Creating Character Voice, Contest and Call for Submission

How can we strengthen our writing voices? Start by listening to how people talk. If you’re writing for teens, you might find the word, like, shows up a lot in dialog. Young children often ask questions. Where did the rain come from? Incorporate realistic dialog and narrative that reflect the age of the character into your writing.

Read works by other writers in the genre in which you are writing. Be conscious of how voice is used and why it resonates with you. Or doesn’t work, in some cases. Try to figure out why you don’t like that particular style of writing.

Read your work aloud. Does it genuinely reflect the age of the person who is telling the story?

Get to know your character. Interview your character. Ask questions and allow the character to answer as if s/he were real. You’ll learn more about your character than will be used in the story and more than the reader will need to know. The important thing is—you’ll have a better grasp of who the character is and the voice will be easier to capture.

Play with the words and scenes. Rewrite them to clean up the areas that falter. A strong voice develops through revision.

The Last Word
We wanna know how your story ends!

But you get to have the last word. Your final sentence has to be “And he/she/they would never have found out if it wasn’t for the______________________.”

Fill in that blank with a word or words.

Your story can be no longer than 350 words as determined by MS word count, excluding title. Your story can be funny, sad, mysterious, involve zombies or gratefully dead persons or live ones–just don’t do the conventional inside the parabola thinking of a crime or mystery murder. Surprise us all!

By entering this contest, you are giving us the right to publish your story on line and first time rights to printed publication, should this go into an anthology. If this contest results in creation of an anthology, there is no guarantee that your entry will included in publication.

You may have up to three entries, but each entry must be sent in an individual email attachment.
Deadline: April 5 at midnight, California time.
Send entries to thorn@awordwithyoupress.com

Cyberkids
We especially like stories, articles and poems that are funny.
· Art and written submissions can be on any topic that is appropriate for our audience (ages 7 to 12).
· Stories which include an original illustration or photo are more likely to be published than stories without pictures.
· Originality is very important--make sure the work you submit is your own and not copied from someone else.
· In addition to art and writing, we also like to publish games, puzzles, brain teasers, jokes, and multimedia creations by kids.
· Ages 13 and under: games, reviews and contests.
· Ages 13-18: poems, fiction and non-fiction

Details at www.cyberkids.com