#WriteCBC tip and task from Emma van Straaten
BY Katie Smart
6th Feb 2025
Welcome to our February 2025 #WriteCBC prompt challenge. I hope you’re ready to be inspired by our latest writing 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 Emma van Straaten, debut author of This Immaculate Body – out today from Fleet (Little, Brown). The novel follows cleaner Alice as she becomes increasingly obsessed with her client Tom – a man she has never met but feels she knows intimately from her time spent cleaning his flat.
Emma won the inaugural Discoveries Prize in 2021 with the opening 10,000 words of an early version of This Immaculate Body. Discoveries is an annual novel-writing development programme and prize for unpublished women writers, run by the Women’s Prize in partnership with CBC, Curtis Brown and Audible. After winning Discoveries, Emma gained represented from prize judge and Curtis Brown agent Lucy Morris.
Emma’s writing tip:
- Places and objects have great power to evoke shadows of their owners – their class, cleanliness, or habits. Consider what an object feels like? Who bought it or made it? Think about what characters exist in certain spaces. How have they left their mark?
The protagonist of This Immaculate Body is a cleaner, using the objects in people’s houses to make assumptions and judgments about the person. Alice is infatuated with Tom, one of the people she cleans for. She scours his flat for clues about his life.
Read this passage from the opening of the novel, in which Alice is arriving at Tom’s flat to clean:
‘The key catches in the lock, but I know the trick; a swift twist and I open the door, inwards, shoulder finding the worn spot His shoulder must do, and I am struck by the warm, rich scent of Him, salty as blood, and I am afraid, as I am each week, that something has changed, more than the seasonal shiftings of cotton to wool, canvas shoes to suede, glossy leather, doormat thick with envelopes bearing cheques from aunts and festive greetings.’
The novel opens at the start of one of Alice’s ritualistic entrances into Tom’s flat. The fact that the space resists at first perfectly sets the tone of the novel, it feels like Alice is a transgressor when the lock catches, as if the flat is trying to keep Alice at bay. However, resistance is futile, Alice already knows the space intimately. If this doesn’t put the reader on edge, then the next revelation certainly will – the animalistic description of the flat’s scent is primal with just an edge of violence. This is a routine she has performed many times, her list of acceptable ‘seasonal shiftings’ in the space starts to raise alarm bells. Why is she afraid of things changing? What will she do if she discovers any unexpected new items?
The reader gets to know Tom through his flat – but more importantly they get to know Alice from her interactions with the space. We know immediately that her interest in Tom goes beyond normal bounds.
This brings us on perfectly to Emma’s prompt . . .
Emma’s writing task:
- Your protagonist has answered an advert to be a lodger. They haven’t met the owner, but they've been sent a key. When they open the front door, they get a strong sense of the homeowner. How does the house evoke the owner? What can they see, smell or hear?
Choose the details noticed by your protagonist carefully. What do they find interesting about the space? Are there any unusual objects inhabiting the place, acting as talismans of their owner? Where have the items come from, what secrets might they hold? Is the space tidy or cluttered? Well-decorated or cheaply outfitted? What clues about the owner have they started to piece together. How does the space make your protagonist feel about their new living arrangement?
Here are few more tips to inspire you:
How do they feel: Are they at ease or on edge? Maybe they're excited about this new living arrangement and keen to explore their new surroundings. Or perhaps they are already plotting an escape plan.
- Sensory details: Remember that your character will be experiencing the space with multiple senses. Sight is a useful tool for writers, but the other senses can help transport your reader into the character’s shoes in a more visceral way. What does the home smell like? Is it cold or warm? If they pick up any items, what do they feel like?
- Setting as a character: It can be helpful to think about the setting in your story as another character with its own personality. Personification is a powerful tool in writing a scene which engages your readers.
We can’t wait to read your Bluesky post-length scenes. Reply to us over on @cbcreative.bsky.social with your responses to Emma's task and you might win a free six-week online writing course place. Competition closes Fri 7 Feb, 10am (the winner will be announced on Bluesky and this blog at 11am).
Congratulations to this month’s winner, Chloe Panta @chloepanta.bsky.social:
- The scent of old books and cedar lingers. A grandfather clock ticks. Framed photos line the walls, each face scratched away. A faint hum of classical music drifts from a hidden speaker. The house is neat, but a second teacup sits on the table, still warm. Someone was here.
What a brilliant entry! We absolutely love how Chloe has captured such a strong sense of place with just a few carefully chosen details – the smell of old books, the ticking clock and the classical music playing softly in the background. That second teacup, still warm, is such a clever touch – it's like a little mystery in itself, leaving the reader wondering who was there and what their story might be. With just a few lines, Chloe’s entry has created such a strong mood, and the descriptions feel incredibly vivid and real. You really nailed Emma’s #WriteCBC task! Well done, Chloe – you get 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 – Phil Rhys Thomas @philrhysthomas.bsky.social and Esme Bonner @esmebonner.bsky.social. Congratulations, all!
To redeem your prizes, please email help@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk
Get your hands on a copy of This Immaculate Body.
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