Category: Short Stories

CRIKEY! Judging now completed….. short story competition

This is difficult.

I have just read the two entries for the creative writing competition and find I’m completely stuck: I can’t make the decision.

Both Ara and Bilby have written stories that carried me forward, making me want to read on. Each story is so very different and that makes it harder still!

Ara’s story made me feel so sad for all boys sent out to boarding school at such a young age, especially as I am currently reading Andrew Motion’s memoir of childhood (In the Blood) which details the horrors of his schooling before common entrance. Her blending of the scary fearsome tiger into AA Milne’s Tigger at the end made me smile.

Bilby’s story of an evil man looking for a way out of a relationship is chilling – in that it could really happen! This man, an opportunist,emotionally cruel, and completely ego-centric, is caught out while the girl is saved by the skin of her teeth. Interesting stuff.

I’m going out into the garden where the frost has now lifted.

I may be gone sometime. By the time I come back in I shall have made a decision 🙂

I shall add it to the comments

The Scales of Justice (March Creative Writing Competition)

He didn’t know why he’d agreed to go on the bloody walk. He was bored by the routine, the domestication, the girl; however prettily packaged.  He watched her pick up the house keys which shared a ring with a miniature red penknife (nail file, corkscrew, scissors, blade) and an antique silver whistle, made in England, with some stranger’s spit lurking inside; useless things, worthless sentimental nonsense. He had never understood her attachment to memories. Continue reading “The Scales of Justice (March Creative Writing Competition)”

The Tiger: March Short Story Competition

It was only his first term at School. The Child was homesick and miserable at first, but he was only seven. He hated the noise and bustle, and the strangeness of it all. He missed his mother and his sisters, and home seemed so very far away. Be a brave chap, his father had said, and he tried his best to fit in, and did not mention his unhappiness in his letters to his mother. Continue reading “The Tiger: March Short Story Competition”

Reminder – short story competition

A story of up to 2000 words in length, to be submitted by March 30th please, by mid-night, as a post on your own page, with a link to the comments here–

and to include the following words

penknife

string

milk shake.

 

If you wish use the prompts to get your story, but you don’t have to!

No entries so far….

 

 

March 2012 Short Story Competition

And now for Something Completely Different!!

Below there is a list of questions for you to answer.

On a scrap of paper jot down a few ideas that spring from the questions and try not to look ahead to the next question until you have written your response to the previous one. Give yourself a couple of minutes at least for each question, if you can .

(I will insert picture spacers to help stop your eye jumping to the next Q)

Use the ideas that come from the questions to help you start a story… you can of course remould your answers as your story dictates.

Here goes:

QUESTION 1

Think of a person you know by sight but haven’t met properly. Describe that person – What he or she looks like, maybe their character traits, a favourite colour etc…

Continue reading “March 2012 Short Story Competition”

Short Story for Low Wattage

The Journey’s Start

Even as we waited at the coach station I had misgivings. We had been planning this for months – but now Laura had a boyfriend, and that boyfriend, Sam, had come along to see her off on our trip. They stood under the bus shelter engrossed in one another, as if I wasn’t even there. He was tall and blond: slightly androgynous in my view. I suppose I could see what she saw in him, though was so completely not my type, he was very much hers. She fitted neatly under his arm when they walked along side by side, wrapped in each other, her thumb in his belt loop or fingers in his back jeans pocket. His height emphasised her petite frame and her delicate prettiness. He had to tilt his face down to her upturned one to kiss her. They said nothing much and I realised, when I looked up again from checking the tickets that she was crying. Continue reading “Short Story for Low Wattage”

The Journal: February Short Story Competition

It was a grey morning in November when my brother decided that enough was enough. Of course this wasn’t an instant decision; it had been creeping up on him for some years. Slowly, of course, but nevertheless it had been on his mind.

My journey of exploration through his life on reading the journals he kept, though painful, revealed such a miasma of tragic occurrences that I could not believe how the Church had kept a lid on all this.

On the whole, he had not been outwardly unhappy; one could almost have described him as contented. Good old Philip with the worthy job, the perfect wife and a couple of well-behaved children. The two girls had inherited their mother’s looks according to my brother, whose relationship with his daughters seemed tolerant but slightly distant.

Looking back, his parishioners did begin to see the changes, although being abroad at the time, I only discovered this at the funeral. He grew his hair, appeared unkempt and frequently relied on his Rector to conduct services at short notice. He grew more unreliable at time went on, and this inevitably was brought to the attention of the Dean.

Continue reading “The Journal: February Short Story Competition”

February Creative Writing Competition.

I’m off!  Not a flounce, but I’m off to visit the UK or what may still  remain of her on February 22nd.  It’s my sister’s seventieth birthday in early March  and I promised to take her out to dinner.  How she has arrived at such a great age is beyond understanding as I am still a young fella.  So judging this one may be a bit complicated, but I will have sufficient electronic hardware with me to manage  a smallish space mission so I expect it will be achieved.

Theme?  Yes, in keeping with the activity the title is “The Journey” the required words are “androgynous” and “philosophical”.

Fond as I am of the novel form I am restricting this one to a minimum of one thousand and maximum of two thousand words (sorry Ferret).

Closing? Let’s make it midnight (GMT) on the very special day, February 29th 2012 .

January Short Story Competition: What then is time?

Theme: Marking time.

“There was really nothing he could do but be patient. Freedom could come in the next hour, or the next century, or never.”

Hugo registered this thought and decided it was intensely irritating to deal with a creature who regarded any division of time smaller than a decade of no particular importance. Continue reading “January Short Story Competition: What then is time?”