Entries will be judges in the following age categories: 11-13, 14-16 and 17-18 - for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. Prizes will include a Writers' Starter Kit, WHS vouchers, cinema tickets, and an overall prize of a Canon Digital camera! All entries will be showcased on Cubeweb and 1st prize winners in each category will have their work printed in Cube Magazine.
Click on the images to the left to view in more detail and read on for helpful tips for getting started. At the bottom on the page you will find a link to an online entry form.
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 All entries must be no more than 400 words but can be less (it still may say 350 on the form, which can be ignored!)
No more than 2 entries can be submitted by the same person
Deadline for receipt of all online entry forms is 6pm on 10th August 2007
Young
people entering must attend a South Yorkshire
or Derbyshire Secondary School or College, or have
attended one of these in the last 4 years
The
9 winners, 3 from each age category will be notified
in September 2007
Winning entries will be announced and showcased on cubeweb from September 2007
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First of all...don't worry about your writing.
It doesn’t
have to be a definite form like a poem or a short story.
And you might be a little unsure what a particular
image is about, which is ideal because then you won't do the obvious! We are
not asking that you interpret exactly what is going
on in a whole
image, unless you choose to. The image can just
be a starting point to trigger an imaginative response.
You can make your own conclusions
and ideas about it or the bigger picture you can't see. Or, you can just take
the suggested mood or theme that the image inspires.
Don't worry about not being sure where an image is taken. If you want to guess for the purpose of your writing that's fine. Check spelling, grammar, flow and tense when you've finished writing. Ask yourself...am I sure it's as good as it can be?
Try these ideas:
Imagine you could step inside the photo. Use your five senses to describe the experience.
Question everything in the picture if you are trying to form a narrative. Why is something there? What has just happened? What is about to happen? Is all not really as it seems? What are the significance of certain parts of the picture? What can't the viewer see? Imagine the photo is documenting something in the past or future...what is it showing?
Write from the photographer’s point of view. What made them take this picture? How were they feeling?
Write in the voice of one or two of the characters in the photograph. It doesn’t have to be someone you can see.
Emotions. How does the photo make you feel? What memories does it evoke? What does it remind you of? What associations does it have for you?
Write from the point of view of one of the objects in the photograph. How does it feel to be something or someone in the photo?
Write about one of themes suggested to you by the photos – loneliness, exhilaration, dreaminess, urban city life.
Think about what you can’t see around the picture. What might have been outside the frame area of the shot? What might be hidden behind something out of view?
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Try these starting points...
Look at all the images and see which image instantly appeals to you. Then think about why. What is it about that photograph that caught your attention? If it appeals to you, the chances are you’ll be able to write something interesting about it.
Instead of just sitting down and writing a story or poem, try doing a mind map of all the words and associations that occur to you when you look at the image. This way you’ll build up a stock of ideas that you can use and come up with original links between them.
Still stuck? Try free writing. This is a bit like mind mapping, only this time you just write whatever comes into your head until you find out exactly what it is you want to say. Keep your hand moving, don’t stop to read through, don’t edit. When you’ve run out of steam, see if you can shape your writing into a poem or story.
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Don't think you have to do anything that 'fits' exactly with the below...these are just guidelines.
Writing a poem
Poems come in lots of different forms. Some of them rhyme and some of them don’t.
Rhyme
If you want to rhyme your poem, think carefully about the rhythm; like songs, rhyming poems usually have a regular beat. If you enjoy rhyming you could try writing in a particular form like a sonnet, villainelle or pantoum. Look on the web or in poetry books for examples.
Free verse
Remember that poems don’t have to rhyme and most of the best modern poems don’t. Free verse allows you to really say what you want to say, without the restriction of rhyme. The sounds of words are still important though and, in a poem, every word needs to count. Make sure you’ve used the best words and ideas you can come up with. Think about using techniques like alliteration to make your poem more powerful. Again look on the web for support if you wish.
Description
This could be an intriguing passage from a story you have written, or the setting of an important scene in a play, story or film even.
Lyrics or a rap
If you're musical, what tune and lyrics come into your head? If you write lyrics to the tune of something that exists, put what the tune or song is in your notes or the style of the lyrics (e.g. rap, opera!, pop, blues etc.) This means the judges can put the lyrics in a context. It isn't essential though. |
