We’re on the home stretch – into the final 24 hours so take a break from editing, fine-tuning (or possibly writing) your story to read the thoughts of more of our favourite writers on getting your story ready to enter a competition. All the tips come from interviews we’ve done over the past seven years. Closing date: Monday, April 20^that midnight. 1^st Prize £1200 out of a total prize fund of £1750. Max. wc. 2200. Judge: Kate Johnson of Mackenzie Wolf Literary Agency.

Kit de Waal (from an interview by Jude, 2015)

Kit De Waal ‘s debut novel ‘My Name is Leon’ was shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award and the Desmond Elliott Prize, among others, and went on to win the Kerry Group Irish Novel. Her short stories have been shortlisted by several awards including Bridport, Bristol and Bath. ’The Beautiful Thing’ won 2^nd Prize in the 2015 BSSA and was later recorded for BBC Radio Drama. She has also set up a scholarship scheme for disadvantaged writers.

Do you have some tips on honing a short story ready for a competition?

If you’re entering something for a competition, work it and then pull back. By that I mean, work over every line, work the tale, work the character, work the paragraph, work the ending and beginning, work the jokes and then look at what you can edit to leave only the essence. I suppose it would be like Coco Chanel says about getting dressed. She said that you should get all dressed up and then just before you leave the house take one thing off. Less is more.

Paul Mc Veigh (from an interview by Jane, 2016)

Paul McVeigh is a writer, playwright, teacher of masterclasses and festival director, with a powerful presence on the literary scene. His short stories have been published in many journals and recorded for BBC Radio 4. His debut novel ‘The Good Son’ won a slew of prizes including the Polari First Novel and the McCrea Literary Award. It’s been translated into many languages and was chosen as Brighton’s City Reads in 2016 and given out on World Book Night.

Beginnings and endings – how important are they to a short story? Does the title really matter?

Beginnings are very important. Talking specifically from the point of view of judging competitions and reading stories in an endless feast with a view of festivals etc., I find beginnings are crucial to keep me reading. For these platforms (which I don’t think have to apply to stories in a collection), one way to get my attention is to see the first page as pulling the ring from the grenade. I will read to see if it goes off – I will assume it will and cause the maximum amount of damage possible. If that grenade doesn’t go off and you’ve written an end I believe in and welcome, then I will tip my hat to you. I will also be a bit jealous.

Danielle McClaughlin (from an interview by Jude, 2016)

Danielle McClaughlin is a prolific writer of short stories and has been published in a range of and anthologies journals including The New Yorker. She has won or been listed for many prizes including the William Trevor/Elizabeth 

Bowen International Short Story Award and her debut collection of short stories ‘Dinosaurs on Other Planets’ won the Windham -Campbell prize for fiction.

In what ways have writing competitions helped you as a writer? Can you give a few tips for writers entering The Bath Short Story Award?

I used to enter a lot of competitions and they were a great encouragement, not just the competitions where I was fortunate to be one of the winners, but also the ones where I made longlists or shortlists. Most of us seem to spend a lot of time combating enormous levels of self-doubt, so it’s good to get these boosts now and again. And I’ve also made new writing friends through competitions, because if there’s an event, you get to meet the organisers and the other writers. In terms of writing tips, I’m going to say firstly, read, read, read, read. I’m with Stephen King when he says that ‘if you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.’ I tend to read more short stories than novels and I dip in and out of different collections, a story here, a story there.

As for endings: stop in the right place. Easier said than done, I know, but a short story can be ruined if the writer insists on carrying on past the ending. ‘ … already in that space the light begins to fade into the calm gray even light of the novelist.’ That quote is from a paragraph in The Lonely Voice where Frank O’ Connor is discussing an aspect of the work of Mary Lavin, and whether or not you agree with his assessment of Lavin’s work, I think the analogy of the fading of light is a good way of explaining the loss of intensity, the loss of explosiveness, that can occur when a short story continues on further than it should.

There’s just three days until we close at midnight on Monday, April 20th. Over the past seven years we’ve posted many interviews / Q & A s with inspirational writers on our website and thought you might enjoy a few extracts. Three today, two tomorrow and the last one on Monday.

Tessa Hadley (from an interview by Jude, 2013)

Tessa Hadley, former Professor in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, is one of our most highly-regarded writers of novels and short stories, many of which have won or been long/shortlisted for major national and international prizes. These include the Orange Prize, the BBC National Short Story Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and Windham-Campbell prize for fiction.

Do you have any advice for writers on entering short story competitions?
Keep doing it – once you feel your stories are saying something and have some power and traction. It’s a really useful way to push yourself on, give yourself a deadline. And wonderfully rewarding if you win something too.
Do you think a good title is important for a short story, or doesn’t it matter?
Yes, a title clinches something, it crisps the story up and seals it like a top on a bottle.

Sarah Hilary (from an interview by Jane, 2016)

Photo by Linda Nylind.

Sarah Hilary’s debut novel ‘Someone Else’s Skin’ won the Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award in 2012 (past winners/shortlistees have included Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Lee Child, Mick Herron and Belinda Bauer) which was the first in the compelling and well-reviewed six book D.I. Marnie Rome series. She’s also won prizes for her short stories and flash fiction. 

What do you think are the essential ingredients of a good short story?
Crystal clear setting and characters. Forward momentum. An ending that resonates. No wasted words.
Beginnings and endings – your thoughts on these? How do you decide when a short story should end?
I like an ending that echoes back to the beginning. My favourite short stories have this circularity. When the reader knows what will happen next—that’s where the story should end. The reader finishes it, in his or her imagination.

Anthony Doerr (from an interview by Jude, 2014)

Anthony Doerr is one of our most acclaimed writers. ‘All the Light We Cannot See’ became an instant New York Times bestseller and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in April, 2015. He has also won two of the world’s most prestigious short story prizes: in the US, The Story Prize for ‘Memory Wall’ and, in the UK, the 2011 Sunday Times Short Story Award for ‘The Deep.’

What editing advice would you give to writers who are considering entering our competition?
Reward the generosity of your reader! Try to examine every single word in your story and ask yourself: Is it a lazy choice? Does this adjective/article/noun/verb absolutely need to be there? If someone is nice enough to spend a half-hour reading something you’ve written, try to make your prose absolutely worthy of his or her time. Make the dream that unfolds inside your sentences so persuasive, seamless and compelling, that your reader won’t put it down.

With one week to go until the £1750 prize fund 2020 Bath Short Story Award closes at midnight on Monday April 20th, try these ten tiny tweaks to your story before you enter.

1. Find and remove all your favourite ‘tic’ filler words. Could be ‘just’ or ‘really’.
2. Find and remove all your favourite ‘tic’ action verbs, eg do all your characters get the shakes? ‘he trembled’ ‘he shook’, ‘he shivered’.
3. Similar to the above. Stop your characters shrugging or sighing or arching their eyebrows or winking.
4. Scalpel out double adjectives. Or even most adjectives.
5. Scalpel out all unnecessary ‘ly’ adverbs.
6. Get the cliche police out and search for sneaky cliches eg, ‘gnarled fingers’, ‘tears welled’.
7. Chop off your last sentence. Or last paragraph.
8. Begin with your second sentence or paragraph.
9. If your character is going to dispatch their partner/husband/boyfriend by poison or any other murderous means, change the ending and let them live (not such a tiny tweak).
10.Change the title if it is common place. eg. ‘The Gift’, ‘Flight, ‘Dust’ are very common. Try making your title long and arresting (as long as that fits with the story).

Good luck everyone!
The reading team is busy at work. And as a final reminder, they read blind, so don’t add any identifying details on your document. And remember the word count is 2200.
Thanks.
Jude at BSSA Team

ISOLATION

2020 has been a checklist for global disasters: political; environmental, with bush fires and flooding and now a potential pandemic with new cases of Coronavirus or Covid-19 announced daily. Apart from the bizarre stories of stockpiling loo roll, we hear about people self-isolating and, in the case of the state of Lombardy, an entire Italian province under potential lockdown.
What must it be like to be removed or remove oneself from the world?

When I was a teenager, one of my favourite poems was Tennyson’s ‘Lady of Shallot’.  The hypnotic  rhythm of the verses as well  as the choice and placing of words build up to create the horror of her predicament. She must not look out of the window so has to view the outside world through a mirror.

‘There she weaves by  night and day/ A magic web with colours gay.

She has heard a whisper say/ A curse is on her if she stay

To look down to Camelot.’

She also has no idea what the curse might be ‘And so she weaveth steadily.’  This builds up to delicious, dramatic climax when ‘half-sick of shadows’ she leaves the tower and island where she has been imprisoned by the curse. You might also recognise her from the paintings of John Waterhouse and other pre-Raphaelites (see above).

This photo was taken in Marrakech a few years ago and made me wonder who might have once sat in the gloomy interior looking out onto a sunny tiled courtyard and, directly opposite, another dark room. Perhaps the room was a refuge from the searing sun? Or something else?

If you need inspiration for your story, think about isolation as a theme or use a poem, a painting or one of your own photos as a starting point. Your story (up to 2200 words) can be on any theme or genre but must reach us by midnight on Monday, April 20th. So get writing!