Write On! all wrong
I'm looking at a copy of the February 3 edition of the London Free Press and a particular ad caught my eye. It's for a contest called Write On! where London's young‘uns have a chance to put their creative abilities to the test. The idea is to catch a first glimpse of what will be London's contribution to the world of literary genius. Now on the exterior this all sounds good, but it's not without a few flaws, catches and — well — bull.
It's mentioned early on that the child is free to choose any subject he/she wishes. My complaint with this is that some subjects are more interesting than others, and not every kid has been exposed to interesting things to write about. Later in the article is this statement: “[t]here may be a Stephan Leacock or an Alice Munro out there, and if they'd been told what to write about, maybe they wouldn't have written anything.” I'm sure that neither Leacock nor Munro were ever asked to write about a specific topic despite studying political science and English (respectively).
I think the point of allowing the contestant to choose his/her own topic is to further test the creativity of the story, and that's fine, but what about those kids that can tell a really interesting story about their cats? Do they lose points because they're talking about something lame?
This brings me to my next point: there really isn't any criteria for what they're looking for. The local “celebrity judges” (who we aren't told of) are apparently told “. . . not to look at silly things like spelling and grammar. . .” and in case anyone isn't aware, an important part of sentences is that they make sense, this is possible because of spelling and grammar.
You might be thinking that we should probably take it easy on them because they're kids, and for the most part I agree. But spelling and grammar are important when writing, they're tools that are used to do the job properly. A surgeon could operate with a hatchet, but most still bother with silly things like scalpels. A part of the problem could be that so much emphasis in schools recently has been on creativity and so little stress is on how to express that creativity properly, but I digress.
One final issue of mine is the length of the work they're accepting. It's supposed to be from 400-600 words in length. This article, if you were to stop reading right now, is about 500 words (give or take). So, we'll say that's about the average they'll be getting. Now, imagine that everything you had read had been a story; can anyone fit in a decent story representative of the writer's creativity in such a small space? I understand that they're expecting a lot of entries, but how much ingenuity can 600 words represent? Fitting a short story with a beginning, middle and end with such little space is, on its own, quite a feat.
I guess I shouldn't be so harsh. I appreciate what the contest is trying to accomplish and if I were still a kid I wish my parents would encourage me to get involved in something like this. It's also nice to see that someone is trying to encourage young Londoners to express themselves. When I was younger I'm sure I would have jumped at the opportunity to be a part of something like this. Of course, when I was a kid I didn't drink wine from the bottle and write articles knocking a contest for people half my age.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
It's mentioned early on that the child is free to choose any subject he/she wishes. My complaint with this is that some subjects are more interesting than others, and not every kid has been exposed to interesting things to write about. Later in the article is this statement: “[t]here may be a Stephan Leacock or an Alice Munro out there, and if they'd been told what to write about, maybe they wouldn't have written anything.” I'm sure that neither Leacock nor Munro were ever asked to write about a specific topic despite studying political science and English (respectively).
I think the point of allowing the contestant to choose his/her own topic is to further test the creativity of the story, and that's fine, but what about those kids that can tell a really interesting story about their cats? Do they lose points because they're talking about something lame?
This brings me to my next point: there really isn't any criteria for what they're looking for. The local “celebrity judges” (who we aren't told of) are apparently told “. . . not to look at silly things like spelling and grammar. . .” and in case anyone isn't aware, an important part of sentences is that they make sense, this is possible because of spelling and grammar.
You might be thinking that we should probably take it easy on them because they're kids, and for the most part I agree. But spelling and grammar are important when writing, they're tools that are used to do the job properly. A surgeon could operate with a hatchet, but most still bother with silly things like scalpels. A part of the problem could be that so much emphasis in schools recently has been on creativity and so little stress is on how to express that creativity properly, but I digress.
One final issue of mine is the length of the work they're accepting. It's supposed to be from 400-600 words in length. This article, if you were to stop reading right now, is about 500 words (give or take). So, we'll say that's about the average they'll be getting. Now, imagine that everything you had read had been a story; can anyone fit in a decent story representative of the writer's creativity in such a small space? I understand that they're expecting a lot of entries, but how much ingenuity can 600 words represent? Fitting a short story with a beginning, middle and end with such little space is, on its own, quite a feat.
I guess I shouldn't be so harsh. I appreciate what the contest is trying to accomplish and if I were still a kid I wish my parents would encourage me to get involved in something like this. It's also nice to see that someone is trying to encourage young Londoners to express themselves. When I was younger I'm sure I would have jumped at the opportunity to be a part of something like this. Of course, when I was a kid I didn't drink wine from the bottle and write articles knocking a contest for people half my age.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
