Februrary 2024

Brief: Follow storyblocks link below. Listen to the thriller music samples on the first page and select a piece of music or sound effect which inspires you to write a 300 words psychological thriller piece.  Storyblocks

In Cold and Tender Water – Chapter 1

DCI Charlie Wykeham had received the poem three days before the body was found. Written with quill and ink, its coarse handmade paper contrasted sharply with the crisp, white envelope in which it had been delivered to Wykeham’s home address. The postmark indicated it had been posted in Winchester the day before. At the time, he had been both intrigued and mildly concerned but there had been no obvious action he could take, except to carefully file the envelope and letter in an evidence bag in his office desk. Now, as he walked past the boathouse and followed the river downstream, the words of the poem resurfaced in his mind.

    While fields submit to winter's white campaign,

    clouds kiss and bruise the hills with grey,

    the wind pins the sky to earth's window frame

    and I flee the town to climb my favourite way.

    Atop the hill, the hard and frosty sward

    is cut by dark and winding lines.  I ask what strange,

    mad maze is this, with only but a single path?

    No answer heard, just winter's wild refrain.

    You could not know whose feet would trace your craft.

    But now my steps between the frigid turf

    decode your labyrinthine cryptograph

    and bring me to the centre of your work. 

    And though you’re gone, I still remain, a mourner

    To your death below, in cold and tender water.

After a minute of trudging through the soft mud and puddles of the towpath, Wykeham came to a small tableau.  Stopping at the Crime Scene – Do Not Enter tape, he nodded to a uniformed constable who recorded Wykeham’s arrival on a clipboard. A figure dressed head to toe in blue coveralls emerged from the white tent that had been erected by the riverside, and seeing Wykeham, came over. As she removed her mask, he saw it was the pathologist, Dr Rebecca Ferguson.

“Early days of course, but there are several indications this may not have been an accidental drowning.”

(329 words)

(This received a Highly Commended)

March 2024

Brief: Picture Book Text.  

In no more than four spreads of a picture book (less than 250 words) write something that comes from your heart.

Illustration notes will not be included within word count.

Amy Sparkes’ Story Godmother site has a useful page on writing in picture book spreads. See link here.

Banana and Elephant go to the Park

Spread 1

A summer day, a green park, with trees and a skateboard bowl

Banana and Elephant in the park one day,

Enjoying the sunshine and seeking some play.

They came across a big concrete bowl in the ground

And on the top was a plank with wheels round and round.

Spread 2

(left)

Banana jumped on the plank - and whizzed across the bowl.

He zoomed up the side, he was in perfect control.

That looks fun’’ said Elephant. “Can I have a go?”

Elephant hrumphed down his trunk. He wanted to do it too.

(right)

So, Elephant tried to get on the board,

But there was only room for two of his feet and not all four.

Then he thought of the humans he’d seen at the zoo

And reared up in the air so he was standing on two.

Spread 3

(left)

Elephant sped down the bowl at a tremendous rate.

‘How do I steer,’ he trumpeted, though really it was too late.

He came off the board with a terrible crump!

And came back to earth with a sickening bump!!

(right)

Elephant looked to see what Banana thought of his fall

But nowhere could he see Banana, not anywhere at all.

But underneath Elephant he felt something rather soggy.

Oh dear, Banana’s skin was now a full three feet from his body.

Spread 4

Elephant said, “I’m afraid there’s nothing for it

Because no one can ever unmake a banana split”.

So, he eat the banana and was heard to remark:

“A banana skin can cause a nasty accident in a skateboard park”.

(243 words)

April 2024

Brief: Pitch your book, as you would want it to appear in your query email that you send to agents. 150 words maximum, but can be short and sweet if you prefer. It needs to entice the agent and make them want to read your submission package. Many agents will make an initial decision based on the pitch alone.

Dear Jemima,

I am writing to seek representation for my romantic thriller, The Well in the Crypt, complete at 80k.

On the rebound from a failed love affair with Charlotte, NATO chaplain Peter illegally brings an orphan into the UK, embezzling church funds to do so. 25 years later, with the unexpected help of Father Hugh, a 12th Century Benedictine monk, he must confront the consequences of his past actions, both to protect those he loves and to regain Charlotte’s acceptance.

After a 30 year career in the computer industry, I recently completed a Creative Writing MA at MMU. This is my first novel, set in my home city of Winchester and uses supernatural, gothic and speculative elements to explore how the difference between good and bad is often simply a matter of perspective. Readers who enjoyed Diane Gabaldon’s Outlander or Daphne Du Maurier’s The House on the Strand are likely to enjoy my book too.

I attach the first three chapters.

Yours sincerely,

(Note to adjudicator: for a real letter I would substitute Diane Gabaldon’s Outlander with an appropriate author/book that is already on the agent’s list, to give an indication I had researched the agent’s interests.)

version 2:

After a failed love affair with Charlotte in the 1980s, Peter Green loses his way in life and seeks a purpose in life by joining the Anglican priesthood. During training for his ordination, he discovers a portal in time in the crypt of Winchester cathedral where he meets the 12th century Benedictine Father Hugh. Circumstances compel them to break their vows and use violent acts to prevent the poisoning of the Lady Cecilia. In the 20th century Peter is sent as a chaplain on secondment to the NATO forces in the Yugoslavian war. Deeply affected by the acts of ethnic cleansing he encounters he once again turns to violence to save an orphan, Anya.  Using embezzled church funds, he conceals his actions and brings her to the UK. In 2010, now a Canon of Winchester cathedral, Peter is blackmailed about the fraud. With help from Father Hugh, and Anya, Peter must use the Cathedral portal to expunge his fraud and finally gain redemption with Charlotte.

(165 words)

May 2024

Brief: Taking inspiration from a real person's past life (famous, infamous, or non-famous) combined with your own creativity, write a historical fiction piece. 300 words.

The Mismaze[1]

While fields submit to winter's white campaign,

clouds kiss and bruise the hills with grey.

The wind pins the sky to earth's window frame

and I flee the town to climb my favourite way.

Atop the hill, the hard and frosty sward

is cut by dark and winding lines.  I ask what strange,

mad maze is this, with only but a single path?

No answer comes - just winter's wild refrain.

You could not know whose feet would trace your craft.

But now my steps between the frigid turf

decode your labyrinthine cryptograph

and bring me to the centre of your work.

And though you’re gone, I still remain, a mourner

To your death below, in cold and tender water.

[1]To the east of Winchester, on the top of St Catherine's Hill, there is an area of narrow paths that expose the chalk under the downland turf.  This is the Winchester Mismaze, one of eight historic turf mazes remaining in England. It is not a maze in the modern sense but a labyrinth, cut into the chalk, with no junctions or crossings. It is laid out in nine nested squares, similar to those used for the traditional game of Nine Men’s Morris.

Although mediaeval in design, its origins are obscure. A local legend suggests it was carved one summer in the 17th century by a boy from Winchester College who had been banished to the hill for bad behaviour. To occupy his time, he recalled a lesson on classical maze design and carried out the lonely task of laying out and cutting the maze. It is said that the winding paths so disordered the boy’s mind that he threw himself off the hill and drowned in the river below.

(This was awarded second place).

June 2024

Brief: Write a 300 word piece about a moment of inspiration: this can be either a real figure/event, something from your own life, or something entirely fictional.

The Last Ten

'In ten minutes from now, you’ll be dead. But you won’t know which minute within those ten that you will die.'

Bill thought for a moment and said:

‘That’s okay, then, I don’t think that can be true, so I’m not really going to die.’

Jim said, ’How do you reckon that, then?’

‘Well, I won’t die in the last minute, because that would mean I would know I was going to die - since there is only one minute left.  And you said I would not know which minute it was.  So, it can’t be the last one.  But then if can’t be the last one, it can’t also be the second to last one.  Because if I’m alive with two minutes to go, then I’d know I was going to die in that second to last minute - since I’ve just proved it can’t be the last minute. Are you following, Jim?’

Jim wished that Bill was not quite such a pedantically precise sort of chap, but nodded and said, ‘Yes, I think I can see where this is going.’

Bill pressed on, warming to his theme,

‘Similarly, it can’t the be third to last minute, for the same reasons. And so on, right the way back to the first minute.  So, if you tell me I’m going to die in the next ten minutes but won’t know when then that can’t possibly be true. So, I’m okay then.’

Jim nodded.  ‘Very clever,’ he said, ‘and you only took three of the ten minutes to work that out - but I have a counterargument that perhaps you have not thought of…’

Bill was about to say,

‘I don’t think so.’

However, by that time, Jim had pulled out a gun and shot him.

‘So much for logic,’ said Jim.

(303 words)

Sept 2024

Brief:  Table talk.  In Birdeye, the rickety kitchen table is central to the life of the commune. Several key scenes take place around it. For this month's competition, imagine people gathering around a table. It might be to eat, play a game, hold a meeting.... Anything. Write a self-contained scene or a short story of no more than 400 words set around a table. Make sure your characters interact. How they interact is up to you! Any genre.

At my mother’s table

I was four years old in the endless days of sunshine that was the summer of 1958. My December birthday, so far away, made the possibility of being five something that was completely unimaginable. Now, approaching seventy, I still try hard not to think of the future. But I do often think of the past. I remember those warm, soft, sunshine days, when my mother and I used to walk to the local shops, with Sally the spaniel in tow. Or maybe I rode in a pushchair. I remember my mother once forgot me and left me there in the shop. I contentedly napped in the pushchair until a neighbour came in for some bread, discovered me and took me home. In those days you could leave your child in a shop or let them roam around the fields and woods near your house, and nothing bad ever happened. In my mind’s eye, I can still see my mother and I and Sally the spaniel taking that walk to the shops. But I don’t think it’s actually a memory – rather it’s a memory given to me, after the event, told to me by others. Like so many other memories.

    Mostly, I think my childhood memories are just things that people later told me had happened not things that stayed in my mind. After all, it was so long ago. But one thing from then I’m sure I can remember is having mashed potatoes and a runny egg for lunch. Though my mother probably called it dinner. I’m sure I remember sitting at the wooden kitchen table, with a plate of mash and the fried egg on top; and a runny yellow yoke as bright as that soft summer sun and a knob of butter melting and running down the side. And pushing the fork through the yoke, so that it swirled into the mash with the melted butter. No, maybe not a fork – I had a pusher - and a spoon. Yes, I’m sure I remember a pusher - just like a fork but with a flat plate across the non-handle end so that you could push the runny butter and the oozing yoke into the mash and onto the spoon. And then send it ‘down red lane’, as my mother would say, into my happy tummy. I don’t have the pusher anymore – maybe it’s in a drawer or cupboard somewhere, probably with my Christening mug, wrapped up in blue tissue paper. How I loved that pusher and the eggy mash and sitting at that table. I remember that. I’m sure I can remember that.

Oct 2024

Brief:  Suspenseful Sentences

Challenge your creativity and mastery of language by crafting a single, long periodic sentence that holds the reader in suspense until the last word. Inspired by the intricate styles of Virginia Woolf and Jonathan Swift, this competition invites you to weave a narrative that captivates and surprises. And as the winning entry will be read out the main thing is to make it a really compelling sentence to read out loud.

Maximum 200 words.

**Guidelines:**

1. **Structure:** Your entry must be ONE continuous sentence that builds anticipation and only reveals its full meaning at the conclusion.

2. **Length:** Aim for a sentence that is substantial and engaging, similar to the examples from Woolf and Swift.

3. **Theme:** There is no set theme, allowing you the freedom to explore any subject matter that inspires you.

4. **Judging Criteria:** Entries will be judged on how well they grab and sustain my attention.

This competition aims to encourage writers to experiment with sentence structure and narrative style, creating a captivating reading experience.

Example sentences: 

(Just examples, not models)

“It was the sort of look she had seen in the eyes of so many men, that look of complete and utter absorption, as if they were not merely looking at her, but through her, as if she were not just a person standing there, but an entire world of possibilities, a universe of thoughts and feelings and experiences, all contained within the confines of her own being, and she felt, as she always did in such moments, a curious mixture of pride and vulnerability, as if she were both the most important person in the world and the most insignificant, as if she were both the center of attention and completely invisible, and she knew, with a certainty that was both comforting and terrifying, that this was the way it would always be, that she would always be both seen and unseen, both known and unknown, both loved and unloved, and that this was, in the end, the essence of what it meant to be human.” – Virginia Woolf

“Whoever has an ambition to be heard in a crowd, must press, and squeeze, and thrust, and climb with indefatigable pains, till he has exalted himself to a certain degree of altitude above them; for, among the most vociferous, the loudest tongue will be soonest heard, and the most clamorous noise will be soonest regarded; and therefore, whoever may have a desire to be distinguished, must be content to undergo the fatigue of rising, and the hazard of falling, and the mortification of being despised, and the vexation of being slighted, and the disappointment of being neglected, till he has attained the pinnacle of his wishes.” –  Jonathan Swift

A Memory

Blue - so many blues – but not the pale, washed watercolour blue of the evening sky that quickly deepens into ultramarine as dusk falls across the moor, nor the cold chilled blue of their breath in the April air as they bathe in the valley stream, washing off the mud and sweat, scrubbing the rich perfume of horse from their bodies - no, it was the deep azure blue of her costume and the silvery cobalt shadows in her hair and the dark cherry blue of the bruise on her right thigh where she had cantered under an unseen oak bough, and it was also the cornflower blue of her irises, with their little flecks of steely blue determination, together with the recollection of the swooping kingfishers they had seen earlier, flashing and flaunting their blues and purples as they darted and dipped over the water in a thrilling moment of colour that has now become a distant memory - one to which he returns so many years later, only to find that the viridian and the emerald greens, the burnt umbers and the siennas have all now faded to shades of greys and it is just the blue, the coldness of the blue that remains.

Nov 2024

Brief:  Write a story in diary format over a few days in no more than 300 words.  The character could be imaginary or real (but not famous) with a focus on an incident or event.

A Diary of Evasion

Sunday 20th October

Decided to start a writing notebook on the advice of my mentor, for quick thoughts, observations, what I see out of the window, plot ideas and so on. HWS comp this month is a diary exercise – tried to start writing a daily log about an unknown seaman on Columbus’s ship who believes they only found America because the devil intervened and stopped them from falling off the edge of the world. Watched the Grand Prix instead. Pretty boring though. 6 days to the deadline, so plenty of time.

Blackbirds in the garden.

Monday 21st October

Found an ALCS survey of writers earnings on Emma Darwin’s blog. Depressing reading. Average earnings went from 17k to 7k since 2007. Bugger.

Starlings in the garden.

Tuesday 22nd October

Researched whether 15th-century sailors believed you could fall off the edge of the world. Can’t see why they would though – why wouldn’t the water in the oceans drain over the edge too? Wondered if it was Church teaching – but apparently "the Catholic Church never said the Earth is round, but just stopped saying it was flat." Watched Prince Charles dance around the slavery issue at the Commonwealth Summit.  Prevarication all around then.

Cats in the garden. No birds, unsurprisingly.

Wednesday 23rd October

Just leaves in the garden today. Maybe there are worms hiding under the leaves. Reminder – get Dune 2 on Sky.

Thursday 24th October

The wind has blown the leaves away. No sign of any worms, though. That reminded me to watch Dune. Another corrupt empire.

Friday 25th October  (10:50 pm)

Too dark to see anything in the garden.  Running out of time, so elbowed Columbus over the edge. But I had another idea:

    Sunday 20th October

    Decided to start a writing diary on the advice of my mentor…

(300 words)

Dec 2024

Brief: Write a poem (up to 30 lines) or prose poem (300 words) with Winter (not Christmas) as a theme. Set the tone to be eerie and unsettling, perhaps even uncanny, making winter itself feel sentient.

Winter, 1536

While clouds kiss and bruise the hills with grey

A crow and worm romance in the fields below.

The worm smells juicy to the murderous crow,

A morsel to be eaten soon, unless it will obey.

The worm is hiding in the frosty sward

until the spring melts all the winter snow.

Then the secrets of the worm’s burnished glow

may be opened by the crowbeak’s rasping sword.

For now, while winter fights its white campaign

the worm shares her place with the bones of kings,

and gold or souls and other buried things.

So, crow can only caw its spiteful refrain.

The passing time will fade the snow’s pure white

then worm will curl up, smaller, smaller

and ask the Maker “Pray protect your messenger,

and hide me in another shining night,

for I have seen so many wondrous things

burnished, glimmering as I slither deep below

Save me from the scraping beaks of crows

And allow my witness to the sins of kings.”

“Mary, you have never served me true”,

Said crow as he addressed the worm,

“But as in all our lives, each season’s turn,

and all our efforts must in death conclude.

And though now you hide within the frigid turf

To each of us the winters end must come,

Yield your soul, or else your life is done,

And that will be the end to all your work”.

The worm replied, “So, Thomas, must I cast aside,

the holy love of our one true lord,

He surely knows that when I give my word,

I know different in my heart - or else I die”.

As fields submit to winter's white campaign,

clouds kiss and bruise the hills with grey,

a queen parlays her soul for earthly pay,

while crow caws out his rasping, cruel refrain.

(302 words)

(This poem is not quite historically accurate as Mary signed her Letter of Submission acknowledging Henry VIII's supreme leadership of the English Church in the summer of 1536.  But the brief required a winter setting.)

This won 1st place in the Hampshire Writers Society December 2024 competition.

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