The Eastern Writers Group
The Biggest Little Short Story Competition 2007
Report from the judges
With hundreds of stories submitted this year, the competition
judges (fifteen of them) each had to read many stories, many of
them more than once.
This is how they went about it.
During preliminary judging, each story was read three
times by different readers. Eventually, 34 stories were selected
for a final judging session. Each of these shortlisted stories was
again read three times and after much discussion three stories were
chosen to take the prize-money and two were given a special commendation.
As in previous Biggest Little Short Story competitions,
the judges agreed that most stories were well written and carefully
considered, which made final evaluation a difficult task.
The 500-word story seems to be harder to write successfully
than the usual short story of 2000 words or more. This year, there
was no shortage of excellent writing – but many of the pieces
submitted hardly qualified as stories. There were slices of life,
character studies, anecdotes, reminiscences, musings, articles and
even poems. Other stories were more like extended jokes than stories.
Many stories had excellent beginnings but did not reward the reader
with a satisfactory ending. Some failed by giving away the end of
the story half way through. A frequent fault was an excess of description,
much of it excellently done but out of place in a short-short story.
Some authors seemed to believe that a story firmly founded
on fact - a "true" story - was interesting simply because
of that. Such stories tended to begin with a statement such as "This
really happened . . . " Many of them were excellently written,
but none of them made it to the short list. Stories that did make
it didn't beat about the bush. They kept to the point, which they
often drove home with an accumulated sense of inevitability. Their
authors demonstrated creative imagination and skilled execution
in a difficult form.
The winners
Take me - I'm yours
by Jim Murphy
Here's a story that's topical without being too breathlessly
up-to-date. The author manages in 500 words to show how those who
think all the elderly are demented may themselves be confused.
Chooser
by Maggie Clarke
What do you do with a husband who's gone bad? This is
one woman's solution that is grimly satisfying - but not to the
husband.
I forgot
by Johan Luidens
This tale is set in Alaska where, as everyone knows,
it's cold, so cold that absent-mindedness can be lifte-threatening.
Highly commended
These authors did not win prizes but their stories are
to be published on this website mainly because of the amount of
comment and discussion they gave rise to.
Quasimodo's paradox - a mathematical love
story
by Michelle Lopert
Too cocky by half
by Maria Quinn