500 Words

Because I am a judge for the Radio 2 competition, here is a picture of me in my Judge's Hat*.

(*No actual hat required. I just like it.)

In today's Writing Club we talked about entering competitions. The stimulus was the BBC Radio2 500 Words comp, but actually there are competitions running all the time and if you're going to enter one, you might as well enter several. On the BBC link above there are some super tips about how to plot, how to develop character, how to extend your expressive language and how to come up with an original idea in the first place. My own tip would be to make sure you start your story at an exciting moment; don't spend ages describing the background/setting everything up. 

Oh, and have an AMAZING opening line.

NB: Do be aware of "competitions" where everyone who enters gets published and the parents or schools are then asked to pay a considerable chunk for the resulting anthology. There's nothing wrong with that set-up if everyone involved is clear about what's going on. However, if as a parent or teacher you're keen to publish your children's work, I'd recommend Lulu Self Publishing, where you can put together an extremely nice collection for less than a fiver and order as few or as many copies as you like.