Psst! Young writers!

I've been lucky enough to judge a batch of stories in the 500 Words children's short story writing competition hosted by Chris Evans and Radio Two over the past two years. It's been an honour to be involved and the ability of our nation's young people to write a readable story within the confines of 500 words always impresses me. If you entered, I send you massive congratulations. Writing a story is an achievement itself, let alone editing and polishing it until it's fit to enter a national competition. The very best of luck to those of you who entered and I send you all great wafts of fairy dust as we count down the weeks until the winners are declared at the Hay Festival at the end of May. 

Although I am sworn to secrecy on the content of the stories I read, I can tell you that elements of every single story were entertaining and yet, of course, some of the entries had that little something extra which convinced me to give them the top marks.

And thus the reason for this blog. Both years I noticed that the stories which scored the best marks had something in common with each other. Let me explain.

The competition is divided into two age groups: nine and under and ten to 13 year olds. Each of the thousands of judges at this first stage is sent a selection of around 30 stories without knowing anything about the author, not even their gender or exact age. Judges are then required to mark each story on-line and award it a score out of ten in each of five categories:

* Originality

* Plot

* Characterisation

* Language

* Enjoyment

Once marked, each story is listed on the judge's page in order of score. The ranking of the titles constantly updates itself as more stories are marked. At first I was sceptical. How could I judge the 'feel' of the story and the impact on the reader simply by giving aspects of it a clinical mark out of ten? Surely a scoring system couldn't adequately reflect my gut reaction?

In reality, both years I've been flabbergasted by the accuracy of marking the stories in this way. And both years, I've seen it in black and white: a common factor linking the top three stories.

So, here it is. I noticed that the stories which came out top consistently scored highly in 'originality'. It wasn't that this was a superior category of the five used for judging, after all, a maximum of ten points was available in each of the five categories, but where a story felt original, it was much more likely to also score highly in 'enjoyment'.

This is logical and something we writers young and old should remember. It doesn't matter how well a story is written, the quality of the language used or the writer's command of grammar, if it's a story with nothing new for the reader, it's unlikely to keep their interest. Who wants to read a story where they know what is going to happen? Who will bother to spend the time reading something which asks no questions, where we don't have to think? There's Candy Crush for that.

But, I hear you cry, people tell us there are only seven types of story and everything ever written is based on one or more of those. How can we possibly be original living in the 21^st century? This is true to some extent. There are certain themes, such as overcoming adversity: Harry Potter, or the great adventure: Robinson Crusoe, which are the backbone of all story writing. But this is all they are; a tool, a start point or a model. They are the base for a plot on which we add our own characters and situations; a base to add our writer's touch. 

We can take a familiar story and add different people, change the time frame, the country and the events themselves. Take Harry Potter, for example. How would he fare in the year 2114? How would his magic be received then? Would technology be better able or less able to cope with his tricks? How about the other characters? Let's change them a little. What if Voldemort really wanted to be nice? Or should we change our hero? Does he even need to be male? What if 'she' was a different kind of character at school? What if she wasn't very successful? What if she was a clumsy oaf whose only chance to escape ridicule – and death – was her magic but she kept making mistakes? All of a sudden you have more of a comedy but still with its element of adventure.

There are too many possibilities to count and this is true of all story telling. My advice is to start out with an idea and think how you can make it different. How can you make it special and individual? How can you make it your story? Tell yourself that you're not going to write Harry Potter again. After all, JK Rowling had seven novels to tell her story, you have only 500 words.

If, when you write, you can really believe that your reader would sit in a chair, on the bus or in bed bothering to take the time to read your 500 words over any other story they could pick from their book shelves or reader, then you are a long way to writing a story they will want to read rather than a story they've read before.

Write for your reader. Be original. And check your work – spelling and grammar mistakes distract us from the actual story. And by the way, having an adult check your work is not cheating - all professional writers have editors :)

This year's 500 words competition is now closed but there are lots of other competitions open to young people. Click here for a great list of local and national competitions in 2014. You can also find lots of competitions at Firstwriter.com.  

Have fun! And let me know how you get on!

Happy To Judge

At five o’clock this morning I slunk out of bed, gathered up my phone, three empty mugs and a pile of washing and made my way to the only place to go when the small hand is still registering ‘5’: the kettle.

Sometimes I put the washing on while the water boils, occasionally I pair odd socks but today, I read my emails. Skimming past the daily list of price reductions at local hostelries and hairdressers (engaging willpower of pandemic proportions as March is tightening-my-belt month), the daily call from a national blind making company (I’m not sure how many windows they think I have) and the weekly reminder from the French catalogue, of which, beautiful as the little girls’ dresses truly are, I can’t quite imagine my teenage children in white lace and purple velvet, I noticed that BBC Radio Two had been in touch.

I’d been hoping for this email.

‘Congratulations,’ it said, ‘you have been selected as one of our volunteer judges for 500 words 2013’ – which means that I will be scoring a batch of short stories in the first round of judging in Chris Evan’s massively popular children’s writing competition. Excited? I have floated down from the ceiling for a moment to explain why:

1. I was moved to real tears by the poignancy and brilliance of last year’s winning entries so decided way back in May 2012 that I would find a way to be involved this year.

2. There’s something about children, anybody’s children, doing something well that just makes me want to cry. I’m not sure I can explain why that’s a good thing but it’s certainly right up there with the list of happenings in my life which make me feel alive.

3. Because I would feel an irrational sense of pride if I happened to be the judge who put forward one of the eventual winning entries.

4. Because I might read the story of the next Francesca Simon (I think my daughter possibly was the biggest Horrid Henry fan), Anthony Horowitz, Malorie Blackman…

5. Because I am ever so slightly in love with Chris Evans (I’ve always been a sucker for a GSOH and a PMA). And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be one of the lucky winners of the golden tickets awarded at random to 25 of the volunteer judges who get to attend the live broadcast of Chris’ show at the Hay Festival on 31^st May. I have a one in eighty chance of being a winner which, put like that, sounds like an odds-on cert, she says, finger hovering over the link for a favoured shopping website with the force-for-good clearing its throat loudly from its place on her shoulder, to remind her that it's belt-tightening-month. It’s ok, I have no time for shopping, I have three stories a day to read until the deadline of 22 March. 

Do you know any of the entrants? I wish every one of them the very best of luck. Whatever the results, I hope they’ll keep writing because winning entry or not, there are few things in life quite as fulfilling as writing stories.

I'm Celebrating The Small Things - click on the link to join us!

Flowers

Still in my pyjamas, ironing school uniform and admiring the precise angle on which last night’s left over washing-up had been stacked tight in the sink, I heard the doorbell. It was 7.30am.  I suspected it would be one of my eldest’s daughter’s friends at the door, asking with a text-book politeness whether we had any porridge oats for the domestic sciences’ flapjack baking later or nail varnish remover for fear of those pink, chipped nails attracting a negative.

But it was better than that, sweethearts that my daughter’s friends are, it was a tiny woman carrying an enormous bouquet of flowers. They were mainly gerberas, happy flowers, I call them; my favourites.  I really didn’t deserve any but gosh, I’d welcome them with open arms.

‘Thank you,’ I said. “You shouldn’t have!’ Granted, it wasn’t my wittiest line but I hadn’t yet had my three cups of tea.  The lady didn’t even flinch, merely continued to search for something in the delivery note.  “Can’t believe they’re for me,” I tried again.  It was a rhetorical question really, my husband not being prone to receiving mysterious bunches of flowers and my children also yet to discover the delights.

The small lady didn’t speak, simply shook her head. ‘They’re for number ten, will you take them for her?’ she asked eventually, more than a little gruffly.

“Oh, right,” I said, “Didn’t think I’d done anything to …”

“Is that alright then?” she asked again.  “I’ve got loads of deliveries this morning,” and thrust a pen and flimsy note into my hand to be signed.

I did take the flowers.  Miranda at number ten was very happy to receive them.  She gave me a single gerbera for my troubles which now has pride of place in an especially rinsed milk bottle on my kitchen window sill.

As I walked back over the road, I thought about the delivery person who was clearly having A Bad Day.  Part of the flower giving is surely to complete the process of making the recipient feel special, rather than wondering why they bothered to get up that morning.  And I decided that, whilst I’d hate to criticise when untold disasters could have befallen the lady before she left her house, there are certain jobs where Bad Days are not allowed and delivering flowers is probably one of them.  Grumpy holiday rep? Not what you signed up to.  Presenters? There’s only one way Chris Evans is getting out of bed at 4 every morning. I’d think I’d feel short changed if the midwife had delivered my babies into my arms and spoken about how fed up she was with the awful place the world was, these days.  And then there are motivational speakers. You never see them in a bad mood, chance would be a fine thing.

Thankfully, I have a job where I can get away with being incredibly grumpy.  I can be absolutely foul to myself and nobody but the study walls and the pc needs to know.  In fact, I’m quite regularly terribly rude to my computer but that’s another story.

How about you? Can you get away with your smile slipping?  Or do you have to wait until you get home for it to droop a little?