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The Guernsey Literary Festival is once again on the lookout for young writing talent with its WriteStuff competition, which gets underway this month.
This year the competition, which is open to school students from Year 3, is looking for writers who can create a character effectively. Novels and stories are judged by the quality of their characters, but in The WriteStuff, writers have to impress the judges in just 300 words.
‘Write a description of up to 300 words that breathes life into a character of your creation. Try to show your character in action during your scene and include some dialogue to reveal what they are like,’ say the organisers.
The judges will look for:
Entrants do not need to write a whole story but should focus on crafting an episode which really showcases the character they’ve created.
Pieces will be judged on creativity, clarity and style. The aim of The WriteStuff competition is to develop professional writing skills and further digital literacy.
The competition, which is launched on Monday 9 January, will close on Friday 24 March 2017. It will be split into three age categories, for primary school pupils (years 3, 4, 5 and 6); for intermediate pupils (years 7, 8 and 9); and for senior school students (year 10 and above).
In each category, there will be three prizes. The first prize will be £50 cash, the trophy for the year, a certificate, the story illustrated on the website and the original illustration for the winner to keep. Second prize is £25 cash, a certificate, the story illustrated on the website and the original illustration for the student to keep; third prize is £25 cash, a certificate, the story illustrated on the website and the original illustration to keep.
For the 2017 competition, each school which is represented will receive a copy of a book signed by The WriteStuff’s guest judge for their school library, and all individual entrants will be invited to attend the Awards Ceremony during the Festival. All entrants will also receive a certificate and WriteStuff pencil.
The judges will be Tony Booth, Rachel Mahy and Anne Bryant and the competition is sponsored by Julius Baer. Competition partners are Betley Whitehorne, the Guille-Allès Library and the Children's Library Service.
The winners will be announced in May and the prizes will be given out at the Competition Awards Ceremony on Sunday 14May. All winning and highly commended entries will be loaded onto The WriteStuff website and winning entries will also be illustrated.
All entries should be submitted directly through the website, which has more details of the competition: www.writestuff.gg
