Winners day

Friday February 7 will be Winners Day.
Firstly, we will announce the winners of the December Global Short Story Competition. Begun six years ago, the competition runs every month with a £100 first prize and a £25 prize for highly commended writers. The competition, which has topped £10,500 in prize money handed out, has had entries from more than 50 countries over the years.
Each month’s competition is judged by Fiona Cooper, an author in North-East England, where the competition’s organisers Inscribe Media are also based. The competition can be entered at www.inscribemedia.co.uk
Secondly, we will announce the winner of our recent free flash fiction competition (£50 prize).
* There is plenty of time to enter Inscribe Media’s new free flash fiction competition at its Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inscribemedia/183385438479538 or accessed through www.inscribemedia.co.uk


John Dean

Have you created a cardboard cut-out?

My teaching of writers is based around the idea of engaging the reader and much of that comes from creating compelling main characters.

Most leading characters tend to be a Dynamic Character (sometimes called Round or Developing), a character who changes during the course of a story or novel.

I always think it helps to see how much you know about your character - you may not use all the information but it informs your writing, especially when it comes to changing them as the story progresses.

Here’s your starter for ten

1 Where does your character live?

2 How old is your character?

3 Have you got the right name for him/her?

4 What does your character look like?

5 What kind of childhood did he or she have?

6 What does your character do for a living?

7 What does your character do as a hobby

8 How does your character deal with conflict and change?

9 Who else is in your character's life?

10 What is your character's goal or motivation in this story?
Struggle with any of them and there’s more work to be done in developing them. Struggle with them all and congratulations, you have created a cardboard cut-out!

John Dean

Bill Bryson on writing

You may know that one of the Global Short Story Competition’s biggest supporters since it began is best-selling author Bill Bryson OBE, pictured here during his time as Chancellor of Durham University, in North East England, the region in which competition organisers Inscribe Media are based.

His comments, provided when he announced his support six years ago and as relevant now as when he penned them, should inspire all writers.

Bill, authors of books including Notes from a Small Island, said: “From as far back as I can remember, I have been blissfully enchanted by the art of storytelling.

“I once read that the skill of a great writer or storyteller is the ability to capture the reader and seduce them into accompanying you on your journey – a journey which so often is loaded with personal experiences, prejudices and imagination. This is a maxim that I have often thought of but at times found so difficult to fulfil.

“The demise of our traditional communities and the compromises of modern family life mean that, for many, the telling or re-telling of stories is a forgotten craft as the demand for multimedia experiences and the mind-numbing repackaging of tired tales continues to rise.”

“It is wonderful therefore to hear that a competition has been developed to showcase new creative talent and, in, turn create a community of writers and story-makers across the globe.”

John Dean

Middles

I often hear aspiring writers say ‘I know the beginning to my short story and I know the end - it’s the middle bit I struggle with‘.

Ah, middles! Here are some thoughts on getting them right. When an aeroplane takes off and lands, it’s interesting, but the middle can get boring. Too much of the same thing.

Same with stories but if you think that the middle is there to keep the story going, rather than filling the bit between the beginning and the end, it may help.

The middle allows you to develop the plot, create tension, allow the development of layers of the story, let the characters grow. It’s not padding, it has work to do.

Middles should be as long or as short as needed, not overwritten or underwritten; unless you are given a set target, let the story dictate the length. We set a top limit of 2000 words for the Global Short Story Competition but many writers go for much less because that is all that the story requires.

Resist the temptation to pack too much intro your middle - concentrate on one story, perhaps just one or two main characters. Introduce too much, too many characters, sub-plots, and you may end up doing it all badly.

It may help to write in episodes (like short chapters) to keep the pace going and allow the story to build to the ending.
Still time to enter this month’s competition at www.inscribemedia.co.uk

John Dean

Festival events

John Dean is delivering two master classes and a weekend residential creative writing course as part of the Darlington Arts Festival, which takes place in Darlington, County Durham, UK.
They are:

Saturday May 3 Crime Writing Masterclass,
Crime novelist John Dean presents a day-long workshop at the Friends’ Meeting House, Skinnergate. Time 10am-4pm
Want to create the perfect villain? Being driven to murder? Then this masterclass from the creator of the John Blizzard and Jack Harris crime novels is for you.
Tickets £25. Places can be booked in advance by contacting John Dean at deangriss@btinternet.com, tel 07889 554931

Saturday May 24 Children’s Writing Masterclass
John Dean presents a day-long workshop at the Friends’ Meeting House, Skinnergate. Time 10am-4pm
Fancy writing for children? Learning the dos and don’ts? Then this masterclass from the creator of Haghir the Dragon Finder is for you.
Tickets £25. Places can be booked in advance by contacting John Dean at deangriss@btinternet.com, tel 07889 554931

Hotel to stage residential writing course
Got a story to tell? Keen to be a writer? Got a character chatting away to you? A story waiting to get out?
Then this residential weekend course in the North East of England at The Blackwell Grange in Darlington, County Durham, UK, could be for you.
Experienced creative writing tutor and novelist John Dean, who has had eleven crime novels published by Robert Hale and has appeared in a number of short story anthologies, will run a writing workshop on the weekend of May 16-18 2014 as part of the second Darlington Arts Festival.
The weekend includes:
* Two nights Accommodation (Friday 16^th and Saturday 17^th May 2014), two breakfasts, two dinners and one lunch
* Day-long writing workshop on the Saturday followed by a morning workshop on the Sunday, including how to create characters, structure stories and invoke a strong sense of place.
The cost for the weekend is: £205 per person based on double for sole occupancy, this rate includes VAT
To reserve your place and book your accommodation : Call the Blackwell Grange Hotel on 01325 509955 , their email is reservation.blackwell@forestdale.com.
Bookings must be made by Friday 18^th April and paid in full to the hotel by Friday 23^rd April 2014. Please note that minimum numbers are required for this course to run if this event needs to be cancelled you will be given a minimum 4 weeks’ notice.

Spreading the word

As you may know, we moved our Global Short Story Competition website to www.inscribemedia.co.uk a year ago.

However, some folks still use the old web address, whose year-long divert has now ended, so they end up being taken somewhere else unconnected to our competition.

We would love it if you could help us grow the competition (£10,500 in prize money handed out already) by spreading the word to other writers about the new site. Thank you in advance for your help.

John Dean

Short story or novel?

During my teaching of authors, I often hear new writers say that they’d rather try a short story rather than a novel. I can understand that - it takes a shorter time to write and is less complicated when it comes to structure - none of those pesky sub-plots!

However, it is worth remembering that most new prose writers have the beginnings of at least one novel in them. They’ll have an idea which is so much bigger than a short story.

The trouble is that many new writers will get to chapter four or five and give up because they don’t have the confidence or stamina to keep going. Writing a novel is a big old undertaking.

So, yes, short stories can be the best place for new writers to hone their craft but don’t discount the idea of a novel if it keeps calling you.

Also, don’t be beguiled into thinking that short stories are the easiest option. Those people who say writers who cannot write novels write short stories are missing the point.

It takes real skill to write a short story that’s effective - you need to consider everything that also goes into a novel, plot, characters, setting, structure, pace etc, and all without the wordage you get with a novel.

It is an art form in itself and some writers are happy to spend their life writing short stories.

So how do you know which form you are drawn to? Well, if it takes you five minutes to tell someone the plot of your story, you’ve got a short story; if it takes 20 minutes and you’re still talking, you’ve got a novel!

John Dean

Helping writers

A reminder that, in addition to the various free things we do, one of the paid-for services we offer is one supporting writers.

Why should you hire a professional writing mentor, though? Isn’t it enough to attend a class/workshop or a writing group? Or ask a friend or relative to comment?

Well, it depends what you want and need and bespoke mentoring from Inscribe Media can help some writers, providing the experience and expertise to -

• understand your work

• nurture you and your writing

• let you retain control of your ideas and your writing

* provide expert, specific advice about what is working and what isn’t.

We focus on major issues, such as how your story hangs together, what your characters are doing or could be doing, what is hurting your story’s momentum, what story elements are not pulling their weight.

We identify the differences between good and great and point out your writing strengths, so you become confident about what not to change.

We also give suggestions and help you establish good processes and writing goals and suggest markets for your work.

If long-term mentoring does not appeal, we run short writing courses as well.

You can find out more at http://www.inscribemedia.co.uk/writing-courses---bespoke-mentoring.html
You can also access our free downloadable writing guide at www.inscribemedia.co,uk and find loads of free tips on our blog here.



John Dean

The ghost of a chance

We get the occasional ghost story into the Global Short Story Competition but what makes the good ones work?
Well, in “Some Remarks on Ghost Stories" (1929), the great M R James identifies five key features of the ghost story:
The pretence of truth (The fact that you believe, that it could happen, so your reader might believe it)
"A pleasing terror" (Your readers want to be frightened)
No gratuitous bloodshed or sex (Self-explanatory: sometimes a hint of gore is more effective)
No "explanation of the machinery (Don’t explain how it happened, just that it did)
Setting - (Create a sense of place, the reader needs to be there)
I would add that this is about subtlety, this is about making the ordinary scary - my grandmother was not scary but she would be if she walked into my living room because she had been dead 20 years

Bear these hints in mind:

* You have to understand the psychology of the reader, what scares them? With me it’s mirrors and open curtains at night

* Good ghost stories begin with normality, and gradually things develop

* Put people we do not expect in places we do not expect them - I am not scary but if you went home and found me staring at you from your front garden I would be!

* Less is very much more when it comes to writing ghost stories. You are teasing the reader - drop hints in gradually, build the tension. Hint at something horrible to come

* Use weather and time of day- as long as you do not overdo it, fog, rain, creaking doors and dead of night can be very effective

* Take heed of the words of the writer Susan Hill, who said: “The ghost story is a test of the writer’s ability to create atmosphere. When I was planning The Woman in Black, I made a list of essential ingredients of the classic ghost story and after “a ghost” came “atmosphere” – under that heading came “weather” and “place”. Haunted houses? Yes, and for house read “mansion”, preferably old, isolated and in a dark and dismal spot. An ancient chapel, abbey ruins – haunted cloisters are especially frightening. A house with a forest behind it, or a brooding cliff, a cataract, a moor across which the night winds howl – all are a gift to the writer wanting atmosphere. Not all ghosts are Goths and a Gothic tale need not include a ghostly apparition.”

* Think about the impact of media - what scared once does not scare now, in a world of ‘Saw’ we are less scared - except by what goes in our heads. So get inside our heads!
　

John Dean

So how do you trigger a reaction in your reader?

A lot of my current teaching of writers is based around the idea of triggers , triggering a reaction in your reader so that they feel part of the story.

For example, if you make your reader feel cold using the right imagery, you’ve involved them in the story. Same with fear, anger, heat, the list goes on.

To come up with the triggers, you need to use your reader’s associations. Every reader is different but you could play on:

* Their memories - every reader has had a childhood, why not trigger some of those memories? Or trigger their memories of a tough time? We get a lot of competition entries about people fighting illness. Tough reads but effective in terms of engaging the reader.

* Their connections to places and people. Hills, city streets, father figures, use them to trigger reactions.

* Their prejudices and preconceptions - OK, this can mean writing some tough material, depicting characters with whom you have no affinity but if you want your reader to react then getting them angry about a character is a good way; it also makes them love your hero/heroine more.
How do you trigger a reaction in your reader? You can join the debate on our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inscribemedia/183385438479538


* Still time to enter this month’s Global Short Story Competition (just eight entries in so far, good time to have a go at the £100 first prize) at www.inscribemedia.co.uk

John Dean

Making your reader care

You want readers to react to what you write. If they are not engaged, they will not read on so that means triggering some kind of emotional response.

It has become a big part of my teaching. So how do you do it? Here are some thoughts:
1 Identify the emotions in your story. What do you want your readers to feel?

2 Think about a time when you experienced the emotion yourself. How did you feel? You may have never been through exactly what your character is experiencing but you are likely to have experienced something similar.

3 Think about the type of person your character is and what he or she would do in certain situations.

4 Give the reader enough information. What is your character’s body language, what expression is on his/her face? How does his/her voice sound? What is he/she feeling?

5 Describe the setting. Make sure your reader can see where the action is happening. Maybe use the setting, dark streets, rainy nights etc, to shape your character’s mood.

Get those things right and your reader will stick with you.

John Dean

In defence of libraries

Those of you with books in UK libraries will know how important Public Lending Right is to authors because it pays a small amount for each borrowed work.
For the many authors, such as myself, who do not make enough from their writing to go full-time but whose books are popular in libraries, the arrival of the annual PLR payment in February is eagerly awaited.
However, like all areas of life in the UK, the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review has had an effect.  Libraries are closing and writers are seeing reductions in their income.
Given that many writers need strong PLR to keep writing and many readers need strong libraries to keep reading, the attack on the UK library service remains a concern.
But how can we change things? One suggestion - remind your local councillors that libraries matter whenever the opportunity presents itself.

John Dean

Of Harris and Hafton

As a writer, I am always inspired by a sense of place. Whether it be a gloomy city or a stunning hillside, a glass-strewn council estate or a majestic waterfall, something about my surroundings triggers ideas.

Let me take you back several years to a hillside in the North Pennines in an attempt to show you what I mean. I was on a family holiday and we were staying in a village on the Durham/Cumbrian border.

There was a play area in the middle of the village and every evening my two children would go for a swing and I would wander out to keep an eye on them - they had gone past the ‘Dad, give me a push’ stage but had not quite reached the stage where they could be left alone.

In such circumstances a person has a lot of time to think and, as they swung, so I found myself staring at the hillside opposite.

Something about the hill’s slopes and its late evening shadows, the way the buzzards hunted across the ridge, the sound of the sheep bleating and the distant barking of a farm dog, worked their magic on me and by the end of the week, an idea was born, eventually turning into The Dead Hill, my seventh crime novel published by Hale in 2008.

I returned to the area for the next book in the series, To Die Alone (Hale 2010) and once again used the real landscape, the hills and the ravines, towns and villages and for the third Harris outing as well. Currently, I am writing the fourth in the series, all inspired by surroundings.

I use a similar approach to my John Blizzard series for Hale, this time set in an urban city setting. Hafton is a bit of everything, the river and the terraced streets from Hull, housing estates from the North East, rural villages from East Yorkshire, the hospital in Darlington. Mix them all together and you have Hafton and that inspires me.
　

John Dean

New free flash fiction competition is launched

The team behind The Global Short Story Competition has launched its latest free flash fiction competition.

With its latest flash fiction competition having gone for judging, the challenge to writers for this one is produce a story with a beginning, middle and end in no more than 100 words.
The deadline is May 13, 2014. Prize £50 and you can enter at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inscribemedia/183385438479538

* The monthly Global Short Story Competition itself can be entered at www.inscribemedia.co.uk The first prize is £100.

John Dean

Good time to enter short story competition

The January Global Short Story Competition has eleven days to go and it’s really quiet - just six entries. Great time to have a crack!

Begun six years ago, the competition runs every month with a £100 first prize and a £25 prize for highly commended writers.

The competition, which has topped £10,000 in prize money handed out, has had entries from more than 50 countries over the years.
Each month’s competition is judged by Fiona Cooper, an author in North-East England, where the competition’s organisers Inscribe Media are also based. The competition can be entered at www.inscribemedia.co.uk

John Dean

Human crises

I have said before that I am always struck by the way many writers are drawn to the very toughest of times in people’s lives.

That has been underlined by several entries into this month’s Global Short Story Competition.

Tough subjects, relentless realism, brilliantly told, they focus on tense moments, difficult encounters, human crises and powerful emotions and draw you into the drama so that you can feel the tension, experience the pain and empathise with those in the story.

For me, if you are going to tackle a tough subject - serious illness, death, betrayal, separation - the best writing is the writing in which the author plunges him or herself deep into the action and drags the reader with them whether they want to go or not.
Plenty of time to enter this month’s Global Short Story Competition at www.inscribemedia.co.uk

John Dean

What if?

I have always thought that writers view the world differently and it‘s down to two words - what if?

A writer hears a word, a phrase, sees an image, a half-open door, a woman standing alone in a field at dusk, hears about an idea, and asks what if?

What if the door is half open because the family fled in a hurry, what if the woman in the field is watching her childhood home, what if the sun stopped burning, what if men and women grew wings, what if, what if?
So when you go out, take what if with you!
Plenty of time to enter this month’s Global Short Story Competition at www.inscribemedia.co.uk




John Dean

The writer's checklist

A lot of my teaching this year is going to be about ideas but what happens when you have the bright idea and have produced your piece? How do you know it works? Here’s a checklist.

* Does it have a strong idea and does that idea work in the vehicle you have chosen?
* Does it have sense of people? Are the characters real?
* Does it have sense of place? Does the reader feel they are there?
* Is it boring?
* Does it have pace or are there areas when it is slow? Does it tell the story or just meander?
* Have you given the reader enough information? You can see the landscape, can they?
* Have you given the reader too much info? Do you need three pages describing that tree?
* Is it too long? Yes, the story was fine but could it have been told in less words? Would it lose anything if you cut out some words which are not doing anything?
These are the tough questions but they may be the questions which take it from a decent story to one that sings.
John Dean

Open mic night

The next Open Mic night for authors, the first of 2014, is on Thursday January 30.

The nights, supported by Darlington for Culture and which offer a forum for writers to read their material and audiences to enjoy it, run at Voodoo Café/Cantina, 84 Skinnergate, Darlington, County Durham, England, on the last Thursday of the month. Each session starts at 7pm and the cost of entry is £3 paid on the door.
More information is available from Inscribe Media Limited at deangriss@btinternet.com

Our latest newsletter

Hi everyone

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2014 from the team behind the Global Short Story Competition.
Honours go to Australian writers in competition

Judge Fiona Cooper selected her winners for the November Global Short Story Competition and writers from Australia took the honours.

The £100 first place prize went to Jacqueline Winn, of Possum Brush, NSW, for Her Quiet Company and the highly commended runner up was Vicky Daddo, of Hazelwood South, Victoria, who won £25 for If you’re happy and you know it.

Just missing out on the prizes but commended was Karen Hollands, also from Australia, for The Buddha. The other writers on the shortlist were:

Satyapravin Bezwada, Hong Kong

Jonathan Saint, Dublin, Ireland

Mark Shadwell, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Alex Reece Abbott, York, England

Natalie Scott, Ingleby Barwick. North Yorkshire, England

James McPherson, Glasgow, Scotland

Nicola Cleasby, Turon, Grenada


Winners announced in October writing competition
Judge Fiona Cooper selected her winners for the October Global Short Story Competition.

The £100 first place prize went to James McPherson, of Glasgow, Scotland, for Eternal Shadows. Our highly commended runner up was Mandy Huggins, who won £25 for Ten Dollar Ironing Board.

The writers on the shortlist were:


Dmitriy Kutepov, Moscow, Russia
Kate Howard, Brighton, England

Ernest Hall, Kingston-upon-Thames, England

Loei Martinez, Spring, Texas, United States

Colin Hodson, Margon, France


Vincent Chu, Cologne, Germany
Winning stories are posted on www.inscribemedia.co.uk Well done to our successful writers. You can enter the latest monthly competition at the same address.





Hotel to stage residential writing course

Got a story to tell? Keen to be a writer? Then this residential weekend course in the North East of England at The Blackwell Grange in Darlington, County Durham, UK, could be for you.

Experienced creative writing tutor and novelist John Dean, who has had eleven crime novels published by Robert Hale and has appeared in a number of short story anthologies, will run a writing workshop on the weekend of May 16-18 2014 as part of the second Darlington Arts Festival. The weekend includes:
* Two nights Accommodation (Friday 16^th and Saturday 17^th May 2014), two breakfasts, two dinners and one lunch

* Day-long writing workshop on the Saturday followed by a morning workshop on the Sunday, including how to create characters, structure stories and invoke a strong sense of place.

The cost for the weekend is: £205 per person based on double for sole occupancy, this rate includes VAT. To reserve your place and book your accommodation : Call the Blackwell Grange Hotel on 01325 509955 , their email is reservation.blackwell@forestdale.com. Bookings must be made by Friday 18^th April and paid in full to the hotel by Friday 23^rd April 2014. Please note that minimum numbers are required for this course to run if this event needs to be cancelled you will be given a minimum 4 weeks’ notice.





Free stuff



There’s loads of free hints on writing at our blog at www.inscribemedia.co.uk and you can also check out our free writers’ toolbox, which can be downloaded off the home page at http://www.inscribemedia.co.uk/




Facebook


You can check out our Facebook page with its news, views and free competitions at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inscribemedia/183385438479538





Mentoring and courses



For information on our online writing courses and mentoring packages at http://www.inscribemedia.co.uk/writing-courses---bespoke-mentoring.html




Nurturing new talent through our e-books


A reminder that, as part of our efforts to support and showcase new writing talent worldwide, we have published seven e-books



Lost Souls by Roger Barnes When young women start to go missing in Africa, an International Strike Force is assembled to rescue them.

Harry’s Torment by Michael Beck Set in the fictional east coast port of Thirlston and centred on investigators tackling the heroin trade.


Previously published were:
Cyber Rules by Myra King. The novel by Australian writer Myra tells the story of a farmer’s wife in isolated rural Australia. Caught up on the addictive side of the Internet, she holds a secret which may prove to be deadly.

Global Shorts - an anthology of short stories taken from the early years of the Global Short Competition.

Vegemite Whiskers - a selection of some of the finest writing from Australian authors who have entered the Global Short Story Competition.

White Gold by Roger Barnes A thriller by Roger Barnes taking the reader into a world of intrigue and danger set amid the poachers of Africa.

Haghir the Dragon Finder by John Dean, a comic fantasy for older children. Haghir

and his hopeless comrades are dragon slayers seeking a new challenge.

All the titles can be obtained by keying their titles into the search field of the Kindle shop at www.amazon.co.uk Australian readers will have to purchase via Amazon US at www.amazon.com



* If you don’t have a Kindle, there is a free Kindle reading app for your PC at

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771




* You can find more about the books on our website.


Contacting us



You can contact us as deangriss@btinternet.com




Thank you for all your support

John Dean

Inscribe Media

　

　

　

　
　
　

　

Free flash fiction competition

Time is running out to enter our latest free flash fiction competition. Prize £50. You can enter and find out more at
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inscribemedia/183385438479538

So where do ideas come from?

I am about to start teaching a course based on the inspiration for writers’ ideas and, as part of the research, came across some terrific quotes from writers, some of which I thought I would share with you:.

People always want to know: Where do I get my ideas? They're everywhere. I'm inspired by people and things around me. (Gwendolyn Brooks, American poet)

Ideas come to a writer, a writer does not search for them. "Ideas come to me like birds that I see in the corner of my eye," I say to journalists, "and I may try, or may not, to get a closer fix on those birds." (Patricia Highsmith, American crime writer)

It's very blurred, it's not clear. The plan is something which gradually evolves.

Usually, I'll just start with one particular idea or certain image or even just a mood and gradually it'll kind of grow when other things attach themselves to it. (Jane Rogers, British novelist, editor, and teacher)

Anything can set things going--an encounter, a recollection. I think writers are great rememberers. (Gore Vidal, American novelist, playwright, essayist)

"From you," I say. The crowd laughs. I look at the woman asking the question; she seems innocent enough. I continue. "I get them from looking at the world we live in, from reading the paper, watching the news. It seems as though what I write is often extreme, but in truth it happens every day." (A. M. Homes, American novelist and short story writer)

Me? Tends to be a place that triggers emotions and ideas.

John Dean

Musical musings

One of the things that interests me about writing is ambience (no, not the white things that take you to hospital) and how authors create it.

I always write to music. It helps create atmosphere. Favourite artists for writing? The Irish band Clannad trigger something deep in me, as does some Mike Oldfield stuff. And Mercy Street by Peter Gabriel is so haunting that it takes my mind to the places from which stories spring. Indeed, it inspired a novel based on a single line in the lyrics.

While researching this, I came across a blog by Indra Sena, who said: “If you are struggling with writer’s block, looking for inspiration while crafting, or having trouble getting started when you sit down to write, music just might be the perfect muse. Music can relax or invigorate you. The lyrics often refer to timeless themes, much the way writing does. Instruments can also express a wide variety of emotional nuance. Anger, sorrow, joy and despair are all common emotions music seeks to express. You can use music to bring you into these states of feeling and infuse your writing with rich emotion. I like to listen to music the entire time I'm writing. However, even if you prefer to write in silence, music can give you the jump-start you need to begin moving your pen.”I have started a discussion, asking what gets you in the mood, at our Facebook site at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inscribemedia/183385438479538

John Dean

A reminder that we have set out to celebrate the achievements of the world’s aspiring writers.Inscribe. which runs the monthly Global Short Story Competition as well as free flash and poetry competitions, wants to celebrate success. We will mention as many success stories as we can as part of our blog at www.inscribemedia.co.uk

We try to encourage writers as much as we can. We know that many of the writers who enter our competitions enjoy success around the world in various competitions, or have had books published, and we want to give them the chance to shout about it.

In recent weeks, we have heard about writers securing publishing contracts and creating blog sites. We hope our site can help them celebrate those achievements.
John Dean

Seven plots? Or Seventy seven?

I am getting quite interested in this idea that there are seven basic plots in literature and that all stories derive from them. Trouble is, no one seems to be able to agree on what they are! When I researched this, I came up with one theory that they are: overcoming the monster;

rags to riches;

the quest;

voyage and return;

comedy;

tragedy;

rebirth.

Another site came up with a series of ideas based around Man versus - Man versus the environment, Man versus technology, Man versus - you get the idea.

As for me, my stories are variances of basic themes -

the power of revenge,

the power of family,

the power of money,

the power of ambition,

the power of love,

the power of blind faith,

the power of failed society.
So, I have started a discussion at our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inscribemedia/183385438479538 

asking what are your seven stories? Which themes do you keep coming back to, either consciously or sub-consciously?

Crime writing

We get the odd short story with a crime theme into the Global Short Story Competition and one of our ebooks (Harry’s Torment by Michael Beck) is a crime novel so I thought it would be useful to look at how to write a good crime story:


* The story should be strong and one that can be told in a short story (most crime stories are novels)

* Create a strong sense of place - the reader must be able to visualise where the action happens

* Create strong characters - do not stray into cliché, make our investigators real people. Your hero must not be perfect, he or she must be flawed but be careful about writing in too many flaws

* If you create a sidekick, make sure they have a job to do - passing on information, allowing your main character to react so we learn more about them etc

* Make the villain real not some clichéd villain from the movies. The best thing is for them to have appeared earlier in the story so the reader knows them. Give them a good reason to commit the crime - secrets, secrets, always secrets

* Grab the reader from the start. Here is an extract from an interview with the author Nick Brownlee explaining how to do it:
Q The opening scene of Bait features a character being gutted alive on a fishing boat. Was it always in your mind to start the book with such a gory scene?

A I have been a journalist for the best part of 20 years, much of that time writing stories for tabloid newspapers. The first lesson you are taught is that you must grab the reader’s attention with the very first paragraph, because by the third they will have lost interest in the story. It’s the same with commercial fiction – especially if you are an unknown author. In order to get published, Bait had to leap out of an agent’s slush pile and then make a publisher look twice. I needed an opening that would catch the eye. Hopefully it will have the same effect on the casual reader.”

* Even with a short story, it is worth mapping out a synopsis because crime stories are be definition complicated and you need to get it right
* Keep the story moving - nothing holds a reader better than tension creates as the pace develops. Keep it driving on relentlessly

* Think about your ending - surprise the reader, have some drama, a chase, a fight, a killing, a dramatic revelation

* Feel free to makes us think - maybe you want to cast light on human nature, or perhaps a problem in society. Do not preach but feel free to let that idea come through in your story


John Dean

Now don't get tense about it!

A real rarity came into the competition the other day, recalling one of our least-used writing techniques - namely, telling the story through a second person viewpoint.

We are all familiar with first person (I have had a really good day) and third person (she had had a really good day) but many writers will be unaware about second person. When first asked about it by a student some years ago, I had to go and look it up to get the technical definition just right.

In short, in second person point of view, the narrator tells the story using ‘you‘ as in ‘You pick up the phone because you feel scared‘. Footballers, those great bastions of language tend to use it quite a lot (‘In games like this, you go out on the field and leap like a salmon sandwich and nod the ball into the old onion bag.’) If that’s not a mixed metaphor.

So which one to choose? Well, often the first-person narrative is used as a way to directly convey deeply internal, otherwise unspoken, thoughts. It allows story to directly revolve round one person and can allow the character to be further developed through his/her own style in telling the story. That style is often chatty and informal, always deeply personal.

There are drawbacks: in third person you can tell the reader what is round the corner to create tension; you can’t do that in first person because the character simply does not know. That is third person’s biggest advantage; the way it allows the narrator to be all-seeing. And yes, it can also be used to delve deep into the character’s mind but many writers feel happier doing that with first person.

So where does second person fit in? Well, it is rarely used but, as shown in the story submitted overnight, can be very effective in that it directly challenges the reader to step into the story by use of the word’ you’. If they feel so challenged then that will make the story so much more real.
John Dean

Whither the novella?

I have been talking to a few writers who are working on novellas. As a result, I have been researching the world of short novels and it seems to me that their time could be upon us because of the e-book revolution.
Folks are happy to read 30,000 words of story on their hand-helds - particularly on holiday when a book that can be finished in a day or two is welcome.
So what exactly is a novella? Well, it’s an extended short story in many ways, constructed in episodes but written in a tight and clipped way to guarantee pace. Definitions range from 10,000 words to 40,000. 
There are plenty of writers who can see the sense in the idea so why are novellas so effective as a genre? Well, usually novels run to 60,000-70,000 words but in a novella, an eight page scenes becomes two pages, a, 800 word passage of dialogue becomes 200, if that. It’s the mantra I teach to the many writers with whom I work across the world - does your story need those words, can they come out, will the story really suffer if they do?

John Dean
  

What's in a title?

Recent weeks have seen us receive a number of stories with terrific titles, which set me thinking. Yes, the story has to be good but a title, like a good opening line, can do a lot of work for the author when it comes to hooking the reader.

For me, it goes deeper. In my mind, the title has to be right for me to feel comfortable with the writing process.

So what does a good title need? Well, I would say some of the below would be a good start. A good title should/could:

* Be easy to remember. Yes, I know there have been successful books and stories with long titles but how many can you name? Go for no more than five words and even then you are pushing it (look at best-selling books and you will not see that many more than three). There are exceptions, I know. The Spy who Came in from the Cold springs to mind but for every long title that sticks in the memory there's an awful lot are lost.

* Be appropriate to what you are writing. I learned this lesson from my publisher, Robert Hale. I wrote a novel which I wanted to call Ghosts, which they asked to be changed because it made it sound like a ghost story, which it wasn’t. It ended up called The Long Dead, which I think works much better. Interestingly, during the writing, the title had not felt right anyway. The Long Dead did.

* Pose questions. Something that makes you wonder. Taking The Long Dead as an example, who are long dead? Why are they long dead? How did they die? If they are long dead, why do we care now?

* Maybe go for a name of a person - think Harry Potter - and maybe make it a possessive title - think Angela’s Ashes. Or maybe a place. Think Northanger Abbey. Or a thing - Diamonds are Forever.

* Maybe pick a line from the work itself such as They Shoot Horses, Don't They? And yes, it is long but it’s easily remembered.

As with everything in writing, there are no golden rules other than if it works, do it. And yes, I know that our next competition could be run by a story with fifteen words, two sets of brackets and a semi-colon!

John Dean

Honours go to Australian writers

Judge Fiona Cooper has selected her winners for the November Global Short Story Competition and writers from Australia have taken the honours.

The £100 first place prize goes to Jacqueline Winn, of Possum Brush, NSW, of whose story Her Quiet Company Fiona says: “This is one of the best stories about mother/daughter love that I have ever read. The style is immaculate, words so well chosen that one can feel every texture of the clothes, the hankies, the minutiae of a whole life. The strata of emotions are laid bare with the delicacy of an archaeologist, not a crumb of dust discounted or tossed aside. Lovely stuff, reminiscent of the more tender side of Alan Bennett.”

Our highly commended runner up is Vicky Daddo, of Hazelwood South, Victoria, who wins £25 for If you’re happy and you know it.

Fiona says: “They say that if children and parents are not embarrassing each other, they’re no doing their job right. This is a witty piece full of wry understatement and an unpicking of the many stranded ropes of love, affection and exasperation that bind us together. This story could well extend into a novella. While wholly satisfying, there is an element of what happens next which is intriguing.”
Just missing out on the prizes but commended is Karen Hollands, also from Australia, of whose story The Buddha Fiona says: “Quirky and raw, it shows great promise.”
The other writers on the shortlist are:

Satyapravin Bezwada, Hong Kong

Jonathan Saint, Dublin, Ireland

Mark Shadwell, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Alex Reece Abbott, York, England

Natalie Scott, Ingleby Barwick. North Yorkshire, England

James McPherson, Glasgow, Scotland

Nicola Cleasby, Turon, Grenada
Winning stories will be posted on www.inscribemedia.co.uk Well done to our successful writers. You can enter the latest competition at the same address.

John Dean


　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

Mike's first book published

Author Mike Watson, from Darlington in County Durham, another author who has enjoyed success in the Global Short Story Competition, has had his first book published.

Earthstrider, a lyrical tale of magic for young children, has been produced by Thynks Publications.

Mike, a retired teacher, is a prize-winning short story writer and has had work published in magazines and anthologies but Earthstrider is his first book.

Mike said: “I am delighted that it has been published. Consulting with an illustrator and an editor about layout and covers has been a unique experience and witnessing the book evolve has been fascinating.”

Earthstrider tells the story of a village helped by an unusual stranger and it is written in such rich, poetic language that it will appeal to young readers and young listeners alike.

Earthstrider can be bought on Amazon Children's Book section and also directly through Thynks Publications website http://www.thynkspublications.co.uk/

Look around you

We receive Global Short Story Competition entries from all over the world and this allows me, from time to time, to return to a theme which greatly interests me.

I have always believed that writers must respond strongly to landscapes. While acknowledging that authors come into stories from different angles - characters, concepts, ideas - I do believe that place has to be a major trigger. The major tri8gger for some.

I am sure that writers in scenic areas are inspired to create stories by the fabulous landscape and the extremes of weather, for example.

As a writer based in Northern England, I am inspired by the North Pennines and the stunning Lake District, which brought forth my character Jack Harris, who has featured in three of my novels.

Cities, hills, back alleys, chuckling rivers, they can all inspire writer and reader alike.

Plenty of time to enter the January competition by going to www.inscribemedia.co.uk
John Dean

New short story competition launched

The January Global Short Story Competition has been launched.

Begun six years ago, the competition runs every month with a £100 first prize and a £25 prize for highly commended writers.

The competition, which has topped £10,000 in prize money handed out, has had entries from more than 50 countries over the years.
Each month’s competition is judged by Fiona Cooper, an author in North-East England, where the competition’s organisers Inscribe Media are also based. The competition can be entered at www.inscribemedia.co.uk

* There is still time to enter Inscribe Media’s latest free flash fiction competition at its Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inscribemedia/183385438479538 or accessed through www.inscribemedia.co.uk