#WriteCBC tip and task from Ally Wilkes
BY Maya Fernandes
2nd Oct 2025
Welcome to our October 2025 #WriteCBC prompt challenge. I hope you’re ready to be inspired by our latest tip and task! If you haven’t taken part in a #WriteCBC competition before, we’re excited to welcome you to our writing community. Please note that #WriteCBC is now hosted on Bluesky. Get up to speed by reading our blog full of information about how to play and the prizes on offer. It’s a lot of fun, and you might just win a free place on one of our online writing courses (worth up to £230).
This month’s special guest is Ally Wilkes, the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of All the White Spaces and Where the Dead Wait. Ally was a student on our six-month Writing Your Novel course in 2017 and is now a course reader-editor providing feedback to students on our Writing Gothic & Supernatural Fiction course! Next course begins 6 November.
Ally’s Writing Tip:
- For me, a story’s setting is as important as any protagonist. By teasing out the little details, you create a vivid sense of place. When it comes to the supernatural, even an unconventional setting can be infused with a subtle sense of darkness.
Your setting shouldn’t just sit in the background – it should feel like part of the story. Ask yourself: What kind of mood does this environment create? What small details make it feel eerie? Even an everyday place can take on a spooky feel with the right touches. A quiet park bench or a flickering hallway light can all hint that something’s not quite right. Let your setting do some of the storytelling.
This brings us on perfectly to Ally’s prompt . . .
Ally’s Writing Task:
- Halloween is coming, so let’s introduce a spooky setting! The house lights dim, and the curtain rises on your location: where are we? What small details intrigue us in the opening lines? And why does it make us feel subtly uneasy?
When you’re building a spooky setting, start by focusing on how it feels to be there. Think about the mood you want to create, and choose details that support that feeling.
Here are a few more tips to inspire you:
- Sensory details. When crafting an immersive setting, don’t rely solely on sight but involve all senses. Consider what your characters see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. Sensory details can help the reader feel grounded, whilst also creating a sense that something’s not quite right.
- Backstory. Make us feel like something happened here, even if we don’t know what. A sense of the unknown can make a setting feel much more eerie. Give your reader just enough to spark their curiosity, but leave room for mystery.
- Setting as character. It can be helpful to think about the setting in your story as another character with its own personality. What elements of your setting need to be highlighted to instil terror in your protagonist? Personification can be a powerful tool to engage your readers when writing a short scene.
We can’t wait to read your Bluesky post-length spooky scenes. Reply to us over on @cbcreative.bsky.social with your responses to Ally’s task and you might win a free six-week online writing course place. Competition closes Fri 3 Oct, 10am (the winner will be announced on Bluesky and this blog at 11am).
Congratulations to this month’s winner, @mrscarlielee.bsky.social!
- As kids, we’d tell stories about the quarry, recount adult’s whispers of a man drowned with rocks in his pockets. Just stories. Tonight though, the dark has fallen fast, in that October way, and there’s a flatness to the water, as if iced, or magicked, maybe, to a sheet steel, lid-like.
What a brilliant entry! We absolutely loved how you used a small-town tale to build such an unsettling atmosphere. The childhood stories give the setting a haunting history, and the vivid details of the October darkness draw the reader in, perfectly setting the stage for a spooky tale. You really nailed Ally’s #WriteCBC task! Well done Carlie, you’ve earned a free place on an online writing course (worth up to £230).
And well done to this month’s runners-up – each getting a £50 course discount – @midnightreader.bsky.social and @gail67.bsky.social. Congratulations, all!
To redeem your prizes, please email help@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk
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