Hello Detectives! You’ve been very patient as you’ve waited for a new writing prompt this year – thank you for all of your great stories for last month’s Share-a-Story writing prompt!

At the moment I’m not able to give feedback on your work – I only have a few weeks left before I head off on maternity leave, and I need to focus on the second draft of The Ministry of Unladylike Activity! My editor has just given me my notes, and I can already see how much better it’ll be once I’ve made all the changes I need to – but making those changes will take a lot of effort and time.

But while I write, I’m leaving you with a prompt of your own. This will run until the beginning of August, when I’ll give you one last prompt to tide you over for the rest of the year!

The theme this time around is change. All of our lives have changed over the past year and a half, and are still changing, and I’m very interested in what changes will stick, and what changes will be reversed. Of course, as always, you can write about yourselves or characters like yourselves, or you can write about someone completely different. Your change can be magical, scientific, domestic or deadly (a murder is a change, after all …), it can take place in the past, the future, right now or an entirely different world. Whatever you like!

By the way, if you haven’t yet, please do sign up to my newsletter. The theme this month is writing, and I give some (hopefully) useful writing advice to my readers. Even while I’m away, it’ll be kept up to date by members of my team, so if you want to catch up on book news, it’s the best place to do it!

The rules:

1. It can be as long or as short as you like, and take you as much or as little time as you want.
2. It can be any genre (type) of story you want. If you have an idea for something that I haven’t mentioned, don’t wait for my permission – just go for it! This is your creativity working!
3. You are not allowed to worry about grammar or spelling.
4. You are not allowed to worry if it isn’t perfect, or criticise yourself as you’re writing.
5. You are encouraged to make a plan before you begin, to make it easier for you to get to the end of the story. This can be two words or a whole page! But if you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to.
6. Get to the end of the story without stopping to go back and fix bits you don’t like. Once you’ve finished, read it through again. If you still don’t like those bits, you can edit them now!
7. If you want (and only if you want!) you’re allowed to post the first 500 words of your story in the comments below. I have to moderate the comments so it may take a while for them to show up – please be patient. I don’t want to see you apologising for your story or minimising what you’ve done when you post – writing a story is a triumph and you should be proud!
8. Please do not use your full name when you comment – first names are fine, or you can make up a username that you like! Also remember to stay safe online and not get into private discussions with anyone you don’t know in real life without telling an adult first.
9. If you like someone else’s story, you are allowed to comment to say so! If you’d like to give them ideas that might make their story even stronger, that’s OK, but please be kind and remember how deeply we all care about our writing. A good format for feedback might be something like: ‘I loved ****! Have you thought of ****? I think it might make your story even better!’ I will delete any comment if I feel it’s critical without being constructive.
10. I can’t give feedback on any individual stories – I’m not marking them!
11. This isn’t a competition, and there will be no winners and no prizes.

Update: an account was spamming this post, so I’m locking comments for the moment.