Esther Chilton
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Dazzling Dialogue If you’re working on a short story this weekend and can’t find that compelling opening, why not begin your story with a passage of dialogue? It instantly involves the reader and draws him into the story e.g.: “I hate you. I hope you die!” Stacey pushed David away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…
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During the last school holidays, my daughter came up with a fun challenge for you – five words to fit into a ten-word story. Well, she clearly doesn’t have enough homework this half-term as she’s come up with some more words for my latest challenge. These words are: Fedora Patagonia Pink Melancholy pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (apparently the…
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My market for you this week offers top prize money of £10,000 to both winners of its short story and poetry competitions. So the competitions are certainly worth entering! The Manchester Writing Competition is inviting entries for the best portfolio of between three to five poems (maximum combined length of 120 lines) and the best…
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This is a series I’ve run before, but I’ve come across some hilarious new signs. I hope you enjoy them. Here’s the first. I’d love to know how this works:
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This week’s stimulus to set you off on the writing trail is a visual one. I hope this eerie scene, with the strange-looking shadow in the distance, sets you thinking…
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Fiction in a flash My top tip of the week is a cheeky one – if you have any time over the long bank holiday weekend write a flash fiction story for my competition! There’s still plenty of time to enter, but why not have a go now? Here’s a reminder of the details: Flash…
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Last week, I gave you the opening to your story, so this week, for my challenge, I’m going to give you the ending: She shook her head and smiled. The day hadn’t started well, but it had certainly ended with a bang. There are no word limits or themes. Why your character shook her head…
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My market for you this week is called ‘The Letters Page‘. It’s a correspondence-themed literary journal, which publishes hand-written letters. The journal is published three times a year. Each copy is free and downloadable as a PDF file. They’re looking for ‘stories, essays, poems, memoir, travelogue, reportage, conversation, criticism, speculation, illustration, deviation, and more. If…
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We moan that today’s children don’t read and then we moan when they clearly do…
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My motivation for you this Monday comes in the form of an image of an underwater world. Let your imagination carry you away…
Esther Chilton 