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#HistFicThursdays - The Paranormal and Supernatural - Writing Beyond the Senses

As a writer, you're increasingly told to show don't tell . It's one of those phrases which has infiltrated all lessons from the highest ranked authors to the little primary school child taking their first steps into writing. Ironically, there are now so many clichés in this particular idea that it is now becoming something of a cliché itself! But one particularly significant area of inspiration and writing when this works at its best is when we are dealing with the supernatural. By its very meaning, the supernatural transcends the laws of nature. It's our job as writers of historical fiction not only to convey that but - and this is a real biggie! - to acknowledge and accept that these beliefs were true. Belief in these ideas (which, at best, now get you labelled as quirky) was commonplace in history, and you need not look too far back to find them. According to surveys run ten years ago, 34% of people in the UK said they believed in ghosts, and 42% of people in the USA
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#HistFicThursdays - And now for something completely different... COMPETITIONS!

Today's blog is a heads-up on an Historical Fiction competition which is being run by Globe Soup.
If you want more details, head over to their website here.

At Crowvus, our competition season is in full swing: entries for our Ghost Story Competition have been coming in for the past couple of months and the deadline is 30 September. We’re looking forward to reading the stories which always form a key part of our autumn reading.

If you’re looking for inspiration, look no further than Those Experiences, which is available as a free eBook from our website. This should give you a good idea of the kind of stories the Crowvus team find particularly chilling and, as we make up most (but not all!) of the judging team, that’s a pretty good place to start!

This week, another competition was announced which is of particular interest to historical fiction writers: the Globe Soup Historical Fiction Challenge. It doesn’t give you much time to write your stories but, with six great historical periods, it will certainly give you a good platform from which to launch a story!

The time periods are:

1.        The Black Death
2.        The Vietnam War
3.        The Roman Empire
4.        The California Gold Rush
5.        The Renaissance
6.        The British Colonial Period in India

And, as with other Globe Soup Challenges, you are assigned a time period blind. I knew the exact one I did not want (The Vietnam War) so opted for the mysterious Ticket 2, and got the one I wanted most!

So, there you go… two great competitions to end your summer with.

I look forward to reading your spooky stories! 

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