100 Stories for Queensland Update

A short while ago I posted here about 100 Stories for Queensland, a fundraising project to help people affected by the widespread floods in Queensland, Australia.

As I mentioned in the post concerned, I am one of the team of volunteer readers and editors for this project. As there are just five days now to the closing date - Friday 28 January - I thought I'd post a few thoughts on the stories we've received so far, for the benefit in particular of anyone who may still be thinking of submitting a story for this very worthwhile project.

First of all, I should say that the overall standard of submissions has been high. In particular, I've been pleased to see less gloom and doom than with some other fundraising anthologies I've helped to edit. The message is clearly getting across that with anthologies produced in response to appalling natural disasters, a reasonably upbeat tone is preferred.

It's also been pleasing that entrants have been better at sticking to the rules regarding length - very few stories have had to be excluded for being over the 1000-word maximum. We have had a few stories under the 500-word minimum mentioned in the guidelines, but this is less of a problem, as a few very short stories (if good, of course!) will provide variety and help the publishers keep the book to a manageable size.

And overall, the great majority of stories have been at least competently written. There may be the odd typo or spelling/grammatical error - but there have been very few we rejected straight off because of issues with the writing itself.

On the minus side, quite a few of the submissions were not short stories at all. We have had poetry, reminiscences, opinion pieces, and even travel articles submitted. Although the editorial team has read and considered them all, the general view is that a short story anthology should - as the name indicates - comprise works of short fiction.

The category that has probably caused most debate among the judges is stories that are clearly fictional and competently written, but don't seem to have any particular 'point' to them. As I noted in my blog post last year about the reasons short stories get rejected, quite a few writers don't appear to grasp what a short story actually is. Some submissions read like extracts from novels, while others resembled a book summarized in a few hundred words. Neither of these really makes for a successful short story.

It's not easy to define what exactly makes a good short story, but in my view it should have some sort of dramatic unity, with a clear beginning, middle and an end. There should be conflict, suspense or tension to engage readers and make them want to read on. And, as indicated above, stories should have some point or purpose to them. Too many of those submitted left me thinking 'So?' or 'What?' or even 'So what?'

So what (oops!) are the stories we have been accepting? Humorous twist-enders, you may not be surprised to hear, generally go down well. But a twist-ending is by no means a necessity. Some of the best stories we have received (in my opinion) have had quite poignant endings, which left the reader with something to ponder.

Of course, the editors haven't agreed about everything, and it's been fascinating to see the comments made about individual stories. In particular, these have proved to me that humour is a very personal thing - some stories I found hilarious have left others cold, and vice versa. In the end, whether such stories move to the final round of selection is determined by a majority vote. I suspect that some very funny stories (in my view) may end up being turned down, but that's the way it goes. If you want to maximize your chances of acceptance, a poignant, thought-provoking ending is most likely to appeal to a broad spectrum of judges. Though a little humour never goes amiss as well!

Finally, as mentioned above, the closing date for submissions is Friday 28 January, so there is still plenty of time to get your story in. For all the latest information, please visit the project's Facebook Page or the new homepage at http://100storiesforqueensland.org

And to submit a story, please visit http://100storiesforqueensland.submishmash.com/Submit and follow the on-screen instructions.

Good luck, and thank you for supporting this project!