Judge not lest ye...

At the moment I'm volunteering at Fairfax where a bunch of us are judging the WriteNow! competition for the Sydney Writers' Festival. WriteNow! is a high school writing comp for Year 7-9 specifically designed to fill a gap between primary school writing comps and the prestigious Sydney Morning Herald Young Writer of the Year Award, which caters to Year 10-12 students (apt opportunity for a rare brag that I was once a finalist of this Young Writer comp).

WriteNow! is run slightly differently in that the submissions are not open theme. Instead, SWF gets three authors to provide a 'story starter' and participants must continue the story in 1000 words or less. Prizes are awarded in six categories, a boy and girl from each Year 7, 8 and 9.

This is the second year that I've been a judge so I feel qualified to give some advice to budding writers, entered in not just this comp but similar ones around the world. Here are some tips...

• Follow the instructions. This includes presentation requirements e.g. typed on A4 paper, double-spaced, personal details provided, and adherence to the comp. This comp was based on a story starter but there were a few renegades who either wanted to write their own story or didn't adequately follow on from their chosen opener.



• Legibility is important. In addition to double-spacing, I would suggest a clear-faced font like Times New Roman (not my favourite, but standard) in 12pt BLACK (have you ever tried to read tiny single-spaced fancy yellow font on a white piece of paper?). No fancy/coloured fonts, no coloured paper, no illustrations, no decorations.



• Edit your work. Or get someone to help you. This means checking spelling and grammar. There are always well written works with spelling and grammar errors but when it comes down to deciding the winner, correct spelling and grammar has the edge. And don't just rely on your computer's spellcheck, really read your work.



• Make sense. We want you to be creative but your story still has to follow a logical sequence of events. Particularly in short stories, each character you introduce needs to have a function. Your ending must resolve all the situations that you (or the starter author) have mentioned.



• Be original. Easier said than done when you don't know what everyone else is writing. However, the general rule when responding to stimulus is usually to reject the first couple of ideas that come to mind. Don't assume anything about the stimulus, think of what it could be and brainstorm off that. Also, we have automatic rejections for bad endings such as "it was just a dream", "and then I died" as well as weak endings "and then I went home and mum cooked me breakfast".



• Choose your words wisely. Sometimes when you don't have a great idea, a sophisticated vocabulary can set your work apart from others. Don't use big words indiscriminately, know what they mean and use them effectively. And big words aren't everything - original descriptions and your own personal style count for a lot as well. Cultivate unusual similes and metaphors and use them sparingly. Be careful with detail - we really don't want to know the specifications of the car you were driving or what your mum cooked you for breakfast unless it is relevant to the story.



• Don't be afraid of your creativity. We're not going to think any less of you if your chracters go on some outlandish adventure (as long as it is logical and well-written). You don't need to qualify your writing with a moral or an "it was just a dream" ending. Characters do bad things, you can switch genders, people die. What's fabulous about fiction is that no one actually gets hurt.



• Adopt a style and/or genre. The stimulus will generally give you an idea of the kind of story that would suit. 'Wider' stimuli have the capacity to go anywhere - crime, romance, drama, fantasy, comedy etc. However, especially with WriteNow!, it is important to follow the style already provided by the starter author, including tenses and first/second/third person narratives. Choose the starter you are most comfortable with and follow the author's 'voice'.



• Avoid plagiarism and cliches. I know we live in a highly interactive world, but if you can avoid repeating the plot of your favourite movie or book you have a better chance of being original. Judges watch movies and read books too. Yes, even texts for younger audiences. Cliches are annoying and indicate that you can't think of your own way to say something.

At the end of the day, after a judge has read hundreds of stories, they're just going to chuck yours on the reject pile if they can't read it properly. It takes very little to annoy a judge when they've waded through hundreds of badly-written, unoriginal stories and it is very easy to throw out anything that doesn't immediately capture.

However, that being said, it is conversely also very easy to please a judge with an entry that has been well-written and is driven by a strong narrative, characters and a logical plot. Be commended and spin us a good yarn, eh?

P.S: And don't worry, we comb through the shortlist to ensure that everyone there deserves to be there. Then we have a massive debate about who we think should win, so rest assured that you really do have to be a good writer and please as many readers as possible to be a winner, therefore validating the award.