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It’s a bit nerve wracking. You make a cup of tea and sit down (with a biscuit!) to read through the rules and regulations on the competition website. 

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It’s a bit overwhelming! So many rules! Why can’t I just write a story?

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You can, absolutely you can.

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There are dozens of writing competitions going on at any one time across Australia and the world so, if the competition you’re looking at doesn’t suit your style, find one that does. Some have themes and some don’t. Some, like Furious Fiction, have quite strict prompts, like the June 2022 competition:

• The first line must have six words

• Someone should be ‘served’ something and;

• You need to use the words Log, Wire and Bake.

Phew!

Others have a general vibe they’re going for, like the Northern Territory Writers Festival competition, with its theme of Into the Light.

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Why should you enter writing competitions? 

Pushing yourself outside your genre and your writing comfort zone can bring far more benefits than a first prize or a shortlisting.

When entering a themed short story competition, or submitting to a themed anthology, some benefits include:
 

• Writing prompted short stories helps build new writing muscle.
  If you’re used to writing long-form fiction (novels and novellas) in your favourite genre, or not accustomed to writing to a word-limit, the idea of writing a fully-formed 500-word story on an unfamiliar subject can be daunting. But this is a very learnable skill; telling an entertaining tale concisely is not witchcraft! It comes down to ensuring each word is pulling its weight, and this is a skill worth honing – even 80,000-word novels need to tell their story without waffle and fillers.
  To get to the guts of the action without all those words in the way; to reveal a character’s inner conflicts in just a sentence or two; to move the narrative forward without losing reader engagement – this is what every good story, not just short, should do.
   

• You might find a new passion!
  Writing in a different genre or working with a theme you would normally shy away from can help you find a new favourite genre. If you’re a Romance writer, you can push yourself by entering a Thriller contest, but most themes can be interpreted to fit your favourite genre. 
  For example, fellow GCWA member, Kate Kelsen, and I often enter the same competitions. She typically writes Horror and Crime, while I usually write Contemporary Women’s Fiction. In a recent competition with an “Island” theme, I wrote a story about two sisters going to Bali, and Kate wrote about two men who crash landed on an icy island and cannibalism ensued. Two very different stories from one prompt! We took the same word – Island – and wrote a story in our chosen genre.
   

• Some new characters may waltz in and take up residence!
  In 2021, I wrote a short story for the Scarlet Stiletto Awards. I had never written Crime before. In the process, I ‘met’ some new characters who now live in a novel that is currently at 80k words and managed to get the editor at Allen & Unwin excited, if only temporarily!
  Writing short stories is a wonderful way to develop new characters and stories without having to write a novel. As Hannah Kowalczyk-Harper says in her article, “Short Stories: 6 reasons you should write them,” short stories can work as a tester, giving you an audition with readers.
  Writing short stories based on your current works can be beneficial in many ways. It can help clarify the direction of the larger story. Entering the story in a competition, or sharing it in other ways (on your blog; on a platform like Medium or Reedsy or even Facebook) and asking readers for their feedback, can help you gauge reader interest in the story. If the story garners interest from the judges or readers, you’ll know that a longer form story has a chance of finding an audience.
   

• Build your author biography.
  Getting your work out there can also get your name out there, or even up in lights! You can list the competitions you have entered, or placed in, on your bio. Even if you don’t win a prize, attending the awards ceremony or festival where the prize is announced or launched can be a great networking opportunity, but then I am an inveterate extrovert so maybe that’s just me… 
  Mostly, writing should be enjoyable, so make sure you are doing it in a way that brings you joy. 
   

Information here on the GCWA short story competition.
 

For some inspiration:

• Visit the Winners Page of the Queensland Writers Centre monthly flash fiction competition Right Left Write.  

• You can read my winning entry for the November 2021 competition here. 

• Read Kate’s winning entry for the January GenreCon “Tarot” theme.

• Visit the Queensland Writers Centre monthly prompted short-story competition, Right Left Write. Have a go!

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How to Write Short Stories

Start in the middle of the action, or in media res.

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My Process

When I have an idea, I write and get as many words down as quickly as I can. I keep an eye on the word limit even at this point.

Consider the theme a prompt. Before writing a themed piece for a competition, if an idea doesn’t come to me immediately, I muse on the theme, often creating a word cloud.

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Christine Betts

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