WSW Competitions

 

Tracy's Flash Fiction Competition

Members were invited to submit a 300-word flash fiction story. Our judge, as last year, was be Tracy Fells.

The winners

1st Rose Bray - The Important Date

2nd Kathy Schilbach - Vulnerable

3rd Liz Eastwood - Never a Cross Word

 

Highly commended

Wendy Swarbrick - Remembering Gwen

Janet Rogers - The Invisible Zip

Kathy Schilbach - The Crow

 

Many of you will recall the excellent talk on Flash Fiction that Tracy presented at the end of 2017. Tracy's flash pieces have been published by Litro New York, Retreat West, Flash 500 and National Flash Fiction Day amongst others. In case 2017 is now too far in the past, here are some top tips straight from our judge.

Tracy’s 5 Point Plan for Writing FLASH FICTION:

FIND your theme:
Write about something you care strongly about, perhaps an issue you want to highlight or a strong memory from childhood that you can fictionalise.

LIMIT your world:
Keep your cast list simple with as few characters as necessary. Start at a moment of conflict – the Flash Point – or zoom right into the heart of the story as quickly as possible. Aim to tell a complete story with a beginning, middle and ending.

ASSAULT the reader:
Aim to surprise and/or delight the reader. Make them feel an emotion when reading. Make your reader: laugh, cry or squirm, or even better all three.

SLASH your prose:
Make every word earn its keep. Consider cutting opening/ending sentences of the story to see what happens. Don’t forget to COUNT total words – don’t go over the limit!

HAVE fun:
Experiment, write outside your comfort zone, try a new genre, mash-up genres, go wild, go weird!

You can read more about Tracy's work at http://tracyfells.blogspot.co.uk/.

 

You can check the rules for WSW Members' competitions here.

 

Below are the results of our past members and national competitions