How to enter our spring writing competition #CBCSpringStory26
BY Maya Fernandes
9th Apr 2026
Write a flash fiction story inspired by one of our prompts to be in with a chance of winning a writing course place. Our #CBCSpringStory26 writing competition is now open for entries. We're hosting this competition over on Instagram (@curtisbrowncreative) from Thurs 9 Apr to Tues 5 May.
Use one of the three writing prompts set by our brilliant tutors Julie Cohen, Lucy Holland and Vaseem Khan as the first line of an original flash fiction story or opening scene. Post your response to your Instagram page to be in with a chance of winning one of three places on one of our short online courses.
Keep reading for prize details and information on how to enter.
Prizes:
Three winners will be awarded a free place on the online writing course of their choice (courses run for four, five or six weeks and are valued between £135 and £250). Winners can join one course only from the courses listed on this webpage.
Prize may not be exchanged directly for cash. Prize must be redeemed by 31 March 2027.
Winners must email help@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to claim their prizes.
How to enter:
To enter the #CBCSpringStory26 competition on Instagram we want you to write an original flash fiction story or opening scene that continues from one of three prompts set by our tutors Julie Cohen, Lucy Holland and Vaseem Khan. Feel free to adapt or swap the pronouns if that better suits your story:
1. When they planted last autumn, they had no idea of what would emerge in spring.
2. It was too late. The last of the blossoms had fallen.
3. He had little idea, on that cold spring day in March, just how dramatically his life was about to change.
Post your chosen prompt’s image graphic to your Instagram grid either on its own or as part of a carousel post. You can download the graphics by clicking the buttons below.
Then use the prompt as the first line to write your mini story or opening scene in the caption of your Instagram post (up to a maximum of 300 words).
Remember to tag @curtisbrowncreative in the post and use #CBCSpringStory26 in your caption to enter.
Other rules:
- Please follow the instructions found in the ‘How to enter’ section above.
- Follow us on Instagram (@curtisbrowncreative).
- Like this competition post.
- Winners can redeem their free place for use on any of the short online courses listed on this page. Prizes are not eligible for use on courses that are not found on that web page. Prize must be redeemed by 31 March 2027. Prize may not be exchanged directly for cash.
- You must be 18+ to enter. One entry per person. Public accounts only please. This competition is not affiliated with Instagram.
- Competition starts Thurs 9 April at 11am. Competition closes for entries Tues 5 May at 11am (UK time) and the winner will be announced in our stories and on our blog at 11am Thurs 7 May (UK time).
We will update this blog by posting the three winning stories on Thurs 7 May.
Helpful tips from our prompt makers:
Here are some top tips for writing an opening scene or flash fiction story from the very writers that gave us these brilliant prompts . . .
Julie Cohen
Julie Cohen is an award-winning author whose novels have sold over a million copies worldwide. Twice selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, she is a Patron of literacy charity ABC To Read and a founder of the RNA Rainbow Chapter for LGBTQ+ writers. She has also written two thrillers under the name Julie Mae Cohen, Bad Men and Eat, Slay, Love. Julie is the tutor of our Writing Romance – Advanced course.
- Writing, especially in shorter pieces, is about movement. From the beginning to the end, something should change. It can be emotional change, or physical (plot) change, or, ideally, both. It can be unexpected, or satisfyingly predictable. It should usually, in some way, be foreshadowed in the beginning. Your job as a writer is to facilitate and manage that change so that your reader feels they have been on a journey, no matter how short or long that journey may be.
- Never underestimate the power of verbs. Once you’ve finished a draft, examine your prose: what’s carrying the meaning of your sentences? Is it adjectives and adverbs, or is it nouns and verbs? And how can you revise your sentences so that, whenever possible, the verbs are doing the hard work? (If you’re not sure what verbs, adjectives and adverbs are, treat yourself to a copy of On Writing by Stephen King, and enjoy learning another skill.)
Lucy Holland
Lucy Holland is the author of The Times bestselling Sistersong, a finalist for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award and the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2022. Writing as Lucy Hounsom, she is the author of the Worldmaker Trilogy. Lucy also co-hosts the intersectional feminist podcast ‘Breaking the Glass Slipper’, which won Best Audio in the 2019 British Fantasy Awards. She has given talks and workshops for various organisations, including the British Library and MCM ComicCon. Lucy is the tutor of our Writing Fantasy course.
- Just write. Stop fretting, planning, let go of that perfectionist urge. Stop trying to pick a clever theme or a concept and just start. Writing is a subconscious practice as well as a conscious discipline. Leave the bigger questions for later. Focus on character, emotion and senses, and let that essential humanity lead you deeper into the world. Only by writing it will you figure out what you want your story to say.
- There is no more important aspect than character. Following on from the above, character is where you start. A person somewhere feeling something. This is surprisingly easy to forget when you're juggling all the other strands that go into storytelling. But character is more vital than worldbuilding, plot and action. Your characters are a reader's gateway into your world. We see it through their eyes, apprehend its structures via their unique perspective. The most brilliant and inventive world is a wasteland without well-rounded believable characters to populate it. Plot often comes from character, and action from plot, so getting to know your own will lay all the foundations you need to tell an original and compelling story.
Vaseem Khan
Vaseem Khan is a former Chair of the UK Crime Writers' Association and the author of several award-winning crime series including the Baby Ganesh Agency novels and the Malabar House historical crime series. His debut, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was selected by the Sunday Times as one of the 40 best crime novels published in 2015-2020, and has been translated into 17 languages. Vaseem is also the author of Quantum of Menace, the first in a series featuring Q from the world of James Bond. Vaseem is the tutor of our Writing Crime Fiction short course.
- Keep saying to yourself: readers are smart! Leave more to their imagination. Write and then make a mental commitment to cut out at least ten percent. Less is always more with short stories.
- A short story can work on many levels: beautiful prose; quickly sketched but memorable characters; a precise, punchy narrative or a brilliant twist. Pick one or two of these. It's difficult to do them all in a few thousand words.
If you need help posting your competition entry to Instagram, email help@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk
We can’t wait to read your stories!
Congratulations to our competition winners @fever110011, @cat_gale_writes and @_quiller_!
Read the winning entries below:
- @fever110011
When we planted last autumn, we had no idea of what would emerge in spring. In the cold nights, from the mountains and the outer darkness of the sea. We did not know what they were, only that they were shadows drawn to the grass we had planted using ancient seeds resurrected from permafrost. An offering to the land, a way to give back what it had lost. We did not expect the grass to grow so tall and thick. We did not expect the land to give something in return.
“We must leave this place.”
“No, we must destroy them. Somehow.”
Every night, we were restless.
From the window, I watched them, skin damp. Shadows drifted toward the grass silvered by the moonlight. Was that a face? The glimmering of eyes? Someone pointed a flashlight at them, but the beams revealed nothing but darkness. I shivered.
They vanished into the tall grass, and for a terrifying moment, I felt them watching us from within.
They emerged and lingered near our houses.
I rechecked all the locks. The more I studied them, the more human they appeared. One shadow, its left-leaning gait, its amble seemed familiar, and my chest ached.
Someone shouted and set the grass on fire!
The glow illuminated the shadows that now bore faces.
One of them was my sister.
My heart tightened with hope. We ran to them, recognizing those we’d lost in the past. I grasped for my sister’s hand as she stared at me.
But it was too late. They faded away like smoke.
All the ancient grass was ablaze, except for one patch. I nearly called the others to save it but thought of her vacant eyes. How we now languished like shadows.
I kept quiet and watched it burn.
- @cat_gale_writes
It was too late. The last of the blossoms had fallen.
Sandy stared at the pinkish petals that littered the floor like confetti and wanted to weep. It had been a gamble coming this late in the season, she’d known that when she booked the plane ticket. Still, she had hope - the small pocket in her soul that still held hope for things, that the divorce had not touched, nor the chemo, nor the death of her father. But now at the sight of the blossomless trees, defeat sat in her belly like a stone. Too weary to cry, she sank to the ground.
The thing no one told you about writing a bucket list: when you were dying, you were simply too tired to do most of it. She’d summoned every bit of strength to come here, but her treatment had delayed things. She imagined a big, red cross next to ‘Cherry blossoms, Tokyo.’
A shadow fell across her. “Miss? You want photo?” The voice came from above: a boy standing in front of her, blocking the sunshine.
Sandy gestured to the bare trees. “They’re gone.” She began to rise, her knees already aching from the hard ground.
The boy’s gaze flickered towards her head scarf. He shook his head. “I show you. Follow.”
Sandy opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. She had nowhere to be. She dusted off her knees and followed him, her breath coming in short gasps as she struggled to keep pace.
They turned a corner, and then she saw it: a single tree, adorned with a thick cloud of pale pink. Sunlight filtered through its branches, its perfume hanging heavy in the air.
“See?” the boy said. “Not too late. I take photo?”
Sandy smiled, and lifted her face to the blossom.
- @_quiller_
Wayne had expected many things when he opened his front door that morning—wind, rain, or perhaps Mrs. Jones from next door returning his casserole dish scrubbed clean. He had little idea, on that cold spring day in March, just how dramatically his life was about to change.
Wayne had not expected a goat to be standing on his doorstep wearing a bright red cardigan, chewing with grim determination on his copy of The Times.
With dark eyes, the goat stared back at him.
“Well,” Wayne said at last. “You’re either terribly lost or grossly overdressed.”
The goat sneezed. Tucked beneath the soggy newspaper, Wayne spotted a note tied through the goat’s collar that read, “Gone to Spain. Couldn’t take Bernard with me—Elma.”
Wayne scratched his head, then looked toward Elma’s porch across the street, curtains drawn, car gone, front gate swinging gently in the wind.
“Bernard,” Wayne repeated as the goat took hold and began chomping the note.
By eleven, Bernard had consumed half the garden and the better part of Wayne’s patience.
By noon, Wayne discovered goats could open doors.
By two, Bernard had escaped wearing Wayne’s laundry basket like ceremonial armor and was eating the flag from a postbox he climbed onto as if he had reached the summit of Mount Everest.
By four, Wayne was ankle-deep in mud, wrestling Bernard while half the street offered useless advice.
By six, Bernard was asleep in front of Wayne’s fire, smelling faintly of wet dog.
Wayne lowered himself into his chair, muddy and exhausted.
Opening one eye, Bernard sighed contentedly and rested his head on Wayne’s slipper.
In silence, Wayne watched the goat breathe.
The house, for once, no longer felt empty.
“Fine,” Wayne muttered. “But you’re not sleeping upstairs.”
Congratulations! To redeem your prizes, please email help@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk