The
best 2004 Unpublished Novel Award
This competition is now closed. Please visit the Writing Contests page to view our latest and current competitions
Results:
The winner of the inaugural competition was Nick Wright, who lives in London.
We, at Fish, congratulate Nick on his success and are enjoying working with him on the publication of his novel. In addition to being published , he also received €1,500 as an advance on royalties. The nine runners up got €250 each. Their work will also be forwarded to agents and publishers who have expressed an interest in reading the work of the short-listed writers.
David Mitchell – twice nominated for the Man Booker Prize – said that “five of the manuscripts pulled ahead as I worked through them” and he has provided the following appraisals of them:
“The Language Me Feel It
has won because the author is trying
to do something fresh with language
and freshness, above all, is what
excites judges ofcompetitions. The
way that its weighty themes - ethnicity,
identity, language - are handled
not by exposition but simply thru
the characters and their experiences
impressed me. The plotting and pacing
are tight: scenes begin slightly
after they have begun and end a
few lines before they end, which
is as it should be. The scene where
the protagonist arrives home to
find evidence of another man in
the house is characteristically
restrained and bittersweet. The
writer understands the value of
leaving work for the reader's imagination.
The extract engages politics, but
doesn't let the politics hijack
or crowd out the narrative. The
author can sniff cliche a mile off
and avoids it, which is also as
it should be. The author has an
instinctive grasp of what glues
a reader to the text: create a convincing
character who we care about, and
make us ask, constantly, 'Is he
going to be all right?' The period
and its grime are well evoked. By
way of (minor) criticism, the dialogue
occasionally misses a beat, one
or two adverbs need weeding out,
and not all the imagery is as good
as the best. Long sea voyages are
tricky to pull off without tedium
creeping in, but I am just working
from an extract, and I wouldn't
be surprised to learn that this
author has managed to 'do a Conrad'
in this respect. Oh, and I understand
the author's choice of title, but
it isn't going to blaze off the
shelf at
any agent's or editor's office.
I would suggest the author trawl
through
his or her reggae collection for
more inspiration. In the meantime,
please
accept my congratulations.”
“The author of Swine Princess (Stephanie Dickinson) has, perhaps, the strongest command of language amongst the entrants. Dialogue, character and sense of place are all impressive. There isn't really a dropped catch in the extract, but its bleakness and pain eventually wore my enthusiasm away. If you had appointed Brett Easton Ellis as the judge, he might quite possibly have selected this one. It's unfortunate for the Swine Princess author not to have had a judge with more similar tastes in fiction, but I can only judge as myself. By way of consolation I would say that this writer is writing very near, or already at, a publishable level, provided he or she can find an editor on the same wavelength.
“Panama (by Sarah Walker) impressed me too. The author can do wit and, unusually in a first novel, subtlety and restraint. The funeral scene is strong. The time and place are certainly well evoked. The dialogue is strong and the author has the valuable knack of delineating character thru this dialogue. If I were a teacher of creative writing, I would suggest that the pacing is a little uneven and the structure a little confusing. It is okay to confuse the reader with unpredictable jumps forwards and backwards but you need to be very clear why you're doing this, and you need to be certain that the price is worth paying. But this is good work.
“Francis Barber, Gentleman (by Marion Jordan) is written with style and clarity. The narrator's voice and his calm, measured tone is spot on. This writer also has avoided the sin of overwriting. Refreshing to read something so stripped of imagery. I didn't give it first place for reasons of pacing. If the author were in the same room as me, I'd suggest he or she tries to think in terms of scenes - where scenes begin, where they end, where their hearts are, and how to extract the maximum juice from these hearts. I would urge the author to keep writing, however, because he or she has obvious talent.
“Thicker Than Water (by Sion Scott-Wilson) was the other near-winner. It has the best lines and it made me snort with laughter a couple of times. The dialogue is very strong, and the crucial opening two or three scenes are polished and effective. The characterisation is vivid and the author has a sharp eye for detail. I didn't give it first place because the various tones the author employs - louche, decadent, comic, picaresque, tragic, dead serious - sometimes pull the reader in different directions in a way that I found distracting. I would suggest that the author keeps these two questions in mind: "What do I want the reader to feel in this scene and how will it go with what I want the reader to feel in the previous scene and the following one?" I don't mean that you shouldn't make the reader feel happy and sad at the same time, only that the tone meanders without the rhyme or reason always being clear. Apart from this, I have no criticisms to make, and would urge the author to keep developing his or her talent.
Fish Unpublished Novel Competition Shortlist
The shortlist for the inaugural Fish Unpublished Novel Award includes the following:
Pamela Baker - "Dark Glass"Claire Collison - "Refinery"
Stephanie Dickinson - "Swine Princess"
Marion Jordan - "Francis Barber, Gentleman"
Sharon Petts - "Terrestrial"
Sion Scott-Wilson - "Thicker Than Water"
Diane P. Smith - "Balancing Against The Wind"
Liz Taylor - "When Love is 99"
S. M. Walker - "Panama"
Nick Wright, - "The Language Me Feel It"
Short Stories to read online
Read online some of the winning entries from previous Fish Anthologies. These are examples of the calibre that win the Fish Short Story Prize. Short Stories to read online
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