The Eastern Writers Group
The Biggest Little Short Story Competition for 2009
Report from the judges

To all those who entered, thank you for participating in the 2009 Biggest Little competition.
There were 369 stories from 229 entrants. Entries were received from all over Australia, and also from overseas (one from Canada, four from the UK).

A team of eleven judges worked in several sessions to read the entries, their aim being to arrive at a short list of stories that would then be given further consideration until a winner was agreed on. Each story was read by three different people.

The results were:

First Prize of $200: Crazy or not by Marie Parkins of Mont Albert, Victoria (A macabre little tale told entirely in dialogue. Although there are no "he saids", the reader is in no doubt as to which of the characters is speaking.)

Second prize of $100: Sammy's certificates by Garry Hurle of Calulu, Victoria (A story having some of the characteristics - and the appeal - of the traditional bush yarn.)

Third prize of $50: Iluka by Rhonda Aron of Darlinghurst, NSW (A story of personal and cultural alienation.)

We offer our congratulations to the place-getters, but we also appreciate the efforts of all the entrants. If you entered and did not win a prize, please don't assume that your story was without merit, and please keep on writing.

Comments

As in previous Biggest Little Short Story competitions, the standard of writing was generally high, but entrants did not always seem able to cope with the short-short-story form - a form that demands much more attention to the virtues of brevity and directness than the "standard" short story (say, 2500 to 3000 words).

In any short story, the reader is entitled to look for more than a relating of facts. He or she will usually read the story for the pleasure it gives. The successful writer of short-shorts will therefore not only be brief and to the point, but will display an engaging literary personality. Characters will be interesting in themselves and not just as devices to crank up the plot, and genuine wit and humour will always be welcome.

Storytelling existed long before writing. Successful storytellers were always able to tell a tale that would grab people's attention and hold it. It seems to be much more difficult to do this in print. Yet so many entrants, and not only the winners, managed to do it.

To say that a story is a short-short is not to say that it is a small story. Its theme may be great even when the telling is short. To write the short-short successfully the author needs to understand the genre. Some authors, the fortunate ones, seem to have received this understanding as a gift. The rest of us have had to work for it.

As in past competitions, many entrants deployed excellent prose skills on descriptions of scenes and situations that would be great in a novel but were ineffective in a short-short story.

The story with a twist in the tail was well represented. It is not the judges' policy to quote from actual entries, but we may illustrate such a tale by summarising a famous example from an American author who specialised in it: O. Henry.

The Cop and the Anthem is about a New York City hobo named Soapy, who sets out to get arrested so he can avoid sleeping outdoors in the cold winter and so wishes to be a guest of the city jail. Despite efforts at petty theft, vandalism, disorderly conduct, and "mashing" with a young prostitute, Soapy fails to draw the attention of the police. Disconsolate, he pauses in front of a church, where an organ anthem inspires him to clean up his life - whereupon he is promptly charged for loitering and sentenced to three months in prison, exactly what he originally set out to do. [adapted from Wikipedia]

But even O. Henry, would be hard put to tell that story in 500 words.

Many famous writers have put a sting in the tail of their stories, but seldom by sacrificing characterisation and writing that was interesting in itself. A story that ends with a punch line needs to be readable all through, and not to be just a prologue to the final dozen or so words.

Slices of life were often presented as stories. These were acceptable when there was a desirable shape to the narrative - that is, when they were really stories, but occasionally the writer assumed that the mere recounting of events would suffice.

Let us invent such a narrative:

One day, long ago, I woke up early and thought, "Today is the day I must repair the lawnmower - but not until after I have one last shot at using it." Unfortunately the mower threw one of its blades right through the kitchen window, so then I had not only to repair the mower but to test my skills as a glazier.

This, expanded to 500 words, would still fail to be a story. It would lack the structure of significant events. It merely relates a series of happenings.

What, then, is required in a story? What can be said without hesitation or qualification is that writing a story is not like making an omelette. To make an omelette you follow the rules. If you are a novice you may fail by not following the directions precisely, but perseverance will certainly lead to success. Unfortunately there are no such easy rules for writers.

Here is Robert McKee on the subject of stories and storytelling (he's speaking of film but his words apply just as well to literature).

Given the choice between trivial material brilliantly told versus profound material badly told, an audience will always choose the trivial told brilliantly. Master storytellers know how to squeeze life out of the least of things, while poor storytellers reduce the profound to the banal. You may have the insight of a Buddha, but if you cannot tell a story, your ideas turn dry as chalk.

He goes on to say:

The question is: How does one acquire the craft? Well, talent may be inborn but craft is always a matter of practice. Writers are normally voracious readers. But reading alone won't do the trick. Perhaps you, as a writer and reader, should occasionally pause and say something like, "Well, that episode made me weep buckets, but how did he or she do it?"

[Robert McKee Story, Methuen 1999]

To see how the place-getters in the Biggest Little competition did it, read their stories by going back to the home page on this site.

Again, our thanks to those who entered the competition. As a community writing group whose members first met in 1938, the Eastern Writers Group is a non-profit organisation whose only business is the encouragement of writers. We believe that writing is an excellent way to spend your time. It can be a lifelong endeavour or an agreeable way to use your spare hours. But whether with you it's an obsession or an interest, remember you're not alone. Many others are travelling along the same road.