Words or Less Answers - Lesson One - Get your creativity Flowing!

Over the last couple of days I’ve listed a few competitions that require a “words or less” component. Otherwise referred to as a “tie breaker” answer.

I know that many readers may shy away from these competitions as they don’t feel confident that they can write a winning answer. I’ve written about hints and tips to entering creative competitions before, but nothing really about how to craft your answer.

This time around I will focus on how to get your creativity flowing for the particular answer you are trying to draft.

Some questions and competitions don’t require much thought. In fact sometimes, a great answer will pop straight into your head and you write it down and voila a winning entry is all yours. I absolutely recommend if something unique pops into your head when you first read the question, then use that answer. Most times though, I find i have to put a bit of thought into what I write.

For this purpose I am going to create a fake question just to give you some ideas and inspiration to follow when you are writing your own.

Question: Answer in 25 words or less why a new car would change your life

First step - Write out all the creative words or ideas that you first get pop into your head.

*** This can include things such as wheels, clutch, ride, drive, fast, road, kids, family, shiny, paint, desire, exhaust, tyres, windows, speed, luxury… you get the picture.

Second Step - Take a look at the words you’ve written down and see what pops out to you as your favourites. In this case I am going to say clutch, desire, exhaust, paint, luxury, wheels

(as I am writing this I have no idea what the final answer will be, this really is a process I would follow so we’ll see how it goes.)

Third Step - Start to craft your answer using your creative words. I generally create rhymes, but there are many people who do really well without rhyming and in fact there are promoters that can’t stand rhymes so the choice is up to you.

**** My answer - using the words clutch, desire, exhaust, paint, luxury, wheels

I’m “exhaust”ed being a mum, “Clutch”ing at my desires, I’d “wheely” love to have some fun, and a brand new set of “tyres”

As you can see, I ended up using the word “tyres” but I’m happy with the final result. It takes a bit of fiddling with words, but the end result is definately worth it.

I hope that helped