Anyone entering the Francis MacManus competition this year?

DublinWriter · 17-01-2012 07:39PM #1

RTE run a short story competition annually - the Francis McMahon competition.

This year the closing date is 20th Jan.

Has anyone ever bothered entering?

I'm currently reading a compilation of prize winning stories since 1984, and it's dour going.

17-01-2012 07:49PM

you mean this one?
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/francismacmanus/

hadn't heard of it, might do it next time

Toasterspark · 17-01-2012 08:29PM

I dunno, I don't think I'm pretentious enough to enter. Just the vibe I get from just reading up on it.

Antilles · 17-01-2012 08:30PM

Toasterspark wrote: »

I dunno, I don't think I'm pretentious enough to enter. Just the vibe I get from just reading up on it.

Don't say that Toasterspark, you're totally pretentious enough!

Inky_Lady · 17-01-2012 08:34PM

*MacManus.
Competition is usually tough for this one. I have too much on to put the work into an entry this year but my OH is planning on entering.
Best of luck to all who are giving it a go!

Toasterspark · 18-01-2012 01:17PM

*puts down champagne*

How rude! I am not pretentious!

If I can find time between my golf practice and my day-trips to the continent, I'll be sure to try and scrape something together.

DublinWriter · 18-01-2012 01:43PM

I read all of the winners and runner-ups from 1986 to 1995 and there seems to be a commonality among them all:

1. Written in first person
2. Author looking back to some event in the past, usually the death of a family member
3. Very depressing

As I went from story to story I couldn't believe the sameness of them all. There were a few stand outs and notable exceptions, but on the whole 90% of the winning entries conformed to the above three rules.

Long Room Hubba · 18-01-2012 02:24PM

DublinWriter wrote: »

I read all of the winners and runner-ups from 1986 to 1995 and there seems to be a commonality among them all:

1. Written in first person
2. Author looking back to some event in the past, usually the death of a family member
3. Very depressing

As I went from story to story I couldn't believe the sameness of them all. There were a few stand outs and notable exceptions, but on the whole 90% of the winning entries conformed to the above three rules.

That's not necessarily the judges' preference, though. I imagine they fall with great relief on anything that stands out from the pack.

echo beach · 18-01-2012 08:28PM

It is a radio competition so the enteries are intended to be read out loud, which does make a difference. They employ actors to read the winning enteries and I didn't hear all 25 that were broadcast last year, pretty late at night, but they seemed a fairly mixed bunch. Some were excellent and others I just didn't get and I thought "I could do as well as that..", until I tried.

The word count is very specific, 1800-2000 words, again so that they fit into a given time slot, and I found it difficult to stick to it but I sent off an entry today so that I wouldn't break my New Year's resolution before January was out. My reasoning is that for the sake of the price of a stamp it might as well be in their bin as in mine.

PurpleBee · 18-01-2012 09:08PM

echo beach wrote: »

My reasoning is that for the sake of the price of a stamp it might as well be in their bin as in mine.

Don't be so pessimistic!

echo beach · 19-01-2012 10:50PM

PurpleBee wrote: »

Don't be so pessimistic!

But I have reason to be.
1) I didn't write it in the first person
2) It doesn't look back and none of my family dies
3) It isn't depressing at all, in fact it has a happy ending.

On top of that I'm not pretentious (at least I don't think I am) so what hope have I?:p

pickarooney · 20-01-2012 09:12AM

DublinWriter, I edited the thread title to read 'MacManus'

20-01-2012 09:49AM

echo beach wrote: »

But I have reason to be.
1) I didn't write it in the first person
2) It doesn't look back and none of my family dies
3) It isn't depressing at all, in fact it has a happy ending.

On top of that I'm not pretentious (at least I don't think I am) so what hope have I?:p

write a happy story then put at the end "and then my -family member- died"

diddlybit · 20-01-2012 10:11AM

DublinWriter wrote: »

1. Written in first person
2. Author looking back to some event in the past, usually the death of a family member
3. Very depressing

I have approximately one-and-a-half of those components. I shall channel the spirit of my dead grandmother for the remaining quotient.

Knowing her, she probably won't comply.

The Mad Hatter · 20-01-2012 12:42PM

bluewolf wrote: »

write a happy story then put at the end "and then my -family member- died"

In Derren Brown's Confessions of a Conjuror, he talks about a boy in his class who had no gift for or interest in creative writing, who used to infuriate his teacher by having every story consist of a long chain of increasingly nonsensical events which bore no relation to one another, and always finishing with the same line: "Then I woke up. Then I died."

Toasterspark · 20-01-2012 06:07PM

Excerpt from my entry:

The dentist's reception area was a dreary mix of elephant greys and murky blues. The coffee table was groaning under the weight of 'Woman's Weekly' and 'Hello' magazines. Along the walls, outdated pamphlets were stuffed into scratched plastic holders. On the other side of the room a young child played with some building bricks, the best toys clearly broken or stolen. Her mother, a curious paradox of heavy sweater and inch-long mini skirt, chewed gum loudly by her side.

"Get out of here, you swine," yelled a presence to my left.

A woman in her fifties (maybe sixties) hovered in the air waving her hands. She swiped at me viciously, but her ghostly hands went right through me. A chill trickled down my spine.

"Get lost," I whispered, batting my hand in the air. The little child looked at me in wonder, her mother oblivious. "I said - get lost!"

My toothache was bad enough without this old coot badgering me. She was probably a resident of this old house, years ago. I looked up at the dentist's door, hoping for it to open. It was hard sometimes, to ignore spirits. Especially if you don't want people to think you're crazy.

Haha, nah I'm only joking. I tried making it as depressing as possible, but I didn't think I have it in me.

DublinWriter · 20-01-2012 09:05PM

It was the smell I remembered the most. The smell of overgrown heather in a small Irish country garden. I stood outside the abandoned, desolate cottage, now as welcoming to the elements as it had been to me in my youth. Each footstep I took to the abandoned front door seemed to be measured in years rather than feet.

At the threshold I paused, paused in an infinity of possibility and ancient platitudes. The wooden front door, rotten and corrupt, seemed to taunt me by the jaunty angle it happily hung off a single working hinge.

I turned back from the door, jaw strong and resolute. I refused to enter and instead I pulled an AK47 from inside my jacket and hissed to myself...."Trent...you will avenge the death of your father....."

Slang_Tang · 20-01-2012 09:31PM

DublinWriter wrote: »

I read all of the winners and runner-ups from 1986 to 1995 and there seems to be a commonality among them all:

1. Written in first person
2. Author looking back to some event in the past, usually the death of a family member
3. Very depressing

As I went from story to story I couldn't believe the sameness of them all. There were a few stand outs and notable exceptions, but on the whole 90% of the winning entries conformed to the above three rules.

Where did you read them all?

Inky_Lady · 20-01-2012 10:44PM

They do release collections of winning stories, although I'm not sure how regularly. You could try your local second hand bookshop for old copies?

DublinWriter · 21-01-2012 08:27PM

Slang_Tang wrote: »

Where did you read them all?

I've a compilation of the winners from 1986 to 1995. Yours for a fiver plus P&P, otherwise it's going into a nearby charity shop soon.

echo beach · 25-11-2012 09:17PM

It is that time of year again. Entries are open until 21st January 2013.
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/francismacmanus/Francis-MacManus-Entry-Form-2013.pdf

1249 entries last year so stiff competition.

havetoquit · 26-11-2012 09:10PM

Because so many books and short stories have been written about childhood days, as in the wonderfully entertaining Alice Taylor's 'Through the Fields to School' and many others, I am wondering if there is room for any more such revelations, or if the interest has waned somewhat.

I keep a daily journal of my own life for my grand children to hopefully enjoy and hand down, but writing it in story form for public reading is not something I would feel terribly sure of, even though it is uplifting, totally not sad, does much to shed light on a time past and life in the places I have lived and traveled in. There are many characters who hugely impacted upon my years, including some who still do and our interactions have often produced many hilarious moments which I treasure.

At the end of the day it is not written from imagination, but from experiences and perhaps this road has been trodden thus too often by others, so I hesitate.

I also think personally, that although I love writing and telling a story to those I correspond with on a regular basis, I do not perhaps have the necessary skills to lay it out and present it in a way that would render it acceptable in the literal sense.

What form of expression does one use to make one's own story compelling enough without sounding contrived and make others want to read it? There are obviously rules to follow and I am without this knowledge unfortunately. I have always considered that those who write great stories are gifted and that it is not something that can be learned.

Personally, I love to read a story with characters that grab my interest in the first couple of chapters and keeps me so engrossed that I cannot bear to put it down. This can be either fact or fiction, but it does need to be uplifting on the whole, or at the very least hint that a happy ending will ensue.

Perhaps I will one day do a course in Creative Writing which will answer these and other questions.

Any tips would be most welcome and appreciated and would go a long way even towards improving my daily journal.

shuffles03 · 26-11-2012 09:13PM

I'm going to give this a go (opens the sealed door containing thoughts of insanity and prepares to spill them onto an A4 page)

mc3 · 03-12-2012 02:38AM

Toasterspark wrote: »

Excerpt from my entry:

Haha, nah I'm only joking. I tried making it as depressing as possible, but I didn't think I have it in me.

Toasterspark, can we have more of your "entry" please?!

Def winner in my book...

Might inspire us all on...

Ulysses Gaze · 08-12-2012 03:51PM

DublinWriter wrote: »

It was the smell I remembered the most. The smell of overgrown heather in a small Irish country garden. I stood outside the abandoned, desolate cottage, now as welcoming to the elements as it had been to me in my youth. Each footstep I took to the abandoned front door seemed to be measured in years rather than feet.

At the threshold I paused, paused in an infinity of possibility and ancient platitudes. The wooden front door, rotten and corrupt, seemed to taunt me by the jaunty angle it happily hung off a single working hinge.

I turned back from the door, jaw strong and resolute. I refused to enter and instead I pulled an AK47 from inside my jacket and hissed to myself...."Trent...you will avenge the death of your father....."

This.

Toasterspark · 08-12-2012 11:22PM

mc3 wrote: »

Toasterspark, can we have more of your "entry" please?!

Def winner in my book... Might inspire us all on...

I'd forgotten I'd written that 'excerpt'. Damnit, I kind of want to see what happens next as well!

Siuin · 19-01-2013 01:28AM

Just posted off my entry at lunchtime today (I know, VERY last minute!) It's really strange that they don't accept entries via email, but fingers crossed now! Does anyone know when the winners will be announced? Looking forward to seeing what other people wrote!

echo beach · 03-04-2016 12:38PM

This year's competition is now open for entries if anybody wants to have a try. http://www.rte.ie/radio1/francis-macmanus-short-story/

Mr E · 03-04-2016 10:51PM

I'm tempted. If I expanded on one of my earlier VOAT stories - does that count as 'previously published'?

redser7 · 04-04-2016 06:17AM

Mr E wrote: »

I'm tempted. If I expanded on one of my earlier VOAT stories - does that count as 'previously published'?

I guess you would have to delete it off the site?

echo beach · 04-04-2016 08:48PM

If you are thinking of entering a version of it anywhere get it deleted. Anything that will show up in a plagiarism checker is 'already published' so it does depend on how much you alter it. Be sure to change names and locations.

Anyone entering the Francis MacManus competition this year?

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