Win Writing Awards For A Five-Figure Income

How can you enter a large volume of stories to win writing awards? The greater number of competitions you enter, the greater your chances of winning. However every competition appears to have exact requirements.

For example, a competition may well impose a certain plot. For example, 'suppose that a person opens up a document or diary they are not designed to read. What happens after that?' Various other contests might set a contestant the opening words of a story eg: 'My day might have been completely different, if only I had...'

Do you need to craft a whole new tale every time to abide by these kinds of requirements?

No! Any well created story includes a strong plot feature or 'nugget' that is independent of the personas, descriptions, occasion, place or even category of story.

Thus it is possible to recompose that nugget to match almost any competition. And then enter the same basic story over and over again!

Recall the tale of Beowulf? This motif is actually observed in different countries throughout the world since documents started. The exact same narrative has made an appearance in drama, ballets, songs and, needless to say, pantomimes.

Nonetheless surely (you might say) my own scenario is basically sad. How can I edit that into a cheerful or comic one? Or vice versa? Quite simply. Almost all sad stories contain a sufferer. Add comic endings and then the sad tale turns into a jest. Remove the funny ending and the comedy becomes a tragedy.

It's true! In the late 17th century, a play producer produced Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as 'tragi-comedy' and 'farce' on alternate days. For the witty edition, he cut out only a few sequences then added upbeat endings to the existing scenes.

Thus... just rewrite your narrative to the expectations of each award scheme!

You will have to do very little more than compose a new initial paragraph, and make various incidental changes to character characteristics, conversations, locations and important occurrences. So, if you are a qualified author, you may find it feasible to develop a large number of 'new' entries within a single day out of one original, powerfully crafted story.

Send in half a dozen stories a day, every one to a distinct competition and - provided you're competent in your craft - at the very least one entry per working day should win you a prize, at the very least. That might be a lucrative major award!

Whether you go on to change your successful story and re-send it to more contests will depend on the regulations of those contests. But do be careful which competitions you choose when resubmitting a newly modified tale. Otherwise, before very long, every competition judge in the entire world will chuckle when your story shows up and mutter: 'here comes that guy once again.

Above all, do not cheat

Competition organisers typically permit a number of entries from the same contestant. Even in this case, it would probably not be a wonderful notion to attempt multiple entries to the very same award scheme under many phony identities, making use of the addresses of your complicitous friends, with some silly hope of enhancing your success rate.

Simply think. Suppose you achieved all the cash payouts and had to appear personally to receive them! You wouldn't know where to hide.

If you wish to practice chicanery, go directly into PR. It's legal.

Nevertheless if you merely adapt your award scheme story to the requirements of every contest, using a single basic story, it's not cheating. It's a win-win story system!


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Dr John Yeoman, PhD Creative Writing, is founder of the writing awards centre Writers' Village. A university tutor in short story writing, he is a veteran contest judge. You'll find dozens of ingenious plans to win money prizes in his 7000-word guide How to Win Writing Contests for Profit. Acquire it for free now at:
http://www.writers-village.org/writing_awards