  Short Stories
This week: Have You Read the Fine Print? Edited by: Legerdemain  
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The purpose of this newsletter is to help the Writing.com short story author hone their craft and improve their skills. Along with that I would like to inform, advocate, and create new, fresh ideas for the short story author. Write to me if you have an idea you would like presented.
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Have You Read The Fine Print?
A lot of contests here at WDC offer gift points as prizes. Most of the time, there is no charge for entering, you just write up your story and submit a link to the contest. It's a great way to meet members on the site and have fun trying to win a couple dollars in gift points.
I occasionally run a 48 hour short story contest that charges a few gift points to enter. My reasoning is if a member sends a few gps, they're more inclined to look at the prompt email when it is sent out and maybe even enter a story. It also helps me defray the cost of the contest and the time I put into reading the entries.
What about contests out in the "real world"? Some charge $10 or more for a reading fee just to enter your story. Some of the more popular contests offer lucrative prizes like a book contract or a highly regarded award, but what are the odds of winning? You have to think about a few things before you slap down the cash and enter. One thing to consider is whether or not you want your book tied up in the contest, winning or not. It's hard to submit it to other publishers if your novel excerpts are posted on a contest site.
Some contests are a scam. All the entrants are told their work has potential and for an "editing fee" the work can be ready for publication. They might also require the author to pre-purchase a huge amount of books. I found a great reference article that authors who are considering entering some work in a contest should read: http://www.sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware/contests/
I'm not usually one to post many links in my newsletters but I think this one covers a lot of points to consider if you want to submit work for a contest or award. Please give it a read.
As always, read the fine print.
This month's question: Have you entered a contest with your work? What were the results?
Send in your reply below!  |
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#1784716 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Seated beside a small gas heater on a heated floor, Jaewon Kim ate kimchi, rice, seaweed, and fish alone for the two-thousandth day in a row, occasionally washing it down with a shot of soju. His convenience store, full of empty shelf space, slowly collected dust from outside as he watched the evening news on an old, gray television set in a small room at the back of the shop. The front door of the shop was open wide, looking out at an empty, narrow street. A bitter cold having recently arrived, most townspeople stayed indoors on their heated floors, for none dared brave the winds swirling about the island.
Excerpt: Life has a design, though sometimes it is hard to understand. If you consider that God is an author, and the world is the biggest novel ever written, then you begin to realize that we are nothing more than supporting characters in one of billions of sub-plots.
My little Charlie Sowel was one of those stories: a boy of seven who sported thick blond hair that was cut and shaped into a bowl and carried the charming, cherubic features of only the young and innocent.
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Excerpt: The lamp shade had star points coming out of it at all angles and I thought it would look wacky in the already wacky room, which had each wall painted a different colour.
I thought the same when I had picked up the pendulum clock. It was yellow with black eyes and smiling, the original smiley face that took me back to the old acid days of the eighties. The hands came out and pointed to where numbers should be, but weren't printed, from where the nose would have been, but wasn't. The pendulum hung from just below where the 6 o clock mark should have been. A yellow face on the red wall would be perfect.
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Excerpt: Mother noticed his sudden appearance and responded curtly, "Thanks Ja..."
A bright streak of lightning fell from the sky to immediately deafen their ears with an immediate blast of thunder. He could see his mother's mouth open as if she screamed as the ground vibrated under his feet. A large pear tree to the North of the house cracked and split in half.
Excerpt: July the Fourth. A perpetually ordinary day, full of work and business and decision making, or relaxation and a bottle of wine if the date happened to fall on a weekend. Nothing about it stood out in Belle Greene's mind. Nobody she knew was born on that date, there were no known anniversaries worth celebrating. Indeed, July the Fourth, like the majority of days throughout the year, was plain-uneventful, forgetful.
Until now, because Belle knew that July 4th from now on would be a date to remember with a smile.
Excerpt: As if the massive gathering outside the stadium wasn't enough, defining roar of the crowd inside made it impossible for Jonathan Jones to hear his teammate and best friend Kyle Narsavage only a step away. He finally quit and continued people watching. His teammates were all bunched together like sardines near the front of the U.S. delegation. After sitting in the adjacent arena for more than two hours, he was just happy to be approaching the stadium.
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Excerpt: Haldwit the Imp stood proudly, his small leathery wings outstretched, his bony fists resting on his somewhat flabby hips. His sharp red eyes stared confidently down a long stretch of bright, tended grass--its crosshatch pattern dotted with the occasional defiant dandelion. Small white rocks, cut to a jagged tip, lined the wide straight-away, with cramped crowds of cheering onlookers behind them.
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Excerpt: "We need to find shelter soon, the humans cannot take much more of this." Ewya said, sweat glistening on her dark brow, what little could be seen of her black hair under her scarf hung in rat-tails from the damp.
"I know that Ewya," Pesha snapped. He was a full bloodied Desert Elf and even he was having trouble. He knew his sister, would be suffering more. He took a deep breath. "Here have this passed back, it isn't much but..." He added handing her his water flask.
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This month's question: Have you entered a contest with your work? What were the results?
Last month's question: What creative way have you used duct tape?
atwhatcost replied: I used to work for a company that made heating ducts and I'm married to an ex-HVAC mechanic. Yupper, duct tape tapes ducts. Primary purpose. But I fear using it in my writing for the same reason I fear slapping it up on a ripped screen or even slapping it on a hole in the ductwork. I just know I'll forget to fix the problem later. Now, if there's a spot in my story that needs work, but the flow isn't hitting that moment, I'll just highlight the area in some annoying bright color to remind me to go back later and rework. Then I keep on going. Unless...is that duct tape, too?
Beck Firing back up!  answered: Great thoughts on duct tape! I once "duct taped" a meeting between two of my main characters in a NaNo novel. I thought it wasn't important how they met, but it was imperative that they did meet. I duct taped them in a grocery store and in edits realized it was much more fitting to have them meet on July 4th in the park at a momument for fallen sailors (both of their dad's were Navy men).
NickiD89  submitted: My cousin had twin boys, who realized at the tender age of two that they could easily remove their diapers with a pull on the Velcro tabs. Fed up, she found her solution in a roll of duct tape. She needed scissors to change their diapers, but as long as that tool stayed out of the twins' reach, her worries were over (and her house was a LOT cleaner!)
Jeff  responded: My favorite use of duct tape is as present-wrapping material. When I was in high school, two of my friends and I always had a collective birthday party because the three of us were only born 9 days apart... and we always tried to outdo one another in making our gifts to the other two as difficult to open as possible. Duct tape (and some other choice materials) played an integral role in making sure that it took us HOURS to open our presents. 
DRSmith  sent in: Creative way with which I used duct tape? Well, how about to tape up a duct? ...an entire run of older "fiber board ducts" that blew apart when directing air through it from a newly installed HVAC unit during remodeling a doctor's clinic because he was too cheap to install metal ductwork. Yep, actually used it for a duct. Isn't that strange?
Rixfarmgirl  sent: As a high school teacher where administration was not too hep on enforcing the dress code, I refused to have to look at cracks near the butt or the breast area: I used to duct tape to fix their clothing in accordance with the board policies. Dress to short? My 2 inch duct tape--red in color--could add as many increments as I needed. Blue jeans so holey I had to look at underwear? Not in my classroom. My red Duct Tape came to the rescue. I earned--proudly--the title of the Duct Tape Queen
Responses on FaceBook: "a broken heart", "flesh wounds" and "The rapture...lol"
Thanks to everyone who responded, it's been... interesting.
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Short Stories: July 06, 2011 Issue [#4489]
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