20 Tips For Winning Writing Contests

20 Tips For Winning Writing Contests 20 Tips For Winning Writing Contests 20 Tips For Winning Writing Contests By Guest Author Submitting stories to writing contests (Reedsy has an updated list with over 300 contests) can be quite lucrative if you know the tricks of the trade. At the same time it is easy to make an avoidable mistake and miss out. Many books published now use single quotation marks for speech. I followed this format for an entry in an American contest. After the contest I received an email from the main judge which said: You may have done well in this contest but for the fact that I could not get past the abominable use of apostrophes instead of quotation marks. Don’t let this happen to you. Worse, you will probably never know why you were not among the winners. Tip 1. Always adhere to traditional standards of correctness (see above). A contest is not the time to throw the rule book away. This applies most strongly in writing contests which are run by universities or colleges. Tip 2. If it says Literature contest, thats what it means. They are looking for subtlety, depth, a subtext, creativity, and clever (even poetic) use of language; an emphasis on interesting often dark characters, and setting rather than plot. Tip 3. If it says Writing competition, well written popular fiction is what will win. Now your emphasis must be on plot. You need a great opening line and an absorbing plot. Plot follows your main character’s conflict. Give this person an interesting difficult tussle of some kind. Your story ends when your character has resolved the conflict against all odds. Tip 4. If it states a particular theme in the rules, then that theme must be intrinsic to your story. Tip 5. Whatever kind of work you are writing, title is everything. The title is the judge’s first impression of your work. Spend time thinking of something relevant to the story that is eye catching and appealing. Tip 6. Use your delete key. Read and reread your work. That paragraph you really like that you spent hours over. Does it advance your story? No? Then delete it. Does your story only get going on the second page? Delete page one. Tip 7. Short stories work best from a single point of view. Don’t confuse the judge. Tip 8. Does your entry use the right tense? Present tense may be fashionable but it doesn’t work for every story. If your story is immediate and all is happening now, use present tense. If it spans a time period coming up to the present use past tense. Tip 9. Strive for active rather than passive voice. Tip 10. Do not use real people for your characters. Real people in fiction are boring. Your main character should be larger than life yet still believable. Tip 11. Do not use exclamation marks except possibly for a single word exclamation such as Ouch! Tip 12. Beware of clichà ©s. It is easy to use one without noticing. Tip 13 Use strong verbs rather than adverbs. Likewise avoid strings of adjectives and NEVER write suddenly. Tip 14 . Try to write something DIFFERENT. Think of the poor judge reading hundreds of stories set in her home country; then she gets to a well written entry set in Antarctica. Tip 15. If you know who the judge will be, read his work; try to read the entries of previous winners. Do everything you can to fit your entry to the contest. Tip 16. Use the entry form for all your details. NEVER put your name on the manuscript. Tip 17. Font: Use 12 point Times New Roman or Arial unless the rules ask for something else. Tip 18. Some contests give you a choice between paper or online entry. Choose paper whenever you can and pay the postage. Emailing submissions (unless as a Word attachment) can play havoc with your careful formatting. Tip 19. Please do not decorate your manuscript or add that nice picture of your pet dog or the photo of yourself. All that work to end up shredded. Don’t add a cute little note for the judge (Yes some people do). Tip 20. Proofread, proofread and do it again. If entering online print out to check your work. Read it out loud to yourself. If judges cant decide between two entries and one is missing a comma or has a word spelled incorrectly and the other has been submitted perfectly set-out without typos; guess which one will win? Good luck! Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Fiction Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Dialogue Dos and Don'ts7 Patterns of Sentence StructureHow to Address Your Elders, Your Doctor, Young Children... and Your CEO

14 April Fools Day Pranks for College

14 April Fools Day Pranks for College Not all of us have the time or the patience to completely tinfoil someone’s dorm room, or sticky note their care. We don’t all have flash mobs of friends to do something nuts for April Fool’s Day. In this post we’ve got 14 gags that just about anyone should be able to pull off and there’s no real budget to speak of. Especially not if two or three people are in on them. Check it out! 1. Get like 80 Poppers And†¦ Here’s what you do: tape them to their dorm room door from this inside (no scaling any sky scrapers for this). With 100 of these things the sound will be pretty big; the mess will be lovely; you’ll scare the #$@ out of them! 2. The Best April Fool’s for Computer Nerds..EVER! After browsing the ten billion ideas Google has to offer, this is definitely one of the coolest. You’re basically going to put your head in a jar and then put it in their fridge. Or, you could go with their best friend’s, or significant other’s head. All you need is a computer. 3. Does Their Major Require Typing? Hey, if someone you want to play a prank on does a bunch of typing this is a really good one: rearrange the letters of their keyboard. It’s harmless, easy to do without breaking the keyboard and yeah. Even if they are the fastest and loudest typer in school, it will boggle their mind. You could order the letters to say something perhaps? 4. This is Hardcore This can get ugly fast so you need some finesse. If you’ve got a girlfriend/boyfriend, have a stranger they don’t know hand them a hand written â€Å"I’m breaking up with you and dropping out† letter. It helps if the gangs in on it, but again, while this will definitely get a reaction it might backfire†¦ 5. Nail Polish + Soap This is an oldy but goody. You just coat their soap with clear nail polish and in the morning when they try to shower it won’t lather and they’ll be like, â€Å"Whu?† 6. Fill the Halls with Fruit Not on the ground silly, but hanging from clear cords or strings. At least everyone will get their fruits in for the day. You could go with bananas, apples, pears, strawberries, grapes, or even go big with grapefruits. 7. Mouse + Jello These days a regular computer mouse doesn’t cost but a few bucks. So, go ahead and put their mouse in the middle of a jello mold of your choosing. It should be said that jello is both cheap and amazing. You can get pretty crafty with jello and just about everyone loves the stuff. 8. Go Pop Star Just pick a pop star they would love to have plastered all over their stuff and go to town. Bieber is always a favorite. But, let your imagination run wild. 9. Pregnancy This only works on guys that have no clue it’s April Fool’s Day. You know, those guys who only know basically New Years, Spring Break and Christmas. If they have a girlfriend, oh yeah this will get them good. If they don’t and you know someone they’ve been frisky with in the past that’s willing to play along†¦even better. 10. Flash Mob Anyone? Okay fine, no prank or gag list is complete without the theater company involved. 11. The Out of Reach Alarm Clock Simply put: legendary. Grab their alarm clock while they’re sleeping, set it to go off an hour earlier in a hidden place that will drive them nuts. If it can be taped to the ceiling out of reach – perfect! 12. The Ultimate Stink Bomb? Everybody loved a stink bomb. So why not bomb an entire dorm? Why not bomb an entire building? I mean you can get boxes of these things in multiples colors, head into the stairwell and go floor by floor (two people on both sides for ideal coverage). So awesome! And, if you’re major is covert operations you should be able to stealth-mode this and no one will even know you just pulled a prank that will make the college paper! 13. Dixie Cups for Miles This is especially cool for anyone that’s a fan of beer pong. You can get hundreds of these things for cheap (make sure to recycle them afterwards), fill them only a little bit with water or whatever works, and then chill. You could fill an entire dorm room hallway. You could fill their dorm room. It’s funny. 14. A Bed Full of Cornflakes! Cornflakes. Cheap, loud, crunchy, delicious with milk and processed sugar. Why not a bed, car, dorm room, or closet full of them? Okay all you aspiring students out there, how do you do it? Share your tips for pranks in comments!