Monday 8 July 2013

Another First Place...

I mentioned in my last post Lowdham- photos and a story, that one of the
A second one...
stories I read to the Lowdham, Fringe audience was being judged for a Nottingham Writers' Club competition;  so I couldn't tell you more at the time. 

As I knew the judge lived in different part of the country, I felt I was fairly safe to read it at the Fringe event...

It's always difficult to write a story when you know the judge- even when a pseudonym is being used for entries, 
so they won't have any idea who has written the stories.

Last Wednesday evening our Prose Secretary, was able to announce the results of the Spring prose-they were waiting for her when she arrived home from work...

The important bit- I got first place.

The judge (Patsy Collins) gave each entry helpful feedback- which is always appreciated. Mine highlighted my tendency to write long sentences, which could have been broken up. 

Patsy's the second person (recently) who's mentioned I use long sentences, so I'll be watching for this when I edit...

The story had to feature a tin of treacle, a bird and the weather (mine was a bit weak on the weather, but it was used); I had my protagonist, Jenny, bake a treacle and lemon cake- which the judge said was " an unusual, quirky combination and seemed to give those characteristics to the baker."

And with a baked cake comes cake crumbs, so cue a bird... :-)

I have to admit that when I write any contemporary short story, my characters and plots do tend to be on the quirky side.

When I was putting the story together, my only concern was actually getting the three items into the story in a way that seemed natural and not contrived. Plus having it ready by the deadline for handing in.

I was probably thinking about the story for longer than it actually took to write! 

So perhaps this is the method that works for me- as the same thing occurred with my Autumn Prose win too...

The 'Ladies of the G.O.D. Club' will get revised to deal with the minimal use of the weather- it could be used more and there's word count to do so. 

Then I'll decide what its future is.

Hopefully you'll get the opportunity to read it somewhere, and if it makes the wider world, I'll let you know.

I'd basically given up on writing any new short stories, but this has reassured me that I am capable of writing them...



image courtesy of http://freedigitalphotos.net 






6 comments:

Unknown said...

Congratulations Carol! You're on a roll.

Keith Havers said...

Congratulations, Carol. It was a difficult task Patsy had set. You must keep going with the short stories. Looking forward to reading your latest success.

liz young said...

Congratulations Carol - and how useful to have detailed comments on your work as well.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant news, Carol!

Rosemary Gemmell said...

Nearly missed this! Very well done, Carol - that's very encouraging.

Carolb said...

Thank you, Fiona, Lizy, Rosemary,and Sally.

Keith, it was a very difficult task Patsy set us. But enjoyable too. :-)