AVERIL ROBERTSON

How do I love thee, Australian Writers’ Centre Furious Fiction competition? Let me count the ways.

On the first Friday of every month, I count down to 5pm like I’m waiting for a text from a crush. That sly little Australian Writers’ Centre email comes in bang on-time, asking so little, and yet so much.

My family always jokes that I’m like Monica from Friends, where she says ‘Rules help control the fun!’ And I’m not going to lie: I love rules. This is one reason why I really love entering the Furious Fiction competition every month.

The rules: 

• Five hundred words
• Three (usually) prompts that must be met: these usually revolve around variables such as settings, actions, and sentence or word constraints (e.g. sentence length, inclusion of a number), as well as the inclusion of three specific words.
• A time limit (55 hours).

So, yes, I love the rules. The constraints that require and release absolute creativity. You want the story to include a chair? I’ll give you a chairperson of a CWA. You want an awkward hug? I’ll write one so awkward you shudder as you read about it. You want something to be inflated? How about one of those blowy guys you see at car yards? In giving us rules, the competition forces us to think outside the box so our work stands out from the crowd.

And it’s a big crowd. Many hundreds of entries from around the world pour in every month. The efficiency of this competition is astounding. Managing that is a spreadsheet I would LOVE to see (please tell me there’s a spreadsheet involved).

The rules aside, I also love the complete side-step it forces me to take from whatever else is going on in my life, and in my writing. You’ll never have a suitable piece of flash fiction that you can adapt to fit the … let’s say unusual … combination of criteria the AWC has issued forth. So for those few hours over the first weekend of the month, where you dredge your brain for the most elegant and creative way to schmoosh together the criteria into a stunning 500-word piece of writing, you must park, for just a while, your other creative pursuits. It brings you back to a tiny little world of focus, and in doing so, opens up your mind to themes, plots and characters that are wholly new. Suddenly, that group of CWA women having a meeting are as real to you as if you’ve plotted a whole book around them. In other words, Furious Fiction unlocks your creativity, presenting you with a whole new suite of ideas and people you can pursue in longer-form fiction. Or not. 

Finally, in the last week of the month, we’re treated to a showcase. Multiple pieces are selected for publication on the AWC website, along with a sentence or two from the judges. It is in the showcase that you really start to marvel at the people walking around in plain sight. Every conceivable – an inconceivable – interpretation of the criteria. Beauty, lyricism, swears, evil, love, hate, dastardly deeds, kindness … the showcase has it all. The sheer output of the entrants is phenomenal – around half a million words flood in from around the world every month.

So whether you’re longlisted, shortlisted, or blacklisted (I’m sure that doesn’t happen …), this competition is an amazing opportunity to trigger your creativity, as long as you stick to the rules. Because rules help control the fun. 

Sign up for the next challenge so you, too, can revel in rules and the creativity they unleash.