Jonathan's Here!

As promised Jonathan Telfer, editor of Writing Magazine & Writer's News, is (virtually) here to answer our questions. He says he feels he may have gone on a bit of a rant but I know you'll forgive him for that as he's done it just to help us. (Step 9 of competition winningness is read what Jonathan has to say!)

Can you give us an idea how many the magazine runs per year and how many others feature?
Our programme includes 24 short story competitions each year (12 for subscribers and 12 open to all), 9 poetry competitions (3 for subscribers and 6 open to all). We also feature news of 20-30 competitions organised by other people in each issue of the magazine.

Many Writer's News (and other ) competitions seem to have a theme - how closely should we stick to that?
I'll start to answer that by going off at a bit of a tangent! What you want your story to do, whatever the competition, is stand out. Obviously there are various ways to do that.
When you're thinking of what to write to meet a theme, be aware of how easily the idea comes to you, and don't assume it won't come to other writers too. Taking a straightforward approach, or writing the first idea that comes to you, has two possible outcomes: your story will either blend into a flood of entries tackling similar themes in a similar way, or your handling of it will be strong, and the writing so good, that it blows the competition out of the water. The former, sadly, vastly outnumber the latter.
The next imaginative step up is to twist the theme slightly (for example the clichéd man getting dressed and nervous before a wedding turns out to be the vicar). Again, if the idea came to you easily, it will have come to others.

To illustrate these first two approaches, consider the recent subscriber-only "Unlikely couple" competition in Writing Magazine, in which we asked for stories about a 36-year-old college lecturer and 20-year-old delivery van driver. The majority of entries were a love story of some kind, which we'll call the straightforward approach. But the slight twist also yielded a very healthy showing, with a large number of entries in which the two characters were mother and the son she gave up for adoption 16 years ago. And in nearly all of those entries, the pair were thrown together by chance.
Now, I'm not suggesting that any of those entries or approaches are wrong; in isolation they could both yield strong short stories that could well be accepted for publication. But in competition, the judges are looking for the entries with something extra that separates them from the rank and file, which – forgive the repetition, but I really want to emphasise this – could be as simple as just the quality of the writing.

Another approach would be to take a "radical" approach, which ensures your entry will stand out from the pack but has to work hard to justify itself in a theme. And a conservative judge might discount it altogether.
You don't want to be so radical or tenuous that judges and readers have to solve a virtual cryptic crossword to understand how your story fits the theme, so the very best entries are those that find a fresh approach, weave that back into the 'core' theme seamlessly... and display outstanding technique.

Maggie May said "I think I'd like to know from Jonathan if we should write from the heart and then see where it fits. The women's mags are very strict about style, length etc and this can get in the way." What do you think?

What is that the guidelines get in the way of? I'm afraid this looks to be attempting to reconcile two distinct approaches, unless I've missed the point. If you want your story to be published, the worst thing you can do is not to follow their guidelines (this would be true of any fiction market, and probably most non-fiction ones too). If you are aiming to write a story for the joy of writing it, ignore any and all guidelines and just do it the way you want to, but you shouldn't then expect to be able to get it placed.
By all means write from the heart and wait to see where it fits, but you might have a long wait! Or at least a complicated editing/rewriting stage. Imagine your 2,500 word short story is just perfect for an upcoming comp with a 1,000 word limit; or your word count is just right but the theme is slightly off. In both of those cases, I'd suggest starting from scratch would be a much more sensible option.
Which brings me to another thing to avoid for competition themes - shoehorning! Don't take an existing short story that works in its own right, add a brief mention of whatever you need to graze the theme in the first paragraph and assume that's sufficient. Your story is probably still a good one, but it's not meeting the theme so however outstanding it is, it doesn't stand a chance against the best of the ones that weave the theme throughout the story. For example, a theme of baking. You can't have a first paragraph about how "Samantha loved baking", then trot off into a holiday romance story about Sam finding love with a waiter in Brighton.
Have her winning over a customer with the love she pours into her buns; have her using a pizza oven to very slowly turn her murdered husband's bones to ash; even have her finding love with a sunbed rental guy on holiday by baking herself to a crisp in the sun while she tries to catch his eye. These are not necessarily particularly good ideas, but any one of them would do better in a themed comp than that first example.

Kitty is baffled by a complete lack of shortlisting prowess. Do you have any tips for helping her (and me!) make sure our work isn't rejected at the early stages?
Are there any dreadful mistakes we should avoid?
Write well, edit thoroughly, check, check and check again. Follow the rules or guidelines.
You would be amazed how many entries fall at the first hurdle. If the word count is 1,500-1,700 words, 2,500 will not "do". Nor will 1,705, or 1,400. Other reasons for instant dismissal include no entry fee, no contact details, sent in on 39 individual postcards, sent three months after the closing date. And yet they all happen, again and again (okay, maybe not the postcards one).
Bad spelling and grammar are an instant turnoff - if you haven't made the effort to get all this right before you submit, you're not rereading and rewriting enough... Clunky dialogue ("But that was before I decided to undergo that particular operation you spoke of, my darling.")... purple prose... dialogue as exposition ("You know I can't walk on that ankle since the motorbike accident in Malta in 1973.")... intrusive punctuation (too much ellipsis, awkward dashes, any brackets at all)... incomplete sentences...

Meet the theme, write as well as you can, and keep at it. The right conditions for your win will come along eventually.

Do some competitions have less entries than others and if so, would entering those improve our chances?
Generally, we find the more specific a theme, the fewer entries. Very popular ones for us are: crime, ghost, love, etc. (Possibly because a lot of writers have a story tucked away that naturally fits the theme.) Obviously, therefore, competition is not so fierce in some of the other competitions, but they might also be more of a challenge to write for. Get your writing style up to scratch and think hard about the theme and your plotting and you'll be well on the way.


Do you have a top tip for those considering entering a writing competition?
Read it back as if you're the reader; edit ruthlessly; be honest with yourself about what works; slaughter your darlings, repeatedly.



Thanks so much, Jonathan for taking the time and trouble to answer these questions and offer us your advice.


Don't forget to visit the Writying Magazine & Writers' News Website where you'll find more advice, competitions and details of how to subscribe to this excellent magazine!