LEWISTON — Lily Douglass’ story about a monster hiding under the bed wasn’t unique.

Out of 139 submissions to The Telling Room’s creative writing contest, upward of 20 stories featured monsters under the bed.

Instead, it was her exceptional writing technique that won over the judges.

“In a way, you would think maybe it wouldn’t win, just because it’s not the most unique idea,” Telling Room Publications Director Molly McGrath said. “But we loved how concrete her language was, also just her structure, that she varied her sentence length, and knew how to build suspense and pacing in her writing. These are all things that were very advanced for a writer of her age.

“Mainly, we just were sucked in by her story and couldn’t wait to see how it would end.”

Last week, the 12-year-old became the youngest person to win The Telling Room’s annual writing contest, and the first from Lewiston, in its 15-year history.

“I read the whole (email), and she put in bold ‘huge congratulations to you, Lily Douglass,'” she recalled. “I went back a little bit, and it said I was the winner. I seriously thought it was a practical joke for the rest of the day.”

Each year, The Telling Room asks Maine students age 10 to 18 to submit no more than 1,500 words for a panel of judges to consider. The theme for this year’s contest was “mystery.”

“It was maybe a little bit more gory than we expected,” McGrath joked.

Writing scary stories is nothing new to Douglass. Once “traumatized” by a horror story she read in third grade, she’s learned to love the genre. She’s currently reading “The Stand,” written by Stephen King, and recently finished another of his novels, “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.”

Douglass often takes an idea that’s been used before —”like monster under the bed, there’s like a million books and short stories on that,” she quipped — and tweaks it to create her own unique story. She starts by writing a rough story, from start to finish, then edits it extensively.

Her winning story, “The Monster Under the Bed,” was originally written in her creative writing class at Lewiston Middle School.

It was her parents who pushed her to enter the contest.

“Basically, mom and dad wanted me to enter the contest because they thought there was no way I was going to win,” Douglass said, only a little smug to have proved them wrong.

“We said, ‘you have to learn how to put yourself out there and, you know, this is a great story, but it’s the whole state of Maine, what are the chances you’re going to win?'” her mom, Amy Douglass, said with a laugh.

Both agreed it was an unexpected but welcome outcome.

Her story will be published in The Telling Room’s upcoming anthology, “Echoes from the Basement,” which will feature work from other youth writers in Maine.

In total, The Telling Room is publishing 10 books with 350 youth authors.

“We just believe that you have really important things to say, and we want to help them get their voices out there,” McGrath said. “We believe the best way to do that is through writing.”

Outside of writing, Douglass is a member of Lewiston Middle School’s cross country, swimming and track teams. She also plays the cello.

She is not yet sure what she will do with the $250 prize money.

“My sister would probably want me to give it to her as, you know, her cut for moral encouragement,” she joked.

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