How to enter our summer writing competition #CBCSummerStory25
BY Katie Smart
31st Jul 2025
Write a flash fiction story inspired by our prompts to be in with a chance of winning a course place and editorial report! Our #CBCSummerStory25 writing competition is now open for entries. We're hosting this competition over on Instagram (@curtisbrowncreative) from Thurs 31 July to Mon 8 Sept.
Use one of the three writing prompts set by our Founder Anna Davis to write an original flash fiction story or opening scene. Post your response to your Instagram page to be in with a chance of winning a place on one of our popular How to Write Your Novel courses, plus a feedback report from an expert CBC editor on your final task.
Keep reading for prize details and information on how to enter.
Prizes:
Three winners will be awarded a free place on the upgraded edition of one of our popular six-week online novel-writing courses. The winners will choose from: Starting to Write Your Novel, Write to the End of Your Novel and Edit & Pitch Your Novel. Plus they will get an end-of-course report on 3,000 words of their novel from a professional CBC editor (total prize value £405).
Prize may not be exchanged directly for cash. Prize must be redeemed 31 March 2026.
Winners must email help@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to claim their prizes.
How to enter:
To enter the #CBCSummerStory25 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 Founder Anna Davis:
1. It’s always been my most hated time of year.
2. Something had shattered.
3. It made me smile just to think about it.
Post your chosen prompt’s image graphic to your Instagram grid. You can download the graphics by clicking the buttons below.
Then 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 #CBCSummerStory25 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.
- You must be 18+ to enter. One entry per person. Public accounts only please. This competition is not affiliated with Instagram.
- Competition starts Thurs 31 July 2025 at 11am. Competition ends Mon 8 Sept 2025 10.00am (UK time) and the winner will be announced in our stories and on our blog at 10.00am Tues 9 Sept (UK time).
We will update this blog by posting the three winning stories on Tues 9 Sept.
Helpful tips:
Here are some of our top tips for writing an opening scene or flash fiction story that transports your reader straight into the action…
- There isn’t much room in this mini story (we’re asking for a maximum of 300 words) so make sure you get straight into the action and get your readers invested! Make every word work hard and strip away words that you don’t really need. You’ll find you can cover an amazing amount in just a few paragraphs.
- Don’t rely on clichés. We’d love to see something fresh, new and intriguing. If you do use a well-worn trope, it’s fascinating to do something with it that subverts our expectations. Give us something to hook us in immediately – something which makes the reader curious or establishes a mystery which must be solved.
- The action doesn’t need to be explosive. An unusual exchange between characters whispered in hushed tones can be just as dramatic as a man bursting into a room with a gun.
- Take a moment to read over your draft before you press ‘post’. It’s also a good idea to read your #CBCSummerStory25 entry out loud to yourself to see how it sounds.
- This competition is a great opportunity to have fun and stretch your writing muscles, so don’t be afraid to take some risks or leave the scene on a nail-biting cliff hanger.
We can’t wait to read your summer stories!
Congratulations to our competition winners @vanessanicolebutler, @rosalynpalmer.transformation and @slowliving_ellie!
Read the winning entries below:
- @vanessanicolebutler
It’s always been my most hated time of year – June heat and the County Fair. First, he won a goldfish in a plastic bag. In hindsight, that said a lot. Who wants to win a prize that’s more living, breathing responsibility? Then, he wanted a kiss for winning me a prize. The smell of smoke machines and candy apples threaded around our heads. I could taste his electric blue drink as his tongue laid on top of mine. All I could think about was how stupid a flavour blue raspberry was.
Still, I imagined taking his last name right there, in front of those sad fish in rows of jam jars. He could be the one I’d wear white for. Our families, crying tears of joy and equally relieved we wouldn’t die alone. God, what do they put in these slurpies? Dizzy and feeling the fried Twinkie I ate fighting for a way out, I told him I was going home.
I took the goldfish into my kitchen and plopped it into an Oktoberfest mug my dad gave me. Reddit would have a helpful thread on how to take care of a carnival fish.
My phone buzzed. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯. 𝘐’𝘮 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸. There it is, I thought. At least he’s in therapy.
Apparently, goldfish from carnivals die so quickly because they’re meant for jumbo sized tanks. Really, they need a fifty-five gallon tank and a fish friend for company. Because even a fish needs a witness to their lives. So then, you end up with two fish instead of the one you brought home. A hundred gallon tank would be best.
My phone buzzed. Tinder.
𝘏𝘦𝘺, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘩. 𝘊𝘢𝘯 𝘐 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘰𝘶𝘵?
Read Vanessa's entry on Instagram
- @rosalynpalmer.transformation
It’s always been my most hated time of year. Even as a child, something felt off about birthdays. Mine heralded the end of summer, just before the unwelcome return to school. I used to fake excitement for my mum’s sake – the jelly rabbit, the paper crown, the monotone singing – but I never liked being the centre of things.
Fifty marked a new crossing point. Santorini. A villa clinging to the hillside. My husband, already distant, scrolling through emails under a tree. I remember the way the light hit the pool. I remember thinking, maybe it’s not too late for us.
Then the phone rang.
“Are you sitting down?”
What? Why?
“He’s gone.”
The words were flat. Like a dropped pebble.
“Gone where?” I asked, already knowing.
Dad had always joked that like Sinatra he’d exit ‘his way’. We used to laugh. That year, not so much.
And somehow, I wasn’t surprised. Just unmoored. As if my heart knew before the words reached my ear.
I flew home alone. My husband stayed. Said he’d join me later. He didn’t.
The funeral was on a Thursday. I wore navy. My brother spoke. I didn’t. There are no good words for that sort of timing.
Afterwards, everything unspooled. Marriage, memory, meaning. I didn’t break. I just bent like a tree after a storm.
Now, each year, the date arrives and for the briefest moment I forget. Then it returns like a draft through an old window.
People say, “Happy Birthday” and I smile. I’ve learned how.
But inside, a part of me still holds its breath.
Listening for the phone.
Read Rosalyn's entry on Instagram
- @slowliving_ellie
Something had shattered.
Not with a bang, but with the soft exhale of old magic coming undone. No broken glass, no sharp scream – just a sudden hush, deep and thick, as though the world had stopped breathing.
I felt it in my marrow. In the bread dough faltering beneath my hands. In the flicker of the candle that had burned steady all morning.
In the parlour, the air shimmered like summer heat, though the windows were closed. The glass dome on the mantel – the one we never touched, never named – had split clean down the middle. The thing inside it was no longer there.
I didn’t speak. Neither did Aunt Elspeth, who appeared beside me so quietly she might have stepped out of the wallpaper. Her hands were streaked with rosemary and soil. Maeve came next, knotting her dressing gown with fingers too steady to be calm. Even the cat growled low in his throat, tail thudding once against the floorboards.
“She stirred,” Elspeth murmured. “I felt it in the roots.”
“She didn’t stir,” Maeve said. “She woke.”
Outside, the sky darkened too quickly. The rose bushes turned their heads. A low knock echoed on the windowpane – soft, deliberate. No one moved.
“She’s calling us back,” Elspeth said. “All of us.”
They looked at me then. The youngest. The only one who had never seen her. The only one she had never touched. But in my chest, something fluttered – recognition, maybe. Or fate.
I moved slowly, setting the dough to rise. Lit three candles at the hearth. Whispered the old words without knowing how I knew them.
Because if the witch in the glass was free at last, after all this time. We would need tea. And fire. And courage.
And we would have to remember what we were, before we chose to forget.
Read Ellie's entry on Instagram
Congratulations! To redeem your prizes, please email help@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk