The Wizarding World News
- Headmistress Applications
- Judges Picks
- Writing School with Ash
- Creative Corner with Hemlock
- Dear Arthur Weasley with Accio
- Murder Mystery with Lun
- League Table
Follow all important events of the International Wizarding School Championship here in the Wizarding World News. We also have a live Twitter feed, Facebook and an Instagram account for you to get day by day updates!
Headmistress Applications
With the season coming to a close, it’s time for our Admins and Headmistresses to start planning season five, and that means considering our roles as part of the leadership team.
Sadly, throughout the season, we lost Ruhi as an Admin. She has decided to focus on her education in preparation for university, and we wish her the best. A number of Headmistresses are also changing their roles to an Admin position, as such, we have two Headmistress positions available.
If you are interested, we would love to hear from you. We have created a short questionnaire for those who want to apply. Once you have filled this in, you will receive an application pack. Please pay attention to all aspects of the application as this is what helps us to decide which applicant would be the best suited to join our team.
Thank you!
The application form can be found here.
Judges Pick
Year 1: Balancing on the Precipice by Leprechaun123
Featuring excellent banter that makes it seem like the characters have known each other forever—which in this story is the case—Balancing on the Precipice distinguishes itself through its use of dialogue and characterisation. Friday date night is a decades-old tradition for Draco and Hermione. Nothing short of death, and even that is up for debate, will get Draco to cancel. The story is well written, enjoyable, and includes such a discreet and heart-wrenching plot twist that I had to reread it because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Year 2: Killing Me Softly by Paceso
Filled with poetic and vivid descriptions of Peter Pettigrew’s final moments, this story is a captivating read from start to finish. Weaving in and out of flashbacks, the author creates a creative and engaging plot. Finally, despite being a character that isn’t very well-liked, the author’s deep dive into Peter’s emotions and thoughts showcases an often-overlooked side of him.
Year 3: Sand, Sea and Severus- Snowglobes survivors by Claude Amelia Song
Reading this story is like watching a really good apocalypse movie—fast-paced and gripping with emotion pouring from every line. From the intensely detailed worldbuilding to the author’s creative use of magic, every single word in this story is there for a reason. Hermione and Severus’s desperation to survive is palpable throughout the piece and the way they cling to every small moment of happiness they can find is beautifully human.
Year 4: More Than Just Business by QuickSilverFox3
In this story, the author takes two characters from canon that we know nearly nothing about—Blaise Zabini and Theo Nott—and turn them into fully fleshed, compelling characters. Yet the true jewel here is the way they portray the relationship between Blaise and Theo (and all the emotions associated with it); the writing style is beautiful, and the way the words simply leap off the page will leave you speechless.
Year 5: Let’s Be Freaks Together, Brother by Captain Voxland
Sibling rivalries always exist and sometimes brothers can be each others own worst enemies, but they can also be your best friend, your mentor, and your confidant. Here the author has written this bond in a realistic and relatable manner.
Writing School with Ash
Writing Technique: Get a Move On
Pacing was the category with the lowest average of points scored last season. Let’s fix that.
Need-to-Know:
- Short sentences.
Short sentences and terse words will make your narrative snappier, which is what you’ll want for moments when your character is excited, angry, or going through a fast-paced action scene.
Snappy does not mean rushed. Anything that matters should take time.
“I pushed her, and she fell, hitting her head against the sink.”
Yes, that sentence conveys everything that happens, but it’s bland.
The more important a scene is, the more detail it needs. What is the woman’s facial expression? What is the POV character thinking and feeling?
You can use snappy sentences while still making a moment last so that readers have to dwell on it.
“I pushed her and watched as gravity took the relay. Her eyes went wide, and her fingers clawed at my arm. I wrenched free. It all happened so slowly. Her head hit the sink with a dull thunk, and she crumbled on the floor.”
A note on fight scenes: Make sure you describe the setting beforehand. If a character hits their head against a sink, but the reader had no idea the room had a sink, they’ll be thrown from the scene. Fights aren’t the kind of thing you can easily slip back into.
- Long sentences.
Using long sentences and longer words will slow down the narrative. Use this method for contemplative moments when you want to convey a sense of hopelessness or thoughtful immersion.
This technique also comes with a warning: Just because you’re writing longer sentences, it does not mean you should weigh your writing down with unnecessary words.
If a word doesn’t add value to its sentence, get rid of it. If there’s a way you can turn two words into one without losing the meaning, do it. Adding unnecessary words gives readers an excuse to skip ahead.
For example, “Their expressions were filled with glee,” becomes, “Glee filled their expressions.”
- Paragraph length.
The same rule applies here as with sentences: short paragraphs give a faster pace while long ones slow the narrative down.
Paragraphs should be two to three sentences long on average, and the maximum should be about five sentences. Anything longer than that will create a block of text that readers will want to skip.
Make sure to vary the length of your paragraphs. If readers see three or more consecutive paragraphs that are the same length, the story will look monotonous.
Be aware that people pay more attention to the first and last clauses in a paragraph, so don’t put any important information in the middle.
Common Blunders:
- Repetition.
The door swung open, and Harry stepped into the house, closing the door behind him.
Repetition creates a monotonous rhythm that ruins stories. This happens most often with:
- words. Don’t repeat non-basic words within 100 words of each other.
- ideas. If you keep saying the same thing, readers will get bored.
- actions. You may notice that your characters can’t go more than five paragraphs without nodding, smiling, sighing, etc.
- sentence structures.
- A lot of you like using “as” or “before” and use it to the point where the repetition becomes noticeable and unpleasant.
- Some of you fall into a pattern where 99% of your sentences follow the same format. The two I see most often are subject+predicate (“Joanna left the house.”) and participial phrase+subject+predicate (“Rushing to be on time, Joanna left the house.”). When every sentence is structured the same way, readers notice.
Repetitions are easy to fix, just change a word or sentence structure, but first, you need to spot them. Reading your work aloud or mouthing it is a good way to start.
- Too many clauses.
Leaning against the window, I watched the scenery pass, dreaming of more exciting things.
That sentence has one independent clause and two dependent ones. Having three clauses in a sentence is above average, but it isn’t excessive. In this example, the order and content of the clauses gives the sentence an unpleasant twist.
This problem is more difficult to spot than repetition unless you’re used to unearthing it, but again reading your story aloud helps.
- Progressive tenses.
She was sitting by the pond, and he is running down the corridor.
The past and present progressive are tenses you want to avoid. They’re wordy and ruin the impression that the action is happening right now.
Using the simple past or simple present will make your verbs more vivid and add immediacy to your scene.
- Start/begin.
The boy started to panic.
I understand why you feel the need to add “start” or “begin” in front of your verbs, but get rid of them. They add nothing to your story.
- Dialogue tags and action beats.
Do not write an action beat unless the action is interesting to the plot or character, and do not add a dialogue tag if it’s already obvious who’s speaking.
Also, do not allow yourself to use more than two tags or beats per piece of dialogue. Most of the time, stick to one or none.
- Causative verbs.
In particular “make” and “cause”.
The teleport caused his stomach to heave.
The problem with the way some of you use these verbs is that they aren’t necessary, which brings us back to the “don’t use more words than you have to” rule.
You’ve just described your character getting onto the teleport machine, clicking the button, and their skin tingling from the rays. Therefore, all you need to say is, “His stomach heaved”. We’ll know what caused it.
- Changing POV.
When you start writing, pick a POV character and stick with them. If you absolutely have to switch to a different character at some point:
- don’t do it for only a single paragraph or a sentence. It’s a sign of bad writing.
- use a line break to give readers a visual aid.
- Italics.
Italics are unpleasant to read, so limit how often you use them.
Do not write entire paragraphs in italics. If you look at traditionally published books (published by good publishing houses), you’ll find that flashbacks are never written in italics.
- Overusing special punctuation.
Commas and full stops are basic punctuation, things we’re so used to seeing that our eyes pass over them and barely notice. If you’re using an em-dash or semicolon every other sentence, your readers will notice, and it will affect the flow of your story.
Grammar and Punctuation Section: Sentence Fragments
Sentence fragments are a literary device that a lot of writers either overuse or are too afraid to use.
Harry was gone. Dead.
“Dead” is a sentence fragment. It’s grammatically incorrect because it lacks the necessary elements to make it a complete sentence, known as an independent clause (an independent clause includes a subject and a verb, and can also include an object or a subject complement).
Harry was gone. He was dead.
Both sentences here are independent clauses. They’re grammatically correct, but don’t have the same effect as the previous example.
There are two reasons to use sentence fragments.
- For an emotional impact.
A one-word sentence stands out. It forces readers to focus on that word and its meaning like in the example above.
However, the more often you break a rule, the less shocking it becomes, so for every sentence fragment you use, ask yourself what you hope to achieve and if there’s another way of achieving it.
- For a choppy effect.
Sentence fragments are fast-paced. They can work well in action scenes when your POV character is confused and/or high on adrenaline.
Gunfire. It started from above. One, two, three rounds. I ran for cover.
The first and third sentences are sentence fragments.
Be careful. If you use too many sentence fragments, the scene will become jarring and confusing.
Only use sentence fragments for things that are important and worth drawing attention to.
Challenge:
Write a ficlet with great pacing and some sentence fragments.
Your story is not to be beta read by anyone other than you. This exercise is designed to help you improve, which can only happen if you aren’t relying on a beta reader to fix everything for you.
The upward word count limit for this challenge is 900 words.
Each school can submit only 4 writing school stories.
Please add an A/N at the end of your story with copies of the sentences you wish to be marked on for the Grammar and Punctuation Section. If you do not do this, you will not receive points for this section.
Optional Prompts:
[Dialogue] “You’re going to be late to your own funeral.”
[Occupation] Dance instructor
[Word] Mirror
Points breakdown:
| 2 points for participation |
| 1 point for using short sentences properly. |
| 1 point for using long sentences properly. |
| 1 point for using a variety of paragraph lengths. |
| 1 point for avoiding all of the blunders listed in the Common Blunders section. |
| 1 point for including at least 2 sentence fragments. (Copy them to your A/N) |
| 1 point for making sure that every sentence fragment serves a purpose. |
| 1 point for not overusing sentence fragments. |
| 1 point for using a sentence fragment badly. You heard me. The best way to learn is through mistakes. (Copy it to your A/N) |
| -0.75 for SPaG errors. |
| -1 for submission errors. |
Creative Corner with Hemlock
Create a Round
Congratulations to Beauxbaton’s year three srude to Bea Writes for winning last rounds Cr
This challenge is an end-of-season staple! At the end of every season, we ask you to create a round for the IWSC. The best rounds will feature next season!
- Choose a topic to inspire you and write 5 themes with 4 buzzwords each.
- Don’t forget to include 15 prompts and 1 special rule.
- 300 words max.
- It should be your own work. No plagiarism!
- No more than 1 submission per student.
- No more than 3 submissions per school.
- Submissions with a profound lack of originality or effort will not receive points.
Each school is allowed 3 submissions. Each submission will receive 3 points, and the winner will earn an extra 2 points. Deputies will vote for their favourite submission (excluding submissions sent by their school). Heads and admins will only vote to break a tie.
Dear Arthur Weasley with Accio
Well, hello there, lovely students of the International Wizarding School Championship. I hope you are well today. My friend, and fellow Order of the Phoenix member, Severus, is having a much-needed break from answering your letters. He said something about them being too… idiotic and that it’ll take him until at least the start of next year to recover, but I don’t believe him. He can be a bit grumpy at times.
I am an enthusiast about all things Muggle, and I am delighted to help clear some important stuff up for you. Although it’s taking me a while because I’m not so familiar with these keyborbs. I prefer a good old Type-Fighter.
Without much more ado, let’s get on with the show.
Dear Arthur Weasley,
What is the function of the Internet?
Regards,
A confused Pureblood
Dear confused Pureblood,
The internet is a wonderful invention that came about all the way back in 1983, when my dear daughter was only two. You see, Muggles don’t have libraries full of information the way we do, and they’re not great at asking each other questions. The internet is a library full of small elves, under the supervision of the Head Elf, Googley. You can ask it a question, and within a few seconds, the elves will find you all the possible answers.
Be careful. The first result isn’t always the most appropriate. I wanted to find some information about the Weird Sisters once and ended up on a website that would have got me in a lot of trouble should Molly have seen it over my shoulder.
Warmest Regards,
Arthur
Dear Mr Weasley,
I was watching some Muggles get into a car with their small children, and I was wondering how they kept the kids from falling out while it’s moving without Sticking Charms. This is keeping me up at night, so please help me!
Perplexed in Plymouth
Dear Perplexed in Plymouth,
Oh my. When I first got my Ford Anglia, the same worry kept me up at night, so please don’t feel that you are alone with your concerns. I have seven children, and Molly would never forgive me if I lost one or more of them. Even if it was one of the twins!
Muggles are able to keep all their passengers safely within their vehicles with careful use of Velcro. It works like a sticking charm; it’s two strips of material with lots of spiky bits, and by some kind of Muggle magic, when they’re put together, they stick! Marvellous! Makes a brilliant noise every time you try to pull apart from it, too. I keep a few pieces of it around, in case I find myself with a quiet five minutes or need a distraction. It’s great fun.
Warmest Regards,
Arthur
Dear Arthur,
I’m pleased to see that you’re taking your interest in Muggles to the next level, but I do have some concerns about you giving out advice on the subject after I stumbled upon a slice of pizza in the VCR last week at the Burrow. Do we need to have a refresher on the microwave? Let me know,
Sincerely,
Your concerned Muggle-born daughter-in-law
Dearest Hermione,
I wondered where that pizza went; I was quite hungry all afternoon and had to wait until Molly’s lasagne was ready. What a disappointment.
Further to your question, I know what the microwave is and enjoy listening to the Muggle radio on it regularly. Now, if only I could work out how to remove the chocolate sauce from the DVD player.
See you Sunday 🙂
Arthur
Dear Arthur,
Tell me, did you ever figure out what exactly IS the function of a rubber duck?
Signed,
Oh curious one
Dear Oh curious one,
Well, Harry and Hermione finally let the news slip. It turns out that rubber ducks only exist to ensure Muggles don’t drown in the bath. Apparently, the more duckies they have, the less prone to accidents they are.
Aren’t we lucky we can perform protective charms so we don’t have to worry about the perils in our bathtubs?
Warmest Regards,
Arthur
Well, those were very enlightening, and I enjoyed answering every single one of them. And my mailbox is still rammed full, so I will try my best to get to the rest of your questions before the end of your term. I don’t want you all to be misinformed when it comes to all things Muggles!
Murder Mystery with Lun
Congratulations to Hogwarts for their sharp wit and quick thinking in the previous round! You won 5 points.
You immediately send a Patronus to the DMLE, alerting the Aurors of Colin’s location in Seamus’ shed. When you hear a crashing sound from the back of the house, you rush to the garden where Colin stands in the small doorway of the shed, wand pointing at Seamus.
“I can’t believe you killed him,” Seamus says. “How dare you?”
“He was a pompous prick,” Colin spits. “He didn’t deserve you!”
Tears stream down Seamus’s face. “Colin, you need help.”
“I needed YOU, Seamus, but you left me.” Colin’s lip trembles. “Why did you leave me?”
“Because I can’t help you. Every second of every day, you were trying to control our relationship. It wasn’t healthy!”
Colin starts crying. “But I love you, Seamus.”
“Drop your wand, Colin.” Head Auror Potter appears out of nowhere and steps up next to you, wand drawn. “Don’t make this any harder than it is.”
“Hi, Ha-harry,” Colin stammers through his tears, his whole body trembling now. “I-I think I messed up…”
“It’s okay, just drop your wand.”
Later, Auror Granger pats your shoulder as you watch Colin being hauled into a secured thestral-pulled carriage that will bring him to the Ministry’s holding cells. “Sometimes the job really sucks,” she says. “But you did well. We need people like you.”
It breaks your heart to see Colin’s face before the carriage takes off. Deep inside, he is just a broken boy — you can see it in his eyes. At the same time, you know, you will never be able to live without the rush of adrenaline still pumping in your veins even now. In some way, everyone is a little insane, you think, knowing you have found the career you are destined for.
The International Wizarding School Competition League Table
| School | Place | This Round | Points | MVP |
| Hogwarts | – | x | x | x |
| Beauxbatons | – | x | x | x |
| Ilvermorny | – | x | x | x |
| Durmstrang | – | x | x | x |
Feel free to contribute to other aspects of the paper by sending a private message to the Competition account. We are always looking for pieces of fanart and even your thoughts or recommendations. Even if you want to send a message to someone in the competition that you think has excelled, or maybe they helped you out? Send it to Aunt Molly! Anything else should be sent to Wizarding School Championship. The subject line should be “Wizarding World News: [Name the section of the paper you are writing about]”.
Wizarding World News 