Five students honored at Hong Kong Young Writers’ Competition

What does it take to be a writer? “You can’t just do it when you feel like it or when inspiration hits,” Ms. Shreya Jindal revealed. “Writing is hard work.”

Through their hard work, five talented Sharks have already earned early recognition in the literary field. Jerry Chen (9A), Lara Deckert (9B), Mavis Goh (9A), Milly Mak (9B), and Hannah Xu (9C) all went to Hong Kong to participate in the 2018 Hong Kong Young Writers Awards. The annual competition receives nearly a thousand entries per year from students across Hong Kong, Macau, and mainland China. The ninth-grade students wrote short stories 3000 words in length centered around the competition theme New Journeys to the West.

Under the guidance of Ms. Jindal, English instructor and published author, they continually edited their manuscripts. She commented, “I also gave them very detailed feedback on their first drafts, and many of them spent a long time revising their stories before I sent them in.” At the same time, Ms. Jindal credits most of the hard work to her students. “They are incredibly creative and have really impressed everyone with the quality of their stories. I couldn’t be prouder!”

Ms. Jindal remarked, “The judges were very impressed by our school and students, because it’s very rare to have so many shortlisted from the same school.” Five of the twelve shortlisted works in the category were SMIC-I students. As shortlisted candidates, their works were published in an anthology.

Update: According to Ms. Jindal, two students have been announced as Honorable Mentions – although they were not invited to attend the competition in Hong Kong since “the judges had to reject more stories than they generally do that were very good, because there were more entries than there usually are.” These students are Cindy Huang (9A) and Carol Park (9B).

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Shark Scholar also talked to two finalists:

Jerry Chen

What was your submission about? What was your favorite part of it?

My story is set near the end of the Tang dynasty, where an orphaned boy living in the streets sets out with the long-lost legend Sun Wukong to fight back the rising demon forces amounting in the empire. I’ve spent an entire week writing, and although I don’t have a favorite part, I did enjoy the overall process of crafting a world of my own.

What would be your advice to other writers?

My advice is to build, destroy, and build again. The final product that I submitted is actually a twice-revised edition, with major differences to the original plot and characters. I’d torn up the entire essay more than once because I felt that either something was wrong with my voice, or the plot just didn’t fit. I look at my work every day with fresh eyes, always trying to come up with new ideas. The end product is the result of tearing down previous works, and I encourage other writers to do the same.

Milly Mak

What was your submission about?

The topic was “Journeys to the West”, so I used two of the characters from the original story and wrote a new story where they save a village from an earthquake. My story was focused on the characters’ different personalities and the resulting conflicts.

What is your advice to other writers?

For creative writing, just start writing whatever you can even if you have no ideas, because even though you’d probably have to rewrite most of it later, a really bad start is still a start. And you might find inspiration in your own writing.

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Ms. Jindal concludes about the writing process, “You have to set goals and push yourself to hit a certain number of words or pages a week, even in the face of writer’s block. The other piece of advice is that getting someone to edit or provide you feedback is half the battle. Finding the right person for this- someone who can be critical and honest and who gives really good advice- makes all the difference between a good draft and a great one.”

Featured Image: Students capture the moments in Hong Kong courtesy of Mavis Goh