This week’s winner did a fantastic job of describing the situation the character is facing, without actually describing the scene. The piece took place entirely inside the character’s head, and he (or she) is faced with a rather extreme decision of pulling the trigger on a gun. James Lombardi, the author, really used the space given to slow time down to a near crawl as the character tries to make the decision.

It’s often tempting to make a character sketch narrative. But a character sketch should really be more of a series of small, yet detailed, observations that when taken as a whole give the reader insights into the character. Think of it like a hill of sand. All the different grains of sand themselves are insignificant, but take a shape when put together. The most important thing is to make the character is three-dimensional, and in doing so bring them alive.

This week’s winner demonstrated a keen sense of sentence structure that lent not only form to the “character,” but also depth. The entry clearly captures the thought process of a hawk searching for food, but adds an interesting existential twist.

It takes a deft writer to tell a complete story without actually telling it, much less to do so in only 300 words. Sometimes, it’s easy for us writers to hint at things we think the reader is going to get, only to find that the resulting story is more confusing than what we intended. [...]

It is with extreme pleasure that I announce the first ever Weekly Writing Assignment winner!
Drumroll please…

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