I seem to burn through a handful of story ideas before I finally settle on the one I end up submitting for contests. For a 500 word flash fiction I might write 2000 words between 3-4 entirely different stories before finding one I like. I've been shying away from the longer short story contests, or working toward 'shorter' story ideas that don't need 5000 words to tell because I might end up writing 10k words of trash and still not end up with a story to submit (last month!) I've also noticed it has had a tendency to force me to be a bit less wordy too, which is problem, so a good thing. Win, lose or draw...I've been learning a LOT from all the writing, so it's all good. Do you already have your contest story idea, and stick to it when writing for the contests?
It's not unusual for me to have one or two false starts before settling on the story I am going submit for the contest. I may not like, or may not know, where it's going. Then I put it aside and start another. Yes, I have learned a lot from participating in these contests. The more you write, the more you learn.
The competitions here have been a great resource as far as I'm concerned. They allow a lot of practice with the added bonus of a deadline, which I've used to force some level of self-discipline. Usually I check the prompt when the competition is announced, mull over a while, sometimes an idea forms, occupies a space in my head until I've enough to get started. If it falls apart, I tend not to seek an alternative. Simply skip the contest or enter something that confirms I should have skipped the contest. The prompts can be hard and I usually play loose with the theme, though it's still what occurs to me when thinking about it. Two of the recent prompts for short story left me scratching my head. "sitcom" I thought godawful as a prompt and was getting through cursing the sixth of the seven crowns when an idea occurred, played around a bit, wrote a story I greatly enjoyed writing and even earned that much coveted badge, then rebuked myself for ever doubting 7crown's genius. "anachronism" I thought would be easy, just need a mirror, but still nothing. Go figure. I must say I appreciate the effort of the mods who run the contests, the commentary from them alone makes them worth checking out. I've said before that it confuses me that there's not more participation from members, even to read and vote, but recognise that things that rock my boat leave others cold. As a final comment, I've persisted with submitting several of my entries to contests, even the ones that performed abysmally. Some of them have been published, even the ones that performed abysmally.
Do I already have an idea? I don't have just an idea, I have a year long plan with first drafts that have already been written. I started by looking at the prompt list for 2023, and writing a list of ideas based on it. Then I slowly chipped away at the list over a period of two months and came up with a few manuscripts that match every prompt. They need to be edited, but the rough work has already been done. That's the hardest part for me. So, yeah, you're not alone. These prompts are hard. I did this to make sure that I don't stall out and skip on a contest because things weren't working out. 15 days is just not always enough.
I like this idea of planning it out well ahead of time. Might be something for me to consider. The way I have approached the contests is the same as B.E. For every contest, I will check the prompt, save it in Notepad, and if any idea comes to me, I will jot it down and add notes here and there until I can bang the story out on the weekend. It's very rare for me to get multiple ideas. If one comes to me, I tend to stick to it to the end. I will finish the story and post it, no matter how it turns out. If no ideas come to me, I won't force it. I'll just skip that contest. Writing to a prompt really gets my creative juices flowing. Good writing ideas pop into my head very infrequently (and of course I write them down when they do), and having the deadlines helps keep me writing instead of being lazy, so it's really good for me to participate. Unfortunately these ideas sometimes come to me at the last minute - on more than one occasion I have submitted a story that I wrote from start to finish in 4-6 hours.
Glad to hear I'm not alone! I really enjoy the flash fiction contests because they force me to really drill down to an idea and refine it. Otherwise I tend to come up with these expansive plots that I'm really just not ready to tell yet, skill-wise. Louanne has it hit on the head though, practice makes perfect and the more you write the more you learn. Seeing as all the prompts for the year have been posted I made it a goal to enter as many as I can this year. So far, hit 'n miss, but I really appreciate those who make them happen each month.
I don't think you are alone, Set2Stun missed it too. It's one of the sticky threads in the short story contests subforum. Skipping is actually wise if you can't work out the idea into a story. I don't skip because I set myself the challenge to enter every contest for 2023. The only way I work around an idea not working out is by discarding it and coming up with a new one. Force isn't a good thing. My January entry was forced and it turned out terrible. The only reason I posted it was because I worked on it for so long, I thought it'd be a shame to not enter at all. In hindsight, I should have re-allocated all that work into a new story that I could actually work with! But anyway, the prompt was, "Breaking New Year's resolutions deliberately". Really hard. Don't all of us break those things anyway? Doesn't take all that much effort
At sixty seven years old I am that stereotypical geezer who is full of stories. When it comes to these prompts, I'll bite when one of them trips one of my many triggers. I don't try to force stories I don't have in me. Example; I suck at poetry. I've only written two in my entire life. I am actually happy with both of them because they just flowed out of me. Very rare with me and poetry. I've only entered a very small number of contests here.
