A New Contest Here At the Inkpen Authoress!!!

(Not my picture. All photos in this post courtesy of Google images. :)

I am very pleased to announce the newest contest here on the Inkpen Authoress! :) Everyone, meet The Merry Auld England Writing Challenge! :)

As you all know, I am a great lover of English literature: everything Dickens, everything Austen, everything Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, everything Gaskell, everything Bronte! And my list goes on. :) England itself is a country full of magnificent literary potential. From deep forests for sunny countryside, from the coasts of Devon to the wild moors of the North, there are so many wonderful settings! So I thought, my darling readers, why not concoct a brilliant contest to celebrate this amazing country and it's legion of priceless books?! And so I did. :)

Here are the rules:

1.) Be clever, beautiful, and accomplished with your words. One of the great charms of English literature is its careful wordcrafting. :) So open up your mind and pen to the ornate thoughts and interesting words lying stale in the corners. This is a time to shine and show your love for truly great writing! :)

2.) Choose a subject that has to do with England! You could spin a tale about Bath, or a romance set in the wild of the Northlands. You could write a new story about Robin Hood and his merry men, or compose your own ending for Mrs. Gaskell's unfinished Wives and Daughters. (NOT if you've seen the BBC movie, though! ;D) You could scribble an amusing tale in the style of Dickens, or a witty story about Society people in the manner of Jane Austen. You could write a Tolkien-ish poem, or take after Tennyson and do a dramatic romance. For pity's sake, you could even astonish the world and try your hand as Shakespearing! :D The possibilities are endless!

3.) You may write your entry as a poem, a short story, or a play. Please refrain from using any bad language, crude humor, or improper views of God in your submission, as these will immediately be disqualified, however lovely the writing.

Send all submissions to inkpencontestsubmissions@gmail.com. Each participant may enter one submission into each category. :)

4.) The Prizes? (Yes, I said prizes :) I will choose one winner from each category: Poetry, Prose, and Drama. (as in a play, if I even get any entries there :) The prizes are yet to be announced, but each winner will get their work of literature published on my blog in addition to the prize. Glory! Glory! ;) After the contest all rights will revert to the author, and I promise not to change anything in the wording of the entries, scalp them of their titles, or in any other way pirate your work. :D

5.) In order to be eligible for this contest you must:

Follow this blog (I would love new followers! *sweet hopeful smile* :)

Love literature with a passion

Post about this contest on your blog or on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else you haunt. (Excepting, of course, those girls of you who do none of the above, in which case you're Scot-free)

And, of course, get your entry to me by September 9th, 2011! :) (That gives you girls a month to enter. I'll write up a little reminder gadget and put it up near the top of the blog in case your forget. :P)

*****THE CONTEST CLOSING DATE HAS BEEN MOVED FORWARD TO SEPTEMBER 23, 2011******

So pens ready? On your mark, get set, be brilliant!!! My pen salutes your own. I hope many many writers enter this contest! It'll be great! I will make a button for the contest at some point, so stay tuned for that. :) Thanks so much for entering! ~Rachel

The Opening Line: No Once-Upon-A-Times please :)

Elizabeth Gaskell 

I wish I was clever enough to write such captivating openings as I read in famous books! :)

Take the opening paragraph in Wives and Daughters: 

"To begin with the old rigmarole of childhood. In a country there was a shire, and in that shire there was a town, and in that town there was a house, and in that house there was a room, and in that room there was a bed, and in that bed there lay a little girl;"

Isn't that marvelous? It takes a simple opening, and by throwing in a bit of humor, lifts it to a higher plane of literature. I often find that writing opening lines is one of the hardest things of the book. As many authors will tell you, you may a gorgeous, brilliant line on page two, but if the reader isn't captivated from the time they open the book, they may never get to the second page. 

Readers are a most picky race of people. There is a saying "never judge a book by its cover", but even in my own experience I have found that if nothing catches my eye from flipping through the first few pages, I'm much less likely to read the book. 

But how to connect the reader with the principle character on the first page? You could take some notes from Charles Dicken's Great Expectations:

"My father's family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. so, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. 

      I gave Pirrip as my father's family name on the authority of his tombstone and my sister--Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith."

Already in that paragraph you have discovered a quaintness of character in little Pip, a rough concept of his age, the fact that his father is dead, and that his sister is married to a blacksmith. Truly remarkable a feat in only three sentences! :) 

There is, of course, always the style of barging into the story with dialog, like Louisa May Alcott does in her Little Women:

" 'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,' grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

'It's so dreadful to be poor," sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. 

'I don't think it's fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things and others girls nothing at all,' added little Amy with an injured sniff. 

'We've got father and mother, and each other, anyhow,' said Beth, contentedly, from her corner."

Again, with only a short paragraph, you are sympathetic towards the girls in this story, know a little about their family, and their personalities. 

Take stock of your own opening lines sometime, and see if you can't harness the words to work harder for you. If you play around with them long enough, you could very well end up with a glittering opening that will captivate the reader. :) ~Rachel