SHEFFIELD AUTHORS
- Stories "Made in Sheffield"
Our short story competition is back for Off the Shelf 2024. This year's competition will be on Thursday 17th October 2024, at 18:30 at University of Sheffield Library on Western Bank.
We are also running The Magic Pen Competition for people with learning difficulties and learning disabilities.
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​​Magic Pen Entries
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Stories can be up to 500 words long but as short as you want. Your story needs to be typed up but this can be done by a friend, family member or carer. Your story must be about Sheffield in some way. Entries are free for this category.
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Short Story Competition Entry Details
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Up to 1000 words with the theme: Secret and Lies, to be interpreted in whatever way grabs you; it should also have a Sheffield angle to it. (We're not mean people so won't rule out a story for being a word or two over - but don't push your luck! :-) A title is always good. We recommend you read the Short Story tips below.
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The authors of the 12 stories on the long-list will be notified in advance and the six short-listed stories will be announced on the night and authors invited to read their story out. The audience will then vote on their favourites. (If you are short-listed but would rather have your story read out by someone else on the night, that can be arranged.)
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The entry fee is £5.00 per story (£2 if you are on a low income). You can enter more than once. The closing date is the 30th September at midnight.
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There will be a prize (to be announced) for each of these winners. The entry fee gives you access to the competition evening.
The competition is open to anyone, including members of Sheffield Authors (excepting the judges) - all stories will be anonymised so that the judges won't know who wrote them.
Entries now closed for this year.
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Short story top tips
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- You don’t have words to waste in a 1000 word story – every single word has to do its share of the work. If it doesn’t, get rid – your editing time could well equal your writing time.
- There needs to be some “thing” that provokes a response in your reader: something they weren’t expecting (or possibly were expecting once they're part way in), a revelation, a discovered truth etc. That “thing” can make you laugh, move you, kick you in the gut, make you want to curse, or even just roll your eyes or raise an eyebrow. But what you don’t want is your reader to think: "So what?"
- If that still leaves you a bit puzzled go back to your favourite short stories and try to work out what that “thing” is in each. Or read a few Chekhov short stories: he was a master of the form. He said reading a short story “feels rather like swallowing a glass of vodka.” (What do you think he meant by that? An opening up of the senses followed by a warm glow? – can't beat a slug of vodka and a story at bedtime!)
- Julia Casterton has a good take on it in her, highly recommended Creative Writing – a Practical Guide. She reckons all good short stories have an element of change at their root: “like an insistent bass line. Something always happens and someone always has to deal with (or avoid) what has occurred. The character can meet the change head on, in which case we might feel gratified – or sidestep the new knowledge, try to behave as though everything is the same as before. Either way the change sits there for the reader, fascinating, not to be ignored.
- Once you have written it and edited it, read it aloud to yourself or a friend. If it reads clumsily, or you trip over your words, revisit them.
- If you can make you story "really Sheffield" whatever that might be, so much the better.
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And if you don't like the way we've said it, here are some thoughts by the great Arnold Bennett:
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