Do you ever dream about being a best-selling novelist with the literary world at your feet? Well, calling all unpublished female writers: if you’re bursting with creative talent and have lots of good ideas, this is your opportunity! Grazia in conjunction with the Orange Prize for Fiction, are launching an amazing ‘first chapter’ competition to find budding new female writing talent.
Writers often say the opening paragraph is the hardest part of the novel process, so we’ve invited international best-selling author, Kate Mosse (Labyrinth, Sepulchre and The Winter Ghosts) to write the introduction for you (see below). What you need to do now is ‘finish off’ the first chapter in 1,000 words. It’s up to you where you take the story: what we’re looking for is brilliant, original and imaginative writing. The winner will be announced at the Orange Prize for Fiction award ceremony in June – where you will be in illustrious company with some of the world’s top literary editors, agents, publishers and of course novelists.
So, here goes…
Kate Mosse has started off the story – The Deadline – below. Can you finish this first chapter off in 1000 words?
The Deadline
She stood looking up at the house. At the blank grey walls, the shuttered windows with empty boxes on the concrete sills, the stern front door. The house said nothing about what it was or what took place inside, it was unassuming and nondescript and uninviting. She’d come here several times before, but never got the courage to go in. Now, there was no choice. The deadline was today, no last chance of a reprieve or change of heart. If she was going to do it, it had to be now. She shivered, chill from the sudden drop in temperature now the light was fading, or from excitement or from fear, she didn’t know. Also, the sense of possibility that, by pressing this suburban doorbell, her life could – would – alter for good. But still she lingered on the unwashed step, picking at a thread of wool come loose from her glove, caught between the girl she was and the woman she might be. A deadline she never thought she would face…
So, what happens next? Let us know in 1,000 words..
For more information on how to apply, go to THE GRACIA DAILY WEBSITE
OR CLICK HERE