freedom to place my characters into the action and have them deliver the message of the story.

It is fun to create twists and turns as the story is delivered. It is enjoyable to place hard-to-attain hurdles in the path of a main character as he or she travels on their journey. It is pleasurable to exploit their weakness and make them vulnerable to the actions of the other characters. Most of the characters have some sort of a purpose. Even if it is merely wallpaper in the action of the story, they seem to fill out the scene is some way, shape, or form.

So, in a nutshell, even if you decide to sit down and write a novel, just remember that it takes a great deal of planning to actually decide how the story is to be told. It is so very important to have an orderly procession of events and actions that follow in a logical manner. Characters have the freedom to deliver the message. The trick is putting them in situations that allow for the message to be delivered in an entertaining and meaningful way.

Good luck! Writing is a fun exercise of the mind. You’ll find that it becomes a little easier if you do some sort of pre-planning before you start. After all, when you take a drive in your car it is always better to have a destination in mind. Otherwise you merely wander aimlessly.


- Jim Ross

Grammar writing software - There are now grammar writing software programs that can make your writing tasks much simpler. Grammar writing software can now instantly simplify all of your writing tasks. grammar writing software can make your life easier in many ways. grammar writing software can now instantly simplify all of your writing tasks. Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology enables grammar writing software to suggest better words and usages. This essentially means that your vocabulary is instantly expanded, as you have new words automatically fed to you.

Grammar writing software is the patent-pending solution which automatically works with all text based tools, easily correcting all grammatical, spelling, punctuation or any other writing errors.

Use it for: Essay Writing, Medical writing, Article Writing, Creative Writing, Email, Instant Messaging, Business Writing, Letter Writing, Social Media, Blogging, Legal writing and much, much more.

For people who must write a great deal, whether for school or work, grammar writing software can improve your image, get your message across more powerfully and get better results from those you are communicating with. English is actually not one of the easiest languages in the world, even for native speakers. Here are five ways it may be able to help you.

1. If you are in business and must send out correspondences, emails, reports and other information, you want your writing to be clear, correct and professional. This will enable people to better understand your communications. It will also improve your image as someone who writes well and clearly.

2. grammar writing software can help increase your creativity as a writer, as in addition to correcting mistakes, it also acts as a thesaurus and suggests different words, such as descriptive adverbs and adjectives. This makes your writing more interesting and versatile.

3. If English is not your first language but you have a need to communicate clearly in this language, this is the perfect solution for you. You can write down the basic ideas of what you need to say, while the software will read and correct your mistakes and suggest alternatives.

4. If you spend time rewriting or editing your reports or other correspondences, grammar writing software can save you a lot of time by automating these tedious tasks.

5. When you make mistakes in your writing and people notice it, it can have a negative effect in the way they think of you. If you are in business, trying to sell something, attempting to persuade someone of something, or even if you are just writing social emails, isn’t it better to be seen as someone who is well educated and can write well.

When you write letters or emails, you can do so faster and with more confidence, as grammar writing software will correct your mistakes and suggest better word usage, much like a thesaurus. If you have to do much writing, for any reason at all, grammar writing software can help you to communicate faster and more effectively.


- Jane Sumerset

“The best way to overcome writer’s block is to just keep writing.” You’ve probably heard this a zillion times but does this approach really work?

You’re waiting for me to say, ‘yes’, ain’t you? Well, let me surprise you by saying that I only believe 40% of that sentence. And I have 2 good reasons for it. Hear me out…

1. It’s too vague an advice

2. How can someone already with writer’s block continue writing?

Alright, you might be wondering what happen to the rest of the 60%. It took me quite a while to realize the true meaning behind the sentence and I’m about to share my revelation with you so read on…

Base on my experience, writer’s block happens most of the time when I stop and read my article over and over again.

The trouble with it is the more I read my uncompleted article, the more I feel my article is inadequate, the more I get concerned with what I should add into my article next. And boink! My brain hits the writer’s block.

My discovery is: Writer’s block often appears in my mind when I edit my article in the midst of my writing. After much thinking, I realized the truth…

What the advice, “just keep writing”, actually means is to start writing and stop editing in the first place. Okay okay, that’s not helping, is it? Here’s what I mean exactly…

Challenge yourself to write non-stop for the first 20 minutes. Leave all the editing to later. Have a spelling error or a misplaced punctuation? Wait till you complete writing your articles.

Realize the first step in article writing is to complete writing your articles. Only then do you have something to edit upon.

Discipline yourself to keep your hands on the type pad and continue rattling with ideas. Avoid the vicious writer’s block by keeping your hands away from the mouse or the ‘back’ button on your keyboard.

Sounds simple? It is!

Yet, not many people truly understand the meaning behind the advice, ‘just keep writing’. They assume that overcoming writer’s block is to keep writing after they meet the mental block. It’s not.

The only way to overcoming writer’s block is to avoid it in the first place by completing your articles before you take another look at it.

Go ahead and test this approach out. If you follow every single word I say, you too will churn an article this long in just 10 minutes within one sitting (like what I’m doing).

Good luck!


- Dominic Tay

English writing software - Software can’t match the quality of a manual proof read? Wrong. English writing software can now instantly simplify all of your writing tasks. English writing software can make your life easier in many ways. English writing software can now instantly simplify all of your writing tasks. English writing software uses a technology called NLP (Natural Language Processing), which reads your whole sentences in context, unlike an ordinary spell checker, which only words single words. Reading in context is important, because without context a spell checker can’t tell if you mean “their” or “there,” as both are words in English.

English writing software is the patent-pending solution which automatically works with all text based tools, easily correcting all grammatical, spelling, punctuation or any other writing errors.

Use it for: Essay Writing, Medical writing, Article Writing, Creative Writing, Email, Instant Messaging, Business Writing, Letter Writing, Social Media, Blogging, Legal writing and much, much more.

For people who must write a great deal, whether for school or work, English writing software can help to teach you to naturally improve your writing. It’s like having a virtual writing teacher built into your computer. English is actually not one of the easiest languages in the world, even for native speakers. Here are five ways it may be able to help you.

1. If you are in business and must send out correspondences, emails, reports and other information, you want your writing to be clear, correct and professional. This will enable people to better understand your communications. It will also improve your image as someone who writes well and clearly.

2. English writing software can help increase your creativity as a writer, as in addition to correcting mistakes, it also acts as a thesaurus and suggests different words, such as descriptive adverbs and adjectives. This makes your writing more interesting and versatile.

3. If English is not your first language but you have a need to communicate clearly in this language, this is the perfect solution for you. You can write down the basic ideas of what you need to say, while the software will read and correct your mistakes and suggest alternatives.

4. If you spend time rewriting or editing your reports or other correspondences, English writing software can save you a lot of time by automating these tedious tasks.

5. When you make mistakes in your writing and people notice it, it can have a negative effect in the way they think of you. If you are in business, trying to sell something, attempting to persuade someone of something, or even if you are just writing social emails, isn’t it better to be seen as someone who is well educated and can write well.

When you write letters or emails, you can do so faster and with more confidence, as English writing software will correct your mistakes and suggest better word usage, much like a thesaurus. If you have to do much writing, for any reason at all, English writing software can help you to communicate faster and more effectively.


- Jane Sumerset