Short Story Writing Competition 2021 Sparking a love for the genre01

        The English Language Centre organised its first-time ever Short Story Writing Competition this year after successfully conducting a 2-day workshop for teachers and students, guided by Professor Dr Malachi Edwin Vethamani  and Associate Professor Dr Too Wei Keong, on separate dates in March. 

        This Short Story Writing Competition was held with the objectives to inculcate the love of story-writing among students, develop their inherent need to express themselves, as well as promote creativity and universal values through writing. It was open to all students from Junior and Senior levels. Participants were to submit their original work of not more than 300 words, based on their own topics and themes.

        ELC received a total of 124 entries. Based on the judging criteria which include originality in storyline, creativity in expressing ideas, organisation and overall effect of the writing pieces, the judges made their considered decisions with the collective effort. According to the respective panels of judges, while each level of writers demonstrated their strengths impressively, at the same time, there is room for them to improve. 

        For instance, it is the first time for Junior One students to try out short story writing. Certain elements of the short story needed to be reinforced so that they could develop their storylines more interestingly with the use of dialogues. Junior Two participants were somehow able to arouse the  interest of the readers with creative development of their stories; however, they are encouraged to use a wider range of vocabulary to express their thoughts and emotions. Junior Three entries covered  a great variety of themes, such as love and friendship, a few of which successfully demonstrated a vivid imagination, good organization with interesting dialogues, which provided more crisp to their stories. It was suggested that deeper characterization and more tension created throughout their stories could be further enhanced.

        As for senior levels, most Senior One writers demonstrated a good command of the language, a fertile imagination and logical organisation in their story writing. However, they are encouraged to think out of the box and include more dialogues to avoid mere narration as well as a predictable plot or ending. Meanwhile, the judges were impressed by Senior Two’s strong intensity of emotions brought to the readers and interesting expressions used. They are encouraged to improve by focusing more on the characters’ points of view and making the content more personalised and relatable. In most of the Senior Three’s entries, the features of a good story - a good opening (hook), interesting plots, conflicts, resolutions and so on were clearly presented. Other than impressive language expressions and a large variety of sentence structures, they also managed to use literary devices like metaphors, flashbacks and imagery. Some writers are reminded  to avoid mere narration, instead they could develop the events creatively with unique flow for effect.

        We thank all the writers for their participation and congratulate them for being able to embark on a joyful journey of writing short stories in their teenage years. Their winning pieces will be published on Hin Hua Love Reading ezine and posted on the ELC Google Sites.