Panocticon Short Story Completion Competition for Burnley Literary Festival
We promised you a competition for Burnley Literary Festival, so here it is. We will be introducing it on Saturday 5th October 2019 on the stage in Burnley Market Hall, 10.15—10.45, and we’re putting it here, too, in case we run short of printed material or anyone misses getting the printed sheet. Here goes:
Marenga isn’t much of a place. Even using the word place smacks of exaggeration. The permanent population, including dogs, doesn’t amount to Bobby Mitchell’s IQ, and we all know he’s never going to set the world alight.
Two streets run roughly north to south: High Street, which is the main street, and Low Street, which isn’t. Connecting them are half a dozen rutted tracks lined with tumbledown dwellings and outbuildings, sundry huts and what might pass for gardens, with a little imagination. You wouldn’t drive along any of them after a decent downpour.
High Street has all the places people from roundabout come for. There’s Hugo’s Hardware Emporium and Tool Shop, which is the main attraction. Then there’s the post office, general store, bottle shop and bakery, which are all the same place, run by Ma Bellman. Next to that there’s the pub and that only stays open because Benjy Newcombe earns most of his income making fake Abo artwork for tourist shops in Yarborough. After that there’s a cafe that opens once in a while, the church, the graveyard, a couple of houses and then you’re out in the sticks again.
An old rail track runs right down the middle of High Street. It hasn’t seen a train in five years, and the one before was five years further back. They ought to take the rails up, but hey, you never know: there might be another train along anytime. Besides, that would involve a decision: not something to rush into. Make decisions and you have to live with the consequences. Or someone else does.
Take Rosemary Warne for instance. She took it into her head that since she’d taken the trouble to learn reading and writing she could to do better for herself than spend a life weighing out nails in Hugo’s shop. She opted for a college education and took herself off to Sydney.
And there were consequences. Her departure left a hole in her family, if not at Hugo’s. There was no shortage of takers for her job.
Her kinfolk all took it in different ways. Her dad took it hardest. Little by little he crawled into a bottle and didn’t seem ready to come out again. Pity. Algy Warne is a decent bloke.
It all made for a serious situation. For one thing local folk needed his big truck on the road, and in his condition that wasn’t going to happen with anyone’s approval. Besides, Algy was a not half-bad spin bowler and if he wasn’t up to the mark things could go very badly in the upcoming match against Barra. Something had to be done, but what?
So there it is. You have a location, a set of characters, and a couple of problems. So what happens next? Can you finish the story? Which character will you pick? Which problem will you take on?
We’re offering a prize of any one of our books or a £5 book token for the best ending.~
Email your entries to panocticon@gmail.com before 30th October, and we’ll let you know the winner. (We will not use your email for any other purpose.) Put your entry in the body of the email or in an .rtf or .doc attachment. (Sorry, we’re only offering the prize to entrants within the British Isles - including RoI - though we’d be happy to see ideas from anywhere.)
We’re not going to count, but please keep it to about 1000–1500 words (much shorter is OK) and we don’t mind if you alter the stem a little to make it fit your tale better. We’re looking for a strong storyline with unexpected twists~and a good writing style.
There were some really interesting results when we ran this competition before, so let’s see what turns up this time.
Good luck!
