New Year edition of #WriteCBC with a tip and task from Anna Davis
BY Anna Davis
5th Jan 2023
Happy new year from the CBC team, and welcome to our first #WriteCBC of 2023! Let’s try and distract ourselves from bracing January with a writing challenge. If you haven’t taken part before, take a look at this blog to find out how it all works. It’s a lot of fun, and you might just win a free place on one of our four/five/six-week online writing courses.
This month’s tip and task come from me, Anna Davis. For those who don’t know me, I’m CBC’s founder and managing director. I’m the author of five published novels and quite a few of our courses – and now I’m also the creator of our brand-new 30-Day Writing Bootcamp! Starting on 16 January, I’ll be setting a new writing task or writing prompt every day for 30 days. There’ll also be a video writing lesson every three days, and those who take part will have the opportunity to share work and discussion with a group of fellow writers in a secure forum on our learning platform. Come and join us to kick-start your writing for the new year.
For this month’s #WriteCBC, we’ll be giving five additional runners-up free places on the 30-Day Writing Bootcamp. These prizes will be in addition to the free course place (worth £220) for the winner and two £50 courses discounts for two lucky runners-up.*
ANNA’S TIP:
- On your first page, try hooking your reader in by showing something mysterious, confounding, intriguing, or perhaps a dilemma for your protagonist. In other words, find a way to ask a question that the reader will want answered through the unfolding of your story.
To be a reader is, in a very fundamental way, to be curious. You want to know more so you keep turning those pages all the way to the end. The writer’s job is to make the reader curious, and then to feed that curiosity.
Check out this famous opening line, from George Orwell’s 1984:
‘It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.’
The first part of that sentence is pretty ordinary – we know April days like that (those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, at any rate). But the oddness of that second bit – ‘and the clocks were striking thirteen’ – immediately has us wondering, what’s that all about? Where are we, for this to be happening? And just like that, we’re hooked.
There are countless ways to get your reader asking questions. From the discovery of a dead body (of course!) to the simple idea of something held in a closed hand. From the child who suddenly stops speaking, for no apparent reason – to the driver who knocks down a pedestrian on a dark, lonely road, and panics about what to do.
ANNA’S TASK:
- This photo is your jumping off point for a story/mini-scene that (either implicitly or explicitly) asks a question that makes me want to read on and find out the answer. Show me something that will get me really hooked!
We’d love you to write a tweet-length response. Here are few more tips to inspire you:
- Think in a sidelong way. What could you give us that is unusual?
- See how much you can pack into that tweet. A character (or more than one), a place, an atmosphere, and something that is happening … I want to find a whole world in your tweet-length story.
- If you want to go dark, that’s of course fine – but remember, it’s not the only way to create mystery and intrigue and to get the reader asking questions.
We can't wait to read your responses to my task! Tweet @cbcreative with your tweet-length scene and you might win a free six-week course place or a place on the 30-Day Writing Bootcamp.
*Recipients of the free 30-Day Writing Bootcamp places cannot exchange their prize for cash or for a discount off another course. Discounts and free place valid only on courses running in 2023.
If a winner or runner-up has already paid and enrolled on one of the applicable courses (yet to run), we will refund the £220 fee/£50 discount (as relevant).
If a winner or runner-up has already taken all relevant courses, they may gift their discount or full fee (as relevant) to another writer.
Congratulations to this month’s winner, Taslin Pollock @taslinp
- Seven looked up at the streetlight as if held in a trance. In a city in which the power had been cut off a year ago, the unusual sight of a light making the stars disappear made her stomach tighten. She had to warn the others. #WriteCBC
We love the way that Taslin has used the photo as the jumping off point for the story. The eerie blue light is so atmospheric and really lends itself well to Taslin's dystopian story opening. We have so many questions! Why has the power been off for a year? Who is in trouble and why? Will she be able to warn the others before anything terrible happens? This opening has left the story wide open for many potential twists and turns... Well done, Taslin – you get a free place on a £220 online course.
And this month’s runners-up – each getting a £50 course discount – are Lachlan Henri Steward @LachlanBouchard and Catherine Prescott @cat_prescott. Congratulations, both!
In addition to our usual prizes, the five recipients of a place on the 30-Day Writing Bootcamp are Sian @SianChaneyPrice, L. B. Rozas @LBRozas_, Susanna Kiernan @Susanna_Writer, Nicola Fieldsend @NFieldsend and Anton Yavorsky @ay98182. Amazing work from all of you!
To redeem your prizes please email help@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk
Brilliant fun – hope you all enjoyed it and see you next month. #WriteCBC will be back on Thursday 2 Feb.