How to enter our winter writing competition #CBCWinterStory25
BY Alessia Quaranta
20th Nov 2025
This year we're celebrating the festive season with a CBC Winter Story competition on Instagram! Get yourself a hot drink, a cosy blanket and write a flash fiction story inspired by one of our prompts to be in with a chance of winning a writing course place. Our #CBCWinterStory25 writing competition is now open for entries. We're hosting this competition over on Instagram (@curtisbrowncreative) from Thurs 20 November to Mon 15 December.
Use one of the three winter-themed writing prompts set by our brilliant tutors Maame Blue, Richard Roper and Laura Barnett as the first line of an original flash fiction story or opening scene. Lean into the holiday spirit and 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 December 2026.
Winners must email help@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to claim their prizes.
How to enter:
To enter the #CBCWinterStory25 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 Maame Blue, Richard Roper and Laura Barnett:
1. The tree looked naked once all the ornaments were smashed.
2. It wasn’t presents that Santa had left under the tree. It was a warning.
3. I always wanted to be the Angel Gabriel in the school nativity play.
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 #CBCWinterStory25 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 31 December 2026. 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 20 November at 11am. Competition closes for entries Mon 15 December 11am (UK time) and the winner will be announced in our stories and on our blog at 11am Thurs 18 December (UK time).
We will update this blog by posting the three winning stories on Thurs 18 December.
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 . . .
Maame Blue
Maame Blue is the author of two novels; Bad Love, which won the 2021 Betty Trask Award, and The Rest Of You, shortlisted for the 2025 Jhalak Prose Prize. Her short stories have appeared in four anthologies, including 2025’s Be Gay, Do Crime. She regularly runs creative writing workshops and will be a tutor on our online Writing Your Novel – Six Months course next year.
- Jump straight into the emotion. It can be tempting to start with lots of set up, but readers of short stories need to be plunged into the narrative almost immediately, so you can’t waste what little words you have trying to describe a setting, timeline or context. Instead, let your character’s emotions do that for you. Give us your character’s arc early on, using the framework of how they feel at the beginning of the story, how they feel at the end, and how their feelings change in the process.
- Freewrite your story. Use the prompt to explore your stream of consciousness by writing the first thing that comes to your mind, and continuing to write for at least ten minutes. It’s a great way to clear your head and get out words that at first might seem unconnected, but once you stop and read them back, you’ll often find you’re at the beginning of shaping a story. It’s also helpful in conquering Staring-at-a-blank-page Syndrome.
Richard Roper
Richard Roper is a novelist and non-fiction editor based in London. He is published by Orion in the UK, Penguin in the US, and around the world in 20 languages. His debut novel Something to Live For was optioned for TV and was a Barnes & Noble fiction book of the month in the US. As a former senior commissioning editor for non-fiction at Headline, he has commissioned and edited numerous Sunday Times bestsellers and award-winning titles. Richard is part of our editorial team and is available for manuscript and submission reports. He also teaches our Writing Your Synopsis – Masterclass
- Look to The Traitors for how to write good fiction that keeps your reader hooked. There is a reason producers pick contestants with compelling back stories – we immediately feel more invested in who wins. Not only that, but with each episode the stakes are raised – tension building on tension until it’s almost too much to bear…
- Give your protagonist a goal (and make it tangible!). The more a character wants something – the more active they are – the more your reader will engage with them.
Laura Barnett
Laura’s first novel, The Versions of Us (2015) was a number-one bestseller, it has been translated into 24 languages, and was shortlisted for Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards. She’s had four further books out since then: Greatest Hits (2017), which features an accompanying musical soundtrack by Kathryn Williams; Gifts (2021), a novel in short stories; This Beating Heart (2022); and Births, Deaths and Marriages (2025). Laura is a regular tutor of our flagship Writing Your Novel course and leads two of our short online courses: Dialogue – The Deep Dive and Plot & Story – The Deep Dive.
- Be yourself or – more pertinently – be the character you are writing about. Don't try to emulate the work of writers you admire, or worry that there's a "right way" to write. There's your way, and that's all that matters - nobody else can write quite like you, or sees the world exactly as you see it. Bring that individuality to the page.
- Plan for spontaneity. OK, so that might sound like something of a contradiction – but what I mean is, it's OK to have a rough idea of where you want your story to go, or what you want your characters to say and do, but don't stick slavishly to a plan. Stories and scenes need space to breathe. Take some time to get to know your characters, then put them in a situation and see what they do. More often than not, they'll surprise you.
If you need help posting your competition entry to Instagram, email help@curtisbrowncretaive.co.uk
We can’t wait to read your winter stories!
Congratulations to our competition winners @smallnorthernlass, @raeswabeywriter and @oithmos!
Read the winning entries below:
- @smallnorthernlass
The tree looked naked once all the ornaments were smashed.
Glass lay in small glittering pools across the wooden floor – reds, greens, and golds, reflecting the light. Lily stood still; her small hands tucked to her chest as if she could will the pieces back together.
“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered.
Her grandfather, Frank, got the brush and pan and knelt slowly. His knees clicking the way they had begun to since the Spring. Lily watched him, waiting for a reprimand.
The ornaments were Margaret’s – one bought each year; each hung with the same contented smile. Since she died, he had avoided opening the box. He’d brought it down for Lily’s sake, but the thought of unwrapping each memory had felt too sharp.
Now, as he brushed the fragments into the pan, he felt something ease inside him. The past had been scattered into harmless glints of colour.
But the reprimand never came. He stroked Lily’s tearful face.
“It’s all right,” he said.
“But they were hers.”
He nodded. “Nana wouldn’t want you upset over broken glass.” The thought surprised him with its certainty. “We’ll make new ones. Our own.”
They went into the garden. Frost clung to the pinecones that lay beneath the fir. Lily gathered them while Frank found some twine in the shed. Back inside, they tied loops onto the new ornaments.
When they hung their handmade ornaments, the bare tree changed. The branches looked lighter, freer, as if relieved of their old weight. Lily switched on the lights, a soft glow touched the branches, casting delicate shadows on the walls.
Frank felt something stir – gentler than grief, warmer. A door opening a crack.
“It’s our tree now,” Lily said quietly.
“Yes,” he said. “It is.”
In the quiet room, Christmas felt possible again.
Read Kassia's entry on Instagram
- @raeswabeywriter
I always wanted to be the Angel Gabriel in the school nativity play. Which was how I learned that what I wanted was not my dad’s primary concern.
“What about a shepherd?” he asked, in a tight voice.
Ridiculous question. Why would I want to wear brown rags and stare at stupid smelly sheep when I could be an angel?
“Or a king? You could be a king!” he exclaimed. And—although the kings’ costumes admittedly were quite fancy—he grinned and nodded at me in such a strangely desperate way that it only strengthened my resolve.
“I want to be the Angel Gabriel.”
“Or Joseph?” Dad persevered, like he hadn’t heard. “Or a donkey? Donkeys are fun!” He started trotting on the spot and bellowed, “Eeeh-orrrrr!” Then he suddenly caught himself, cleared his throat and said, “Anyway…”
After a moment, he added, “The narrator gets the most lines, you know. Perhaps you should ask to be the narrator.”
I nodded, having no intention of it, wanting the conversation to end.
When I landed Gabriel, I was thrilled. I thumbed the silky fabric of the gown hanging on the costume rail in the corner of the classroom at every opportunity, gazed in awe at the gold lamé wings and tinsel halo.
Dad just harrumphed. And when Mum tried to cajole him into enthusiasm, he muttered something about it being ‘girly’.
“But Gabriel’s a boy angel!” I protested.
He rolled his eyes.
In the sweaty school hall, as I announced the Good News to the shepherds, then the kings, Dad glowered, and it felt like I was announcing something else, something shameful. My halo felt too sparkly, my wings and gown too shiny. Everything about me felt wrong.
After that, everything about me felt wrong for a long, long time.
- @oithmos
It wasn’t presents Santa left under the tree. It was a warning.
A red-and-white team shirt and shin guards: the costume of the boy I was supposed to become. Proof the world would kick me, and I was expected to play along.
I threw them; they struck the radiator with a wounded sound.
“I asked for a Barbie,” I told the nativity set. Baby Jesus stared back with the boredom of someone already resigned to sacrifice.
In the doorway, my father’s jaw tightened; then he stepped outside to smoke.
“Santa got it wrong,” I said.
His eyes avoided mine. He stared into the dark street, as if waiting for something terrible to appear. “Why can’t I have a son like everyone else?”
The words entered me like a blade into fruit: no resistance, then the sudden awareness of separation.
Two truths drifted down, ash on snow: he didn’t get what he wanted either. And Santa is a man who sleeps in our house.
After my mother died, no one smuggled softness under the branches. Each December became a syllabus of acceptable boyhood: season tickets, a tool belt, a razor, a pocketknife. Gifts with edges.
Anger needed somewhere to live, so I let it rent space inside me. Puberty paid the deposit.
At sixteen, I sold the football tickets and bought dance shoes. I left the program from my first performance on his pillow. When the lights rose, his seat was an unbroken, empty square.
Years later, clearing out their house, I found photos from that night. The stage glow found me easily; I looked like someone finally allowed to be seen.
And at the blurred edge of one frame: my father. Not clapping. Not smiling. Just watching, bewildered, like someone desperate to read instructions in a language he didn’t understand.
Read Georgios' entry on Instagram
Congratulations! To redeem your prizes, please email help@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk