Dr Simon Reads... BBC 500 Words (2011 Winners) - Children's Writing Contest

Dr Simon Reads… 500 Words

2011 was the first year of the competition, and I don’t think the BBC quite knew what it would grow into. There were only two winners this year, one from each of the two age categories, and there are no recordings of celebrity readers kept on the website, only the original BBC drama unit readings – I don’t remember if these were read out on the radio, or if the contest took place at the Hay Festival or anything about it.

For more information on the 500 Words competition see my post on the 2017 awards; but in brief it’s a creative writing competition run by the BBC for children aged 5-13, who can any kind of story they like, as long as it is within 500 words. Three winners from each of the two age categories (5-9 and 10-13) get their stories read out by a famous actor in a live final, plus win a big stack of books. Since its inception in 2011 it’s grown massively with tens of thousands of entries each year.

In each of these ruminations I look at the winning stories, and the celebrity reading, but I encourage you to also check out the other 48 finalists for each year; the writing on display is often breath-takingly good.( http://bbc.in/2pWJLrW).

The Death Channel, by Angus

Winner 2011 age 5 to 9.
“To try and fill the house with noise, Jennifer picked up the remote and switched on the T.V. All she saw on the screen was a picture of her house. She could see herself standing in the living room, watching the T.V.”

The winners didn’t even get surnames in 2011! Angus’ tale is a spine-chiller in the vein of campfire tales (“The call is coming from inside the house…”). It builds atmosphere slowly and carefully, largely managing to avoid cliché, about a girl Jennifer who ends up alone in the house when her parents don’t come home. Woken in the early hours of the morning by a strange noise she puts the TV on for the comforting sounds, but what she sees is a last deadly twist to the tale.

Stable, by Olivia

Winner 2011, Age 10-13
 “'Stable', thats what the doctors said. I used to think stable was like building a house, if it was unstable it would fall. I guess it's the same for you.”

Angus’ tale is a dark horror story, Olivia’s story is the first of many 500 Words winners about love and loss. The narrator is a girl addressing her words to her mother, who as we read on is in a coma following a car crash. Like Me and You in 2012, it covers the gamut of emotions that come with a loved one being incapacitated – sadness and loss tinged with anger and resentment. The words I keep coming back to with these tales are “emotional honesty”, and thinking about it that means that there is no mawkishness or sentimentality to them. The feelings come across as raw and unfiltered, and all the more powerful for that. The last sentence, “I miss you”, is heart-breakingly plaintive and I really hope that it’s not an autobiographical story.

And… that’s I for 2011. I’d write more on both stories to fill space but, as ever, I suggest you read them for yourselves.

Entries for the 2018 competition have recently closed, so in future when the 50 finalists get placed up what I think I’ll do is read through them and put up what I think are the ten most likely stories (five from each age) to be amongst the winners. I’ve tried this in the last couple of years and usually guessed one, maybe two right, but I think it’ll be fun to do. Then when the winners are announced I’ll do a more detailed discussion like I did with these.