Hi everyone, and welcome to the Wonderful Writers competition for 2017. This writing competition is run, in partnership, with Wirral Libraries and Read Now Write Now.
In fact, there are two competitions one for those aged between 5 and 8 years of old and the other for children aged 9 to 11 years.
So, if you are aged between 5 and 11 then you can join in. Oh, you also have to live in Wirral too.
Assuming that you do let’s get on with explaining things. Firstly, this competition is open only during the summer holidays – between 24th July to 1st September 2017 to be exact. So if you want to submit a story it has to be in by 1st September 2017.
Secondly, let’s discuss the prizes.
The winner of the first prize for the 5-8 year group will win a family ticket to see this year’s Christmas, Peter Pan, at the Floral Pavilion.
The winner of the first prize for the 9-11 year old group will win a family ticket to see “Awful Auntie” by David Walliams at the Floral Pavilion.
Winners of the second prize will win a £25.00 Waterstones voucher courtesy of Morrison’s plc.
Winner of third prize will win a £10.00 Waterstones voucher courtesy of the book shop itself.
We will also award commendation certificates to all really good stories not only to their authors but also their school as well.
This year’s theme is about “Animal Agents”. After that the story is up to you. Perhaps you are a crafty, cunning fox on the trail of some robbers, a sloth who takes their time but can figure all the clues to some mystery, an intelligent dog called Sherlock Bones who is smarter than everyone else or a suave skunk who is just like James Bond?
Set your story wherever you want to it be. Could it be in your garden, at the Zoo or safari park, in Africa or even in a city populated by animals?
Just remember the story can only be up to 1000 words.
The most important thing we are looking for is for your story to be as creative and amazing as possible. We really love reading imaginative stories.
Make sure your story has a great start, middle and ending to it.
At the start introduce where you story begins, can you describe this? We want to be transported from our office and land directly in your story so tell us what we can see, hear, smell, taste and feel.
Bring in your main character, are they the goodie? Perhaps you want them to be the baddie? We don’t mind. We do want you to describe them though. We want to close our eyes and imagine what your character looks like. Do they have a name? What are they like? Are they super fit, brave, scary, scared, lazy or clever?
Now we want to read about what happens to them. For example, we don’t want to read about Henry the Hippo who, on a very hot summer’s day, simply lazed in the river singing “Mud, mud, glorious mud” before going home to bed. That’s boring – yawn! We want something interesting to happen to him. It could be fun, it could be sad but it has to be interesting, imaginative and have something to do with him being an agent of some kind.
Perhaps he sees a crocodile trying to eat or steal something. Is he going to wallow there in the glorious mud and do nothing? No, of course he’s not. Henry has to save the day! How he does it is up to you…. Lastly we want there to be an ending. Has Henry learnt something about today or is every day like this down at the river?
With all stories your reader will want to know how your character and, perhaps, the others, feels about things during the story. Are they sad and unhappy at the start, scared in the middle and hilariously happy at the end?
You can stick some dialogue into your story if you want but don’t get too bogged down in letting the animals talk too much. Remember to mention how the animals talk by the way. Rather than,
"Hello crocodile, how are you today," said Henry.
Have it a bit more like this,
"Hello crocodile, how are you today," asked Henry, timidly.
When you have finished your story we want you to read through it and make sure you are happy with it. Perhaps let someone else read it and let them tell you what they think about it. Did they like it, did they understand what was going on, could they close their eyes and imagine that they were there?
Please also check that you have spelt everything correctly and, if you can, punctuate the story as much as you can. It’s always nice to have commas’ and full stops to let your reader have a breather. Using paragraphs is also a good idea as is the use of capital letters, speech bubbles and so on.
Check too that you are using really good adjectives to describe everything and verbs to describe what your characters are doing and adverbs to show how they are doing it.
Lastly, don’t forget to give it a really catchy title.
Just before I go, remember a story should be about getting what is in your imagination down onto your computer or on paper. Take your time and make sure you have written it all. Don’t worry about not writing 1000 words too. Think quality over quantity.
Please let your parents read our rules before you submit your story too.
If you have any queries then ask your parent to contact me on wonderfulwriters@readnowwritenow.org.uk.
When you are ready to submit the story please use the form below. An adult will have to complete the short form.
Don’t’ forget the deadline and best of luck.
Charlie
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