It's deadline season for short story contests all across the nation! Time to plug in the coffeemaker, crack open a fresh bottle of Xanax, and get down to business.
February is a strange month. Certainly it hosts two nationally treasured holidays that bring loved ones together--Valentines Day and Super Bowl Sunday (Keep Pounding!)--but once these events have passed and left us feeling either defeated or victorious, we begin the interminable odyssey that is waiting for summer. February is the filler episode of years: it is unnecessarily short, agonizingly wishy-washy (will it be warm today? Will it be cold? February likes to make this decision in the middle of the day), and excruciatingly dreary. For young writers, however, February is a less of a dazed stupor and more of a mad dash towards deadline completion.
Perhaps it's just coincidence or maybe the literary community decided writers needed to preserve their mental acuity during the stultifying gloom of winter: either way, contest deadlines seem to fall invariably into the chilly void of February. I've been working on submissions for four different writing events that all either take place on or request submissions during February. As you might expect, it's a frustrating, frazzling experience with a murky outcome: will I triumph over my peers and receive publication or scholarship money? Or will I have exhausted my creative reservoirs for nothing? If you're feeling the same way, fear not: we will weather the storm together. Gulp down that caffeine and get your gun--we've got some work to do.
Now, let me begin by saying that I do come from experience and that because I have spent years forging my writing into a unique extension of myself, I consider writing to be my greatest strength. That isn't to say I expect my work to reign supreme in every contest I enter, because my personal work tends to differ from the work I submit (don't worry, I'm not a sellout, there's a formula to this) and, of course, there will always be someone out there who does what you do and does it better. But having been published and recognized by different institutions, I do believe I can offer you some creditable guidance--starting with the aforementioned formula.
Essay competitions are a proverbial Hunger Games in which every writer is sprinting towards a cornucopia of hackneyed cliches and exhausted platitudes, and frantically piecing together a coherent essay the night before the deadline (how do I know this? Because I used to do it.) There are some crucial elements of an essay that will make it succeed and, unfortunately for you, a lot of writers already know these before entering the melee. However, once you know what parts of an essay are totally necessary, you can equip yourself quickly and then retreat into your niche to make the essay unique.
The first component of a good essay is a strong structure. You may scoff, but several writers completely forget how to structure their work and enter a piece with no direction or inner-scaffolding to maintain its ideas. You wouldn't build a house without a foundation or support beams, just as you wouldn't start an essay in the middle of a thought. That's why I encourage you to at least have a solid idea before you start writing. This isn't like fiction writing, where you can begin your story in the heat of battle and then construct a story around it: you need to begin at the beginning. Typically, I encourage you to write an introduction that neatly segues into your main topic, as this will familiarize the reader with your tone and prose, and provide them with some background information. If you are under a strict word limit that doesn't allow for extraneous material, then at least begin with a hook sentence. This can be an interesting statistic, a personal story (if the topic warrants personal narrative), or a bold statement that you can and will support with facts and ideas. Your goal when starting an essay is to entice the reader and make them want to continue reading.
However, you must provide them with interesting material to read if they choose to continue. As I said before, structure is crucial: after your introduction, concentrate on your main idea. While your essay does not have to meet the thesis-body-conclusion criteria of academic papers, it is a good idea to organize your thoughts into body paragraphs. I recommend three (having three paragraphs is always the ideal, especially if you have a lot to say about the subject), but it is entirely up to you (and the word limit) to decide. No matter how many body paragraphs you include, make sure that these are concise and considerate. Do not turn to the thesaurus--we learned from Joey Tribbiani that this will make you sound dry and uninterested. My advice is to use the first word that pops into your head when writing, as this will help preserve your unique tone and prevent you from misusing a synonym (remember the scold/admonish/reprimand debate?) Avoid adding extraneous material and tangents. Essays exist not to stifle creativity in high school students across America, but to present information in a clear, well-organized manner. This is your opportunity to show someone how much you know about a topic--do not disappoint them.
Conclusions are not quite as important as the introduction or body (these are your foundation and infrastructure, without which there is no house), but do not get lazy at the end. By the conclusion, the reader will have already formed a strong opinion about your writing, so do not try to convince them otherwise with a gimmicky ending line or by introducing another idea that will only clutter your essay's theme. Instead, give your final observations and try to tie the last lines together with the opening ones in order to instill the essay with a strong sense of coherency. This will make it function better as a whole. And, if you can, make your final line as memorable as possible so that the reader does not forget you. If a thousand people are all writing about the same topic, then chances are that the reader will have had the same concepts hammered into their skulls a thousand times. Differentiate yourself with a unique perception on the topic and by making good use of your tone. We all use the same words to write: how we put them together is that distinguishes us as writers.
Now that you have your structure, you need to imbue your essay with some heart and soul. But there is something you absolutely have to remember: in spite of their best efforts, a lot of readers have difficulty suppressing bias and will end up reacting to what you write. That isn't to say you shouldn't be yourself, but there is a certain way you must present yourself so that your ideas remain palatable.
If you're a liberal, you know that a lot of conservatives will inconvenience themselves just to point out the flaws in our beliefs and that a conservative judge will intuitively shy away from leftist thought. That's where you have to be deliberate with your ideas. For example: I was recently selected as a finalist in my state's annual high school writing contest. The topic asked how you would better your state, so my essay included my opinion on lingering racism and our low-ranked education system. If you've ever read my material before, you know I don't have much of a verbal filter when it comes to my beliefs, so I had to be extremely careful with how I worded my submission. I did not allow my stronger emotions to taint the essay's message. I was rational and levelheaded. For the racism paragraph, I included a brief personal account about the many Confederate Flags I saw during summer trips across the state (the number would only depress you); for the education paragraph, I presented some statistics and discussed how the quality of education was preventing students from reaching their potential and bettering the state. Not once did I poise my argument as superior or criticize the state itself. That reminds me: if you're writing about your state or your country, you have to remain patriotic. Do not allow yourself to attack where you live, no matter how corrupt. Achieving this kind of writing takes practice and consideration. This is where you have to be conscious of what you're writing and who is reading it, and while you should not shape your views into bland obscurity, you need to be prudent in your expression.
For fictional contests, I have only this to say: be yourself. I know, I know, who am I to criticize platitudes when I dispense them as advice? But for competitions where your goal is to be distinguishable and memorable, being yourself is the only tool you have. Write about what interests you, what you are passionate about. Your tone and style will shine if you pair them with a strong story and characters that you take time to develop. Even though most of these contests request short fiction, you cannot forget to develop your characters and have a coherent plot. Without them, your house is empty and, honestly, who wants to visit an empty house?
Competitions may make writers feel like they're submitting artificial work, with all its unique elements edited out, but they are actually beneficial to pursuers of the craft. You will never be more conscious about your writing then when you know it will be competing against other talented writers. You will feel motivated, even enraged--how dare they think someone else is better than me?! I'm an incredible writer! Look at what I wrote! And though the pressure of a deadline is often suffocating, do not collapse under the stress of it all and allow an opportunity to pass you by. You are capable of writing something amazing and if you push yourself hard enough, you will reap the benefits one way or another.
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