Win a voucher to one of our courses with our October/November Flash Fiction Challenge

Posted October 2, 2020

All About Writing’s latest writing challenge offers the winner a literary assessment on 5000 words of writing worth R 2750 / £ 150 or a voucher to the same value to use on one of our courses or programmes.

This month, we’re seeking flash fiction around the theme of flight. Aeroplanes, angels, Icarus retellings, flight as a metaphor, an amusing vignette, a fearful experience, all of the above or something else entirely – have fun!

Write no more than 250 words. Paste your entry into the body of an email and send to pam@allaboutwritingcourses.com by midnight on 30 November 2020.

Writing Tips:

Remember that events don’t make stories, characters do. Focus on a character and what that character wants.
Try to be specific, not vague. Even if the world of your story is fantastical, ground us in very particular details.
Don’t “tell” us what happens. Immerse us in a moment and “show” us through what happens through your character’s actions, words and reactions.
Don’t explain or interpret for us. Allow us to make up our own minds.
Don’t hit us “on the nose” with an obvious moral or theme. Tell us a story and allow the theme to take care of itself.

Jo-Anne Richards

Jo-Anne Richards is an internationally published novelist with a PhD in Creative Writing from Wits University. Her first novel, The Innocence of Roast Chicken, was originally published by Headline Review in the UK, and has recently been rereleased as one of the prestigious Picador Africa Classics collection. She ran the Honours programme in Journalism & Media Studies at Wits University for fifteen years.