poems
| short stories
at the heart of the Bridport Literary Festival |
Q2. Have you any tips about writing my poem or short story?In each of the years that Bridport Prize has been running, the final judge in both the poetry and short story section has written a report explaining their choice of winner. Often these reports provide an insight into what they have looked for in a prize-winning entry, and what led them to select one out of many. These extracts represent some of the views expressed by the professional writers who have selected previous Bridport prize winners - their opinion on what makes a good (and also a bad) poem or short story. Short StoriesWhat is a short story? ....the question has had
more answers than you could count. I think William Trevor came
closest when he said 'a novel must have a plot, while a short
story must have a point'. I think Roald Dahl has got a lot to
answer for - his 'Twist in the Tail' stories have given too many
writers the idea that a short story exists simply to surprise the
reader at the end. I lost count of the number of stories that
bored me rigid until at the very end something happened! And
always with an exclamation mark! And usually totally out of
keeping with what had gone on before! Peter Benson, short story judge 1999 What exactly is a short story? Well, I'll tell
you what - in my opinion - it is not. Lynne Reid Banks, short story judge 2000 The short story is a difficult and demanding form. It is perhaps as hard to write a really first-rate short story as it is to write a really first rate poem. Both need a strong informing idea. Both demand an economy of means. Both demand - line by line - a language appropriate to its subject, upon which the writer must never lose his/her grip. Young writers often begin by writing short stories in the belief that, because they are short, they will be easy to accomplish. I began the same way. But it was only much later (and after many stories had, rightly, been rejected and I had progressed to the longer, more accommodating form of the novel) that I started to understand what the ingredients of a good short story might truly be. Rose Tremain, short story judge 2003 If it's nearly impossible to write the perfect short story, then it's also pretty damned hard to write a very blemished one. All but 13 writers will regret not winning a prize, not achieving the dream on this occasion, but I am sure that there is not a single unsuccessful entrant who would prefer never to have completed their story. Human beings are by nature narrative animals with unparalleled language skills and consciousness, both of which will atrophy if not exercised. The writing is reward in itself. Jim Crace, short story judge 2004 The short story is not very forgiving. Because it is so short, everything in it must contribute to the final effect. There is no room for charming meanders or inspired digressions, unless they subtly deepen one of the story's central themes. A story is more, and sometimes less, than a piece of wonderful or atmospheric writing; it is more than an intriguing piece of characterisation, or psychological realism. I think it should involve some transformation of consciousness. A short story must go somewhere, and actually arrive in the span of its short life. It should have a beginning, a middle, and most of all, an end. Maggie Gee, short story judge 2005 If only writers could be a little, well, jollier about it! Sorely missing from the entries was humour, with the honourable exceptions of "Ghost Lights," which made me laugh aloud, and "The Fish," with its surreal subject matter and bravura style (there is only one full-stop, at the end of the story). Otherwise, reading the stories made me more and more depressed. While I'm not in a position to chastise - I myself am not known for many laughs in my books - I would like to make a plea to future writers: humour is good! Not only that, but a funny story is so much harder to write than a sad one. Let it be a challenge to us all. I will if you will. Tracey Chevalier, short story judge 2007 PoemsMany entries for poetry competitions suffer from too heavy a use of poetry tools. Using too much rhyme, rhythm, assonance or alliteration will carve away a poem until nothing is left but patterns... a poet who wants all rhyme neat as houses is working on patterns instead of poetry, reducing it to a mathematics. Tobias Hill, poetry judge 1999 A big prestigious competition like the Bridport Prize is rather like working your way through a vast crowd. What one wants is fresh air, an imagination that strikes one first of all with its novelty or poise, then on closer inspection, with its substance. poems that take risks while remaining on their feet are at an advantage. George Szirtes, poetry judge 2000 A good poem should be easily recognized. As
Fleur Adcock says in 'The Prize-winning Poem', it I like the Bridport method of adjudication; one person judges the whole lot. It makes for a very heavy work-load, but it avoids the kind of horse-trading I've met in three-judge competitions, which can result in the top prize going to a compromise candidate no one thinks is the best. U A Fanthorpe, poetry judge 2003 The good poem is still able to mug you. Blurbless and undressed, so to speak, you take the work as you find it. Every now and then, a poem has simply declared itself, already cooking on gas and electricity, formally best equipped for the job, surprising, memorable - in terms of the way some phrasing or syntax stayed in the mind, as well as the use of a striking image or simile - and sometimes rhetorically or idiomatically inventive. I've been cheered by the amount of work that draws from the well of English as it is variously spoken, and - even more exciting - work that can manage this while being allusive, and aware of deeper resources. Paul Farley, poetry judge 2004 The things I was looking for as I made my way through the entries were either abstract or technical: surprise, precision, imagination and risk; and a proper attentiveness to and use of cadence, lineation, enjambement, metrics, etc. Yet the word that came to me when a poem stood out was alive: that it was a breathing, palpable, energised, shifting creature. Lavinia Greenlaw, poetry judge 2006 I want a poem with an interesting argument or point to make, or a compelling story to tell. That rules out a fair few. Lots of poems here sound like poems, and often very beautifully - but they don't make the shape of poems, and they have no great imaginative or dramatic proposition that makes me excited about the prospect of reading them again. Others have no real structural armature, and are really just bunch of fine images strung together, with no sense that the constituent parts are in the service of a greater whole. And too many afforded me no surprise Don Paterson, poetry judge 2007
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