Win a free writing assessment with our August/September Flash Fiction 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 a scene or flash story which leads us to expect that your character will do one thing – the comforting, conventional choice – but then, when push comes to shove, makes the difficult, surprising, perhaps even shocking choice.

Write no more than 250 words. Submit your entry here or paste your entry into the form below by midnight on 30 September 2021.

Writing Tips:

1. Put your character through hell.
2. Don’t protect your characters. They’re not your children. Make things as hard for them as you can.
3. Don’t think about what you would do in this situation. Think about your character and the kind of choices they might make.
4. Characters can behave “out of character”, if they are pushed to the edge, or the incentive is enough.
5. Allow your characters the possibility of making a bad decision.

P.S. Our flagship Creative Writing Course will teach you everything you need to know about characters and showing them on the page.