Students at Franciscan College Gormanston are currently composing essays for the John West Fantasy Writing Competition. The theme this year is ‘Under the Sea’ and students are free to explore any aspect of this theme that they wish. They are writing essays about mermaids, sea monsters, underwater aliens, pirates, the lost city of Atlantis and other kinds of deep sea adventures.

As the brochure says:

‘This competition is a fun and exciting way for students to develop their written compositin and literacy skills and feed their imaginations. As well as being essential across all school subjects, literacy skills are a vital part of adult life. This competition is designed to complement the curriculum and can be integrated in the following ways:

• As a creative writing homework exercise
• As part of an English unit on fantasy
• As an extended exercise in drafting, editing, redrafting a proofing
• through explorationof alternate scientific realities for science class – what if people lived under the sea? What if a meteor hit our oceans? What would happen to our oceans if we were in another ice age?’

Any students researching fantasy and science fiction writing for your essay, you may be interested in examining some of these websites:

http://bestfantasybooks.com/

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/fantasy/ 

http://www.sfsite.com/

Remember that a great way to get inspiration for your writing is to read as much as possible; and the best way to become a great writer is to practice writing as much as possible!