The idea of the Megasaga occurred to me on a plane. I think it’s original! The Mini saga had been around for some time. I remember years ago the Today Program on BBC Radio 4 ran a Mini Saga competition, in which the stories submitted had to be fifty words. Yes, fifty! Too hard? Then there’s Flash Fiction: here, the author has 500 words to play with. Too easy!

All these forms have their value. Essentially, a writer of fiction is a liar and the reader is a complicit and willing dupe, being prepared to enter into a false world in which invented events are created for nonexistent people within an environment and under constraints which are wholly or partly in the imagination.

But Caveat Scriptor! Let the writer beware! If there is the slightest flaw in the invented details – location, events, character/s – the reader is lost, and the writer abandoned.

So my challenge (travelling from London to San Diego last year) was to find a form which could have the same power and urgency as a good short Story, condensed. And yet still carry conviction and engage the reader. This is where poetry meets prose: a good poem encapsulates thoughts and emotions. A sonnet, a limerick, a haiku operate within strict rules, forcing the poet to use every fine tool at his/her disposal to convey a scene, emotion, event within immutable rules. The creation of one of these is an exercise for the writer, the equivalent of doing bench presses or bicep curls, to develop the craft and make each word count. Could there be as good an exercise for prose?

The Mega Saga was the obvious solution. A ‘story’ in 100 words, including the title. So I began to write.

The first one was about revenge. Here it is:

Once he had washed the corpse, he began to dress it. A fine organza dress, a blouse made of the best Brussels lace, elegant kid gloves. Carefully, he applied makeup. Not entirely efficiently. The lipstick was somewhat smeared and the rouge a trifle excessive. Then he fitted a pair of leopard skin stiletto heeled shoes on the feet. He stepped back, admiring his handiwork. Looks good! Time to invite the family into the Drawing Room to view the corpse. “All right Dad?” he said to the corpse. “I forgive you now. My revenge is complete!” and he opened the door.

No title! Not great! So I continued to experiment…some of the results can be found in this blog, under Short Stories.

Then I realised that to develop the form, I wanted to see what others could do. And the Mega Saga competition was launched.

Amazing! I had stories from all over the world – but for me, frankly the most exciting were the stories submitted by South Africans. There is so much creativity, originality and talent in that country! So many people had a go, many of whom had either never written fiction before or had never submitted any of their writing to anybody. These are the people I admire most. And so many of their efforts were really genuinely affecting – straight from the heart, which is a great place to start writing.

Selecting the Long List of 10 was difficult, but nothing compared with collecting and collating the Short List! (One of the Judges and I will probably never speak again. Yes we will, KB!) . As to the final winner, my personal favourites come down to two. See http://jonelkon.com/megasaga-shortlist-announced/But I refuse to tell you which those are. We will negotiate and decide.

The next Megasaga competition will take place when I have recovered from this one, maybe at the end of June. I will probably charge for entries – a small, token amount so that I can cover the cost of the prize. I think that’s fair.

So PREPARE!  Start writing! I really do want to encourage people who don’t normally write to have a go. And people who do write, hone and develop and exercise and get better. If I can help writers in any way I will.