Wednesday 4 March 2020

Tradition




A tradition is an ongoing custom, belief or opinion, often passed on for generations. 

Atristic and literary principles and methods which are based on experience and common practice are also considered traditions. It's traditional for romances to have happy endings.

A traditionalist is someone who has respect for traditions, perhaps to an excessive extent.

Which traditions do you follow and enjoy? A lot of my favourites involve food – I like to pour brandy on the Christmas pudding and set fire to it and try the traditional foods in places I visit, such as Welsh cakes, Cornish pasties and Scottish shortbread.

The first Wednesday of the month is traditionally Insecure Writer's Support Group day and March is no exception. As well as the monthly blog posts, the IWSG offers free support to insecure writers in lots of ways. If you think you might benefit, click on the link to take a look.

This month's optional question is –

Other than the obvious holiday traditions, have you ever included any personal or family traditions/customs in your stories?

I don't think I ever have, although it's possible I've done so not realising a custom isn't as universal as I'd supposed. How about you? 

As I do it in almost every post, and I've been blogging for years, does it count as tradition for me to mention free to enter writing competitions? 

The University of Southampton are offering a range of free competitions with good prizes. They all have a 'green' theme.

This one is for sci-fi, fantasy or horror. Top prize is $1,000.

Here's a free poetry competition.

14 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I think that's probably the best answer. Most of us don't realize our family traditions are unique to us.
Nothing like flaming food!

Natalie Aguirre said...

I haven't written about a family tradition either. Food is a great tradition to have but it may not do much in a story.

Computer Tutor said...

Those buns look yummy.

Damyanti Biswas said...

We have a tradition of making Rice Payasam on our birthdays.

Dixie Jackson said...

I love your exploration of the word tradition! I've included a few traditions other than holiday things in my works. Thanks for sharing!

Rachna Chhabria said...

The buns look super yummy.

Lindsay said...

I like family traditions! Although they can be annoying. When I was a child we always had a tradition of celebrating Halloween which was not the common practice it is now. No doubt our neighbours thought us very strange.

Juneta key said...

I have not written about a tradition either. Happy IWSG!

ados123 said...

Thanks for the comps. Patsy
Alyson

Sonia Dogra said...

Thank you for that list of competitions. Most family traditions are subtle. So we don't really understand when and how we land up incorporating them in the text.
Sonia from A Hundred Quills

Patsy said...

@ Alex – it is hard to know what's normal and what's just us.

@ Natalie – food often plays quite an important part in my writing, but then I write genres suited to that.

@ Jacqui – they were!

@ Damyanti – I hadn't heard of that before. Just looked it up and it sounds like a nice dish to share.

@ Dixie – thank you!

@ Rachna – tasted it too.

@ Lindsay – We weren't allowed to open Christmas gifts until the evening, which I found frustrating.

@ Juneta – maybe we will one day?

@ Ados – you're welcome!

@ Sonia – I think you're right that we can use them, or elements of them, without realising it.

Lynn Love said...

I don't think I've ever used a tradition as a basis for a story, though it's an interesting idea for a story. Thanks for the links, Patsy. So you have the link for the sci fi/fantasy comp - I couldn't find a link. Thanks

Patsy said...

@ Lynn – sorry, don't know what happened to the link. Try this http://parsecink.com/contest/

Lynn Love said...

That's great thank you ☺️