Well, sometime last week I entered a short story contest. (http://www.nycmidnight.com). As it was my first ever contest, I probably shouldn't have gone for one with an entry fee, but I was feeling impulsive and went for it. My assigned genre/subject was Sci-Fi/Undercover Police Officer. Quite a challenge for someone who has never written anything even resembling sci-fi before. And in the end, it wasn't REALLY sci-fi except that the setting was in a nearly-abandoned space station orbiting Jupiter. How creative.
Staying within the 2,500 word limit was also tough. I could have made it much shorter, but would have had to leave out a LOT of details. I could have done a better job with the details, but then I would have been double over the max. After all was said and done, I think I came up with a decent story, maybe not quite expertly rendered (after all, I procrastinated til the very last moment, submitting with only an hour and 40 minutes before the deadline), but the ending surprised me, and that, I think, is an important aspect of story-crafting.
When a character starts off bland and mundane, but then perks up and surprises me as I am writing a scene - That is what reminds me why I love writing so much.
I just wish I hadn't saved all the actual writing til the very last moment. I would have had more time to cut and polish an otherwise diamond in the rough. And believe me, it's very rough. It will most likely take a miracle to advance to the second round, but my sense of accomplishment is great enough that I may try and find other contests to enter (some with no entry fee, ha!).
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