Win a free writing assessment with our December/January Flash Fiction Challenge

All About Writing’s latest flash fiction 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 in which a mother and her teenage daughter go clothes shopping. Give us clues about their relationship through their interactions in the scene.

Write no more than 250 words. Submit your entry here or paste your entry into the form below by midnight on 31 January 2023.

Writing Tips:

1. Use subtext in their interactions to reveal details about the relationship between mother and daughter.
2. Write from the perspective of one of the characters (either in first person “I”, or in third person “he”, “she” or “they”). Don’t jump between them. Allow us to see the world through the thoughts and observations of only one of them. The other character and their reactions we’ll see only from the outside.
3. Give your characters something to do while using dialogue. This should also be revealing of your characters.
4. If you are writing from the perspective of the teenager, try to use something of their “voice” – the way they see the world, their vocabulary, and the kind of images they would use.