Win a voucher to any of our courses with our February/March Writing Challenge

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.

Write the opening paragraphs of a novel – one you might not have thought of until this very minute. Try to intrigue us, draw us in, and make us long to read more.

Write no more than 250 words. Submit your entry here or paste your entry into the form below by midnight on 31 March 2021.

Writing Tips:

1. Use your beginning to tease us, not explain who your character is or how they came to be there.
2. Suspense is created by suggesting or posing questions in our minds … and delaying the answers.
3. Show your character in action, so that we get to know them naturally. This doesn’t have to be thriller-type action, it just means: let your character be doing or saying something.
4. Don’t tell us where they are. Use just enough details for us to work that out for ourselves.
5. A static beginning, in which a character is thinking deeply, or contemplating, is not usually the most dynamic way to draw us in.

PS: Our flagship Creative Writing Course contains everything you’ll ever need to know about beginnings – of novels, short stories, or creative non-fiction.