The title to this blog comes straight from the Judges’ Feedback for the book that was entered into the Cat Writers’ Association (CWA) competition conducted earlier this year.

The judges comments from the CWA has been of great encouragement to me as I get to hear from the judges themselves as to what they liked or didn’t like. They also provided powerful feedback on some technical writing issues that they found – mine was the repetition of the word ‘of’ in a paragraph in the Preface. (There is always something to be found when an author is looking for a ‘perfect’ entry in an international writer’s competition, and the judges are searching for every fault that they can find).

The judges (three of them) were all taken by the surprise with the story’s ending. They all thought that they could guess the storyline from the title. This adds emphasis to the way a story is to be read. Many adults will go to the last few pages and begin reading there. They want to see how the story ends to ascertain if the book is worth reading to begin with. Unfortunately, in doing this the reader hears the punchline first, and then hears the joke – and then wonders why the book didn’t deliver anything exceptional for them.  Interestingly, children and teenagers seem to be more disciplined in the way that a book ought to be read from my observations.

Further comments from the judges… “What a great story! The humour was perfect …. This was fun….. A really fun story that made me laugh...”

There was a time when storytelling was an everyday occurrence, and still is in the more remote parts of civilisation, where storytelling was the entertainment for the family or the local community. Nowadays storytelling is mostly left in the hands of the professionals who memorise a script and deliver their part to a television camera, for an audience that has become so accustomed to professionalism that the average man or woman feels inadequate in comparison – so they don’t even try. Everyone now gathers around a TV screen where the story gets to be acted out! If there is a slip of words then that ‘imperfection’ is edited out and the scene, and it is retaken. This isn’t the real world.

I admire families that take the bold step of going on a camping trip or travel to remote parts of the land where there is no entertainment to be had. They soon discover that they can create their own entertainment. The fun story that is told around the campfire for the first time gets remembered, and in the retelling of it, there is opportunity for some embellishment. The story seems to get better with each time it is told – and nobody seems to mind that they’ve heard the story perhaps a dozen times before!

For those old enough to remember R.S.Porteous, he won awards for his stories that he submitted to the Courier-Mail. The secret to his success as an author was that he had an attentive ear to stories being told around the campfire by men reminiscing about adventures that they had had at some time or another. R.S. Porteous would often be seen at the back of the group, jotting down notes for the next book that he was planning to write. These would be the seed-thoughts that he would muse over when his mind wasn’t otherwise occupied.

We all have a story to tell. What a shame that often the best stories never get to germinate into anything of substance!