The RTÉ Short Story Competition 2023 in honour of Francis MacManus is back and is now open for entries.
Below, one of this year's judges, acclaimed novelist Claire Kilroy, explores what she likes in a good short story.
When you take a seat in a less than fancy Italian restaurant, the waiter will say to you, or more likely demand (because he is busy and you are annoying): Dimmi. Tell me. In my experience, the creative imagination works like this. You sit down at the blank page and say to your imagination: Dimmi. Eventually the words will come, although not necessarily, as Eric Morcambe would have it, in the right order.
There are no rules to adhere to. I read like I write: without expectation, without criteria. Dimmi: tell me. I'm here to listen. I am your blank page. There are certain things I respond to, yes: I am a sucker for a powerful image, I love a flash of humour. The dialogue must ring true, particularly since the Francis MacManus is a radio competition. The winning stories will be read out on air, so read your story out loud to yourself. If you find yourself tripping up on a sentence, or if the dialogue seems hokey, your ear will locate the problem. I always tell people in writing workshops to pay attention to their verbs. Verbs are the unsung heroes of the sentence. They are often overlooked but a well-deployed verb helps a reader to visualise an action.
The one thing I need to happen with a short story is to end up in a different place to where I started, to experience a perspective shift.
Lastly: edit, edit, edit. By edit, I don't mean cut. A piece can get longer in editing. A hidden door can appear in a paragraph if you consider it fully, leading you, and therefore your reader, somewhere unexpected. My last act with a piece of writing is to read it sentence by sentence, or even clause by clause, closing my eyes to parse each word with my mind's eye. It's amazing what this process throws up. It is also a way of saying goodbye to your piece, sending it out into the world fully prepared, or as prepared as you can make it because nothing is ever fully prepared, you are never fully in control, not when it comes to the figaries of the human imagination. This uncertainty is something you have to learn to live with.
Watch: The Irish Influence - Claire Kilroy in conversation
So I lied there at the start. I don't wish to be dogmatic but, although there are no rules in writing, there are definitely expectations. The one thing I need to happen with a short story is to end up in a different place to where I started, to experience a perspective shift. It doesn't have to be a huge movement but I want to go somewhere, or to be brought. Insight, I suppose you might call it. Joyce termed it the epiphany. Writing an epiphany, of course, is no simple feat, and there are no instructions on how to accomplish this, but that's the glorious game that is writing, and it's the particular discipline of the short story – that it doesn't just stop. It concludes.
Dimmi. Tell me.
Writers have until Friday 26th May to submit their short story to the RTÉ Short Story Competition. competition - for rules, information on how to enter, and to read and listen to past winning stories, go here.
