Form & Genre Challenge: Judges’ Report

Report date: Sunday, 15th April, 2012

Challenge #9

Vignette Challenge

Judges: Chris Chartrand & Jessica Bell

From Chris:
This week’s challenge stirred eight authors into action with one submission sliding in, quite literally, at the last second. Good thing too, for that story turned out to be this week’s winning entry. Jessica and I seemed to be quite aligned in our assessments of all the stories. Our final scores were all very close to one another. It’s interesting to see the results of the Reader’s Choice Poll differing from the opinions of the judges each week. A good indication that each story has its own strengths and each author has their fans. Thank you to all those who submitted this week and good luck to those who submit for next week’s Horror challenge!

From Jessica:
It was very interesting to see the different interpretations of the vignette. Three pieces hit the nail on the head. Others were excellent attempts, and a couple, I feel, tried to include too much. When you try to include too much information in a vignette it takes away from the emotional impact and it loses focus. With the vignette, less is more. Remember, it is meant to be a slice of life, happening in that very moment, not a trip down memory lane. In the few that weren’t quite up to par, however, I did notice some really nice imagery, metaphor and wordplay. And I was quite impressed! With a little fine tuning, I think all the pieces submitted in this challenge have the potential to be published.

Jessica and Chris would like to extend an offer to all the participants who would like a personal critique of their submission. You may contact them directly if interested. They are both on facebook and twitter.

Report date: Thursday, 15th March, 2011

Challenge #5

Twitter Fiction

Judges: Gayle Beveridge & Jodi Cleghorn

In this week’s challenge, writers took on the twit-fic genre, many for the first time. The genre necessitates the telling of a story in a maximum of 140 characters, the limit of a tweet on Twitter.

A Twit-Fic story adheres to the most basic narrative conventions; it must have a beginning, middle, and an end. Due to the 140-character limit, these components can be implicit, but they must be present. Like all successful stories, there should also be tension and a character growth or change.

The stories were judged on:

the presence of a complete story,
tension or emotive impact,
growth of, or change in the character,
voice
an ability to show rather than tell a story, and
the execution of general writing conventions, including: grammar, sentence structure and tense.

Of all the challenges to date, this challenge sparked the most discussion around the actual form—the obstacles the writers faced to abide by the conventions of the form, the difficulties in critiquing a story during beta reading and what it meant to each of the writers in comparison to other narrative forms. Many contributors stated they’d never written in this form before but intended to write more of it in the future.

General Comments

All stories complied with the 140-character limit.
The stories covered a wide range of subjects – romance, science fiction, horror, crime, fantasy, and tragedy.
Some, although anecdotal, were none-the-less, entertaining.

In addition to the above comments, we’ve compiled a list of additional points as a guide for authors who wish to hone their twitter fiction skills.

Every Twit-Fic story requires a beginning, middle and an end. The extent that these are implied, should be obvious to the reader.

A story may be enhanced by a title but should not rely on it.

Your character needs to grow in some way, achieve something or be changed by the story.

Show don’t tell: ‘His mother, bald, emaciated and bruised’ rather than, ‘His sick mother.’

Eliminate unnecessary words, use adverbs and adjectives sparingly. Brevity carries impact in this genre.

Pay attention to your voice; is it appropriate for your subject matter—soft words for a romance, harsh for a murder.

Grammar matters and should not be sacrificed to meet the 140-character limit.

Does your story have some tension, what is at stake?

Challenge #5 Judging Line up

Paul Servini joins Jodi Cleghorn to judge round six, “The Comedy Challenge” starting Monday, 19th March.

Write on and embrace the edge of writing dangerously.

~ Gayle Beveridge & Jodi Cleghorn

Report date: Sunday, 11th March, 2011

Challenge #4

Action-Adventure Short Story

Judges: Jodi Cleghorn & Paul Anderson

This week challengers took on the action-adventure genre with the gusto expected of feisty characters and gung-ho stories. No complaints about constraints with death, darkness or general mayhem.

The stories were judged on:

the quality of the writing, and
how well each writer interpreted & executed the genre.

Action-Adventure

John Cawelti in Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories As Art and Popular Culture defines the central premise of the adventure genre as: an individual or group, overcoming obstacles and dangers and accomplishing some important and moral mission.

With action added to the mix, the judges assessed each story in accordance with the following genre characteristics:

characters found themselves outside their everyday life
the action was central to the story, and included 1) actual physical action and 2) life and death conflict
the pace of the story was of equal importance with the other creative elements of the story.
the action/pacing focused on a chain of events leading to a resolution.

The judges were pleased to see, in the week which celebrated International Women’s Day, equal numbers of fierce, courageous female protagonists. Several stories utilized a partnership between mates or spouses as a slight twist. While the missions were characterised by hostage extraction, other our protagonists also went to the moon, survived native attacks and secured a supply of birth control bills!

General Comments

All stories complied with the core premise of action and adventure, building a heightened, but believable, conflict across a chain of events.

The stories covered a variety of interpretations of the genre, and moved in most cases beyond the simplistic ‘good vs evil’ paradigm.

A number of stories successfully combined the action-adventure with other genre elements—including urban fantasy, sci-fi, dystopia, parody and humour.

The stories covered a wide variety of locations from urban and suburban landscapes, to the jungle and space (and ne’er a treasure chest to be found!)

The characterisation was solid and complimented the action elements of the stories.

The endings were well timed.

The stories were well presented and easy to read.

In addition to the above comments, we’ve compiled a list of additional points as a guide for authors who wish to have their stories score highly in future rounds.

Where action forms the central plot of a story, the reader must be quickly and easily embedded in the story. Within the first two paragraphs the reader needs to know the “who, what, where and when” before stepping onto the rollercoaster ride of the story.

When revising a draft, count down three paragraphs. Honestly ask and answer this question: Does your story actually start here?

The main characters of the story must appear in the opening paragraph.

A well-paced story avoids a stagnant beginning or bloated middle and allows plenty of time for a suitable resolution at the end. Judiciously allocating the word count to each part of the story will assist in maintain momentum and tension. The judge’s again recommend Michael Hauge’s Six Stage Plot Structure—an excellent drafting and editing tool for checking the pacing of a story.

Building tension is a little like two steps forward, one step back, with each resolution and new conflict, building on what came before. Be daring, and push it. Ask yourself, how much further can I take this? Write the unexpected.

Keep the premise simple—find and focus on the core emotion, image, theme or conflict and build your story around it. Adding more to a narrative arc dilutes and adds unnecessary complication (especially for a short story) and only confuses the reader.

Consistent tense is essential. If unsure, have someone else read before submitting.

Utilise the active voice in your story and cull words/word strings such as:
- was, as, were, has, been, being, going to be, beginning, finally, seemingly, actually, that
Where longer word counts are available, make a prudent decision as to how long your story needs to be. Not all stories will need the entire word allocation. Padding your story to reach the word count is not advised. Any part of the story not moving the narrative forward must be excluded.

Tight, polished writing always scores higher. Having your work beta read is the best way to achieve this.

Private Critiques

Given many of the new writers may not belong to critiquing groups or have beta reading partners, Jodi and Chris are again extending their offer to provide a private critique to anyone who would like one, to assist participants in identifying their strength and weakness.

We’ll continue to make this available every week to debuting authors.

Challenge #5 Judging Line up

Gayle Beveridge, the first of our special guest judges joins Jodi Cleghorn to judge round five, “The Twit-Fic Challenge” starting Monday, 12th March.

Write on and embrace the edge of writing dangerously.

~ Jodi Cleghorn & Paul Anderson

Report date: Friday, 2nd March, 2012

Challenge #3

OULIPO Poetry

Judges: Jodi Cleghorn & Tiel Anisha Ansari

Round Three of the Form and Genre Challenge was the first of the 12 poetry challenges for the year. Writers were charged with penning an OULIPO styled poem.

OULIPO is short for the French Ouvroir de littérature potentielle and roughly translated to “workshop of potential literature”. The group founded in 1960 defines the term littérature potentielle as: “the seeking of new structures and patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy.”

The judges assessed each poem on its adherence with the technical requirements of the constraint chosen, (in the case of N+ poems) the fit of the original poem with the constraint and the originality of adaptation (where and how rules were broken, and to what effect).

The constraints utilised by this week’s submissions were:

the N+ equation (where each noun is substituted by another at a defined distance in dictionary ie. N+7 means 7 nouns down)
the snowball (where each line is successively lengthened by one word; alternatively, where each word in a line is successively lengthened by one letter.

Only submissions adapting public domain works were considered eligible for the Judges’ Choice Award due to potential issues of copyright breach for the end of Challenge publication.

General Comments

For many of the participating writers it was their first foray into poetry (or the first back since adolescence) and a very real embracement of the Form and Genre Challenge’s year of writing dangerously charge. Many chose to adapt existing poems while others wrote original works.

The N+ Poems

Writers ultilising the most common of the OULIPO’s mathematical constraints produced a variety hysterical and thought-provoking renditions of existing poems: bees became beetles, ravens razors and so forth. The most memorable title belonged to “The Mandible from Snowy Robot” which begs to be sci-fi poem in it’s own right.

The key to success with the N+ poems was firstly choosing a suitable poem for adaption, ensuring the constraint applied replaced the central image with something equally as striking and faithfully substituting all nouns.

Snowball

The content of the snowball poems, all original works, included twisted odes of love and reflections on writing and editing, in varying lengths and some employing a mirror image structure.

Success with the snowball poems came with the execution of the ever increasingly number of words per line to create evocative and accessible imagery and emotion, while gauging how far the constraint could be pushed to maintain the integrity of the images and emotions.

Challenge #4 Judging Line up

Write Anything’s Managing Editor Paul Anderson joins Jodi Cleghorn to judge round four, “The Action-Adventure Challenge” starting Monday, 5th March.

Write on and embrace the edge of writing dangerously.
~ Jodi Cleghorn & Tiel Aisha Ansari

Report Date: Friday, 24th February, 2011

Challenge #2

Contemporary Romance

Judges: Jodi Cleghorn & Emma Venables

This week, the sparks flew when love came to town, with the intrepid FGC challengers facing down the contemporary romance genre (amid moans this precluded killing anyone and there might be random drownings from cheese). From the cursing, the whingeing, the twitter hissy fits and the mini meltdowns in the lead up to submission—from authors more comfortable on the darker side of the literary rails—nine stories emerged, seven eligible for judging.

The judging criteria expanded this week, with judges assessing each story on:

the quality of the writing, and
how well each writer interpreted & executed the genre.

The defining genre characteristics* the judges assessed each story on were:

the story ends with ‘happily ever after’ or ‘happily for now’.
the relationship is the focal plot point of the story.
the hero and heroine face (and over come) an obstacle to be together.
empathy with the characters.
An emphasis on internal dialogue and conversation
A simple plot: backstory or additional plot points kept to a minimum.

*(compliments of Australian contemporary romance author, Nicole R. Murphy)

The judges were pleased to see different interpretations of ‘boy meets girl’, including a story about a gay couple and a story with the main character in the throes of a sex change. While other competitions may have discounted these two stories as outside of the definite of contemporary romance (ie. only heterosexual romance), the Write Anything vision statement outlines the inclusive vision of this site. The judges were also pleased to see the shying away of ‘rescue’ stories’, where women are seen as less able to take care of their needs, or stories were men are emotionally repressed.

General comments

Stories opened and closed strongly, as well as starting and ending in the right places.
Location and setting were established early on, which grounded the reader in the context of the story.
Characters were well rounded, with depth and believable internal and external conflicts.
Dialogue flowed naturally and with authenticity.
All stories were devoid of cheesy clichés.

In addition to the above comments, we’ve compiled a list of additional points as a guide for authors who wish to have their stories score highly in future rounds.

Ensure your know and abide by the constraints of the genre. Contemporary romance precludes a story about a developing relationship between two people at any other time than the present day.

Keeping the backstory and additional situational content pared down (but appropriate for clarity) frees the word count to focus and build momentum on the main plot point (in this round, the relationship between the characters).

Where genre characteristics are relevant, apply all of the key characteristics to your story ie. romance means, a story focused almost entirely on the ups and downs of a relationship. The romance is not a sub plot!

Where a relationship forms the central plot of a story, ensure the “other half of the relationship” appears as early as possible in the story.

A well-paced story avoids a rushed ending, by judiciously allocating the word count to each part of the story. Michael Hauge’s Six Stage Plot Structure is an excellent guide for pacing a story and an invaluable redrafting tool.

Heightening the central conflict of the story (in a sensible way) helps to create a better sense of tension and release for the reader.

Layout is important. Clearly delineated dialogue from ‘action’ and ensure section breaks are added. These assist the reader in following the story.

Tight, polished writing always scores higher. You can achieve this by:

carve 10% off the top off the first draft.

run the ‘find’ function on lazy words: ‘as’, ‘was’, ‘that’, ‘seemed’ especially—delete them outright or in the case of ‘was’ and ‘as’ strengthen the

attached verb, or replace with an appropriate verb.

remove anything which does not progress the story.

have your story beta read.

What’s On a Judging Form

Please check out last week’s section to assist you when beta reading or editing your work in preparation for submission.

Private Critiques

Challenge #3 Judging Line up

Tiel Aisha Ansari joins Jodi Cleghorn to judge round three, “The OULIPO Challenge” starting Monday, 27th February.

Write on and embrace the edge of writing dangerously.
~ Jodi Cleghorn & Emma Venables

Report Date: Friday, 17th February, 2011

Challenge #1

3rd Person POV (1500 words/open genre)

Judges: Jodi Cleghorn & Chris Chartrand

The inaugural round of the F&GC went off with a bang attracting thirteen stories across three continents. It wasn’t without hitches with technical issues putting the submissions platform out of action for several hours and new processes created on the hop. The patience and support shown in getting through the first week was phenomenal. Thank you to all of you, from all of us behind the scenes of the F&GC.

Pleasing was the number of new faces joining the writing community at Write Anything and the fresh writing, ideas and energy they brought with them. Inspiring was the number of old faces back with new fiction after long absences from the fiction realms.

Doing the rounds of the stories, it was heartening to see the number of submitters reading and commenting on the stories of others. This is the foundation of what will become a vibrant and supportive writing enclave. These are also the people who will become your cheer squad, your beta readers and perhaps your new best friend, in the weeks and months ahead!

General Judging Comments

• All stories consistently adhered to the 3rd person POV convention.
• All stories were authentic to the genres chosen by the authors—we had everything from “bromance” to noir through comedy and lit fic.
• The premise of every story was strong and unique.
• The subject and the conflicts presented were diverse and interesting.
• All authors followed the guidelines as stated (this is huge—thank you!)
• Strong opening sections characterised all the stories.

In addition to the above comments, we’ve compiled a list of additional points as guide for authors who wish to have their stories score highly in future rounds.

Stories must have a strong ending. A strong ending doesn’t necessitate a twist, but requires emotional pay off for the reader.

The location or setting of the story must be established early on to ground the reader and help them navigate the story with ease.

Characters need to be human—no one is all purity or all evil. Light and shade within a character is what makes them interesting, but more so, believable. It also provides fertile ground for internal conflicts.

Write to keep the writer ‘in’ the story. Having others read your story will assist you in knowing what throws the reader ‘out’ of the story and what keeps them ‘in’.

A short story, by definition, must stand alone on its own merits.

Dialogue read aloud, will help ascertain what flows and what doesn’t… and what actually ‘sounds’ like dialogue.

Finally… polished stories always score higher than their still-evolving buddies.

What’s On a Judging Form

Our judging forms cover the following areas (when you are beta reading for each other, you might like to keep these areas in mind).

1. The story opening
2. The story conclusion
3. Plot and Pacing
4. Writing Style and Technique
5. Dialogue
6. Authenticity
7. Title
8. Ending
9. Professional Presentation
10. Reader Experience

Over the coming weeks, as we further develop and refine the judging sheets, we’ll go into more depth about each section to help you write the best possible story.

Private Critiques

Given many of the new writers may not belong to critiquing groups or have beta reading partners, Jodi and Chris are offering to provide a critique to anyone who would like one, to assist participants in identifying their strength and weakness.

We’ll make this available every week to authors debuting in that challenge.