Short Story Contest

Inspiration Thursday

These last few weeks, we’ve gone in-depth about writing stories, whether roleplay or fan fiction and developing characters. I’ve also introduced a good few characters from the Just One universe. To break a bit from the lecturing, I’d like to take this Inspiration Thursday post to discuss my experience with the latest short story contest. I originally planned on calling this post My First Contest, but that would be true.

I wrote short stories and poems as a primary (elementary) school student. I wouldn’t have many of them around here anymore because many computers have been changed since. It was only much later that I understood about having my own archives, which was all before the cloud concept was introduced.

Co-Writing With My Dad

Just a quick walk through my own history. As a young student, there was an ERATO (International Literary Institute) poem contest for the most beautiful Croatian Poem around my school. We were told to submit poems from March 11^th to May 25^th 2004. Our poems would be published in a large book of all submissions and could be featured on a CD that came with them. The Poem I wrote was “Going Down the Road” in Croatian. In truth, I wrote a poem in the voice I always wrote poetry, more freelance than by the roles of poem writing. I’d written a good few poems even after just like that. But it was my father who had looked it over and edited it to ensure it was a proper poem that would fit a submission, so today, when I think about it, I look back at it as something we did together, co-wrote it as father and daughter.

Winning Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 1

The second competition I participated in was another short story; this one was a travel one, where we had to share (or invent) a story about being somewhere. The first prize was a trip somewhere; if memory serves me well, it might have been Greece. The second one, however, was the reason I applied. It was season one of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on VHS. No joke. I wrote my story, and my introduction was literally, “I want those cassettes.” Guess what I got out of that competition? No, not the trip. Season 1. I still own them; they’re packed up somewhere in a box in Croatia, and obviously, I can’t watch them, but they’re a fantastic memory that I still have. An aunt said something along the lines, “Oh, that boy one because he’s 18; they didn’t want to give you the first prize because you were underage”. But, no, I won what I wanted.

Short Story Competition

After having that little trip down memory lane, I want to tell you about this year’s short story contest. Somewhere in my many subscriptions arrived an e-mail about a short story competition not long before its end. There was about a month or so to go when I found it, though I suspect the e-mail was even older than that.

When I first read the competition rules, I felt a surge of  “do it!” inside my mind. It’s one of those feelings you can’t adequately explain, but it’s a key driver in doing things. As T. Harv Eker points out, it’s “Ready. Fire. Aim.”

If anybody missed the link to the website on my previous posts, it’s located at Something or Other Publishing, LLC (SOOP) Annual Short Story Competition. Within the past, you’ll find the rules, the submission form and other details relevant to the contest. Over the course of getting my votes (we’ll get to that later), I found the SOOP e-mails very helpful as they send out suggestions how to get votes.

What Will I Write?

So, here I am, trying to figure out what short story I want to write, when I realize the answer has been in front of me all along. For a long time, I had wanted to tell the story of one particular roleplay character I love so much and whom I am immensely proud of for her character development. Katrine. Now, when I created Katrine, I had already been writing her mother Curupira, and she’d been mated (the term we use for official couples on Dathomir, within the Star Wars universe), or in a more roleplay term, Curupira had “claimed” Ket Van-Derveld. Katrine was then born mad as a  hatter, a time-travelling teenager looking for her older sister Chloe. And the rest is, as they say, history.

Except, since the time I started writing Kat (she was 17 at the time), to the present day (when I haven’t roleplayed in a good two or three years, or more even), she’s grown up from a teenage girl into a young mother, formally coven leader, future planet queen; she never found her older sister, she’s made friends along the way, had her heart broken, survived a curse… There was a lot of development there.

I’ll spend more time on Katrine in next week’s Character Introduction, but let all that sink in for now. The point is, I love Kat, and I love what I’ve been able to do with her. So, it’s no surprise I’d often wondered if her story came after the Just One series. I never started it, but it was stuck in my head for a long while.

Plotting the Short Story

Before writing, I had worked out my three characters with their features, powers, etc. I changed the last name because the Van-Derveld name is exclusive to the Star Wars roleplay universe and was initially been created by someone else. Still, we have the right to roleplay said characters (not obviously, not take them out of the Star Wars ‘verse).

Step one was to rebuild key characters: Katrine, Aston, Larentia and Idris. Aston hasn’t really changed too much. He’s still the loveable, heart-warming hero he was written as by his writer. Larentia as a child (as I also wrote her grown-up version) is still adorable.

Regarding Idris, the idea where Kat was heartbroken remained from a real character, but Idris is a brand new one. He’s a lot more cruel and controlling towards Katrine…

As I’ve told you in Character Development, I love writing biographies for my characters. Regarding my writing (not roleplay), I tend to write short biographies in a single document where I put in the picture, name, age, family details, facts (history and/or interesting information) and powers/gifts. This way, I can open it in a separate window and refer to (or update) whenever needed.

Pantser and Plotter

There has been a long-standing debate about whether someone is a plotter (plans their writing) or a pantser (writes without an outline). I’ve been a pantser for most of my writing life, and while I had tried to become a 100% plotter, I found I would be going off the script as soon as I started, and the very detailed outline would have me limited.

Over time, I learned to be both. I can outline the overall storyline and give myself a general idea of how I want things to develop. The character details are in a separate document to keep me focused on the individuals. Sometimes, I even write chapters in different document files with pointers.

In the end, I’ll write; as I do this, the inspiration could take me elsewhere. Example of this – I’ve previously mentioned the big dark secret Connor Flores has, one his niece can never find out about. This came from just writing his POV and being surprised that he had a secret because it was on his mind. It took me a good year to hash out just what this is.

Drafting and Edits

So, I dived in once I had worked out a general idea of what I wanted with my short story and wrote down the character details. I’d written double the number of words by the time I had finished writing (the limit was five thousand). This is okay, though. First drafts are meant to be too long, full of details, and probably not something you’d show anyone.

Once the first draft was finished, I re-read the story. I use Grammarly for my spelling and grammar errors, so that too. When I read it once, I knew there were three significant scenes and two minor ones that I had to keep. Everything else was fluff. So, I wrote those five first, placing them in the correct order from each other and re-writing them as I went. Because you see, I’ve gotten into a habit of re-type rather than edit. I like to keep earlier drafts and start fresh. Initially, this was because I struggled with Microsoft (MS) Word inside large document files (which the first draft of Just One as a book draft was), but now it has become a habit. I like to keep the original file on the right while I type on the left.

Beta Readers

When asked what this term means, I often explain it to first readers and people I trust. There are Facebook groups and whatnot where you could get strangers to be your beta readers, but for me, the first people to read my work should be people I trust and know. They should also be chosen for other reasons rather than trust. I have a handful of people I’ve chosen and asked to read my work.

My best friend adored books; she may be the most read person alive (I’m not saying other people in my life aren’t, but I know that about her). As I’d mentioned in the Roswell blog post, it was how we bonded at the beginning of our friendship, so in terms of Just One, I not only want to get her opinion on the book, characters, etc., but her input of making sure my story has no relation to the original fan fiction is invaluable.

My second beta reader is a woman I roleplayed with for ten+ years. We’ve built characters together (friends and family) and written endless threads on roleplay forums. She and other people in my roleplay circle helped me grow as a writer capable of creating and developing characters quickly, who still gives me feedback on my work and who will never shy from sharing her opinion (same as my best friend).

I have a couple of other beta readers, again, people in my life that I trust and who have expressed interest in reading my work. They’ve all been given a few drafts of Just One. My next plan is to create a Google Doc where I’ll put a series of questions and ask for them to fill them out as one of the things I learned throughout reading about being an author, traditional and self-publishing is that beta readers are still readers, who can get lost in the stories.

My job as the writer is to ask the right questions to get the correct answers.

50 Votes to Qualify

The Wolf’s Heir: Katrine’s Awakening went live for voting on August 20th. I hadn’t submitted my story then, as I needed 50 votes to qualify as a contestant. In the time it took me to get said votes, I let my beta readers go through the story, in which case my writing partner was vital as she helped me develop Katrine as a roleplay character through threads. So, she is familiar with the original character and her backstory.

It took me about a week to get the necessary posts. For this task, I posted on social media (Instagram, X and Facebook) with artwork and participated in the writer’s lift hashtag on X. I also contacted my Facebook friends through messengers and told my co-workers about it. That is the process of becoming who I’m meant to be – to say to people around me that this is what I’m doing, and I hope you get excited about it as I am. With The Wolf’s Heir, I’d reached high, answering questions as I collected votes and being proud of my accomplishments.

Officially a Contestant

So, I got my 50 votes. I also got featured on the website’s Top 20 list at the end of August, climbing to position number 10, only to reach number 9 in the next week’s Top 30, which felt like a huge achievement and something I could share on my social media.

After reaching the necessary votes, I continued campaigning for my short story online and gaining additional ballots. In the end, I got 76 votes. The only time I’m ever prouder of my written work is when my beta readers come back with feedback about my work or when I finish my drafts.

Like, Share & Subscribe

And there you have it: we’ve reached the end of another Inspiration Thursday. I have to admit, I really enjoyed taking this trip down memory lane, which reminded me not only that I’ve won a few things before but that I used to love writing poetry. I’m not saying I was great at it, but it was an enjoyable hobby. It felt better than writing a regular diary post of what I did that day. Even today, as I journal, it’s completely different than “dear diary…”, but that subject will be for another day.

For the next two weeks, I’ve decided to tell you about two of my favourite fan fiction (that will remain that), but have in some way inspired my other work. After that, we’ll be going back to Just One.

In the meantime, I invite you to comment, like and subscribe (either through MailChimp or WordPress). You can also follow me on all my social media platforms, of which Instagram is probably the most active.

Questions for You

Just before we finish, I turn the imaginary mic over to you. I always ask for likes and comments, but I wish to hear from you.

Tell me about your own contests, whether in writing or something different.

How well did you do? Why did you apply? What did you learn from it?

There’s plenty to discuss on this subject, and I would love to hear from you.

Until next time…

~ Love, L.V.