Writers, start your engines

Time to put the pedal to the metal, folks. The ABR short story competition closes on 31 May 2013. That gives you about eight weeks to put a shine on that diamond story you've been hiding in your bottom drawer for months. Here's your eight-week schedule.

• Week 1-2 — sift through that stinking pile of half-written, discarded, neglected drafts. Select the best of the worst. Read it and think. Read a whole lot of really good short story writers (Alice Munro, Cate Kennedy, Raymond Carver) and see how they manage the form. Do they use narrative summary? Do they start with action? Do they show, not tell? Do they flashback to the past? Discover what you like and make yourself a plan.
• Week 3-4— Are you done thinking yet? Now sharpen your pencils and take a long bath. Think about the shape of your story as a whole. Is your idea coherent? Do you know what you want to tell the world? What is the emotional truth your story attempts to illuminate and share? Now think strategically: are the pieces in the right place? Is something missing? Is a major action point happening off-stage that needs to be dramatised in scene? Are you happy with the way it ends? Move the pieces around until the shape is right. You're working structure.
• Week 5-6 — Are the people in your story as clear to you as they need to be? Can you describe them in the kind of detail you might use to describe your favourite characters from great books? What does your main character want or need? What's stopping her from achieving it? What's her inner conflict? If you've started from plot rather than character, ask yourself: would [insert character name] really [insert action]? If the actions don't fit the person, go back to the start. Work the story from inside the characters.
• Week 7 — No time to waste! You need to start your paragraph edits. Are you really cleaving to character point of view? Do we truly see through your character's eyes? Do we smell, hear, taste and touch too? Beware slippages. By the way, how's your dialogue coming along? When you're done making the voices sing, give your story a fine tune. Kill as many adverbs as you can. Give superlatives the flick. Declare war on unnecessary punctuation. Now put it in the bottom drawer again. That's right, let the damn thing be for as long as you can.
• Week 8 — Welcome back. Now polish once, polish twice, give your gem to a discerning friend, and polish it again. Then send it. Dont forget to read all the Terms and Conditions.

Good luck!