On the spookiest day of the year, we want to know whether your story is a trick or a treat! Tell us your entire story in exactly 20 words, and you can win a marked-up critique of your synopsis and first thirty pages from the Cornerstones team. Vote for others’ by liking their comment and we’ll choose from the most-liked entries – and don’t forget to add your own! We’ll close the competition at midnight tonight, and will reach out to the person who has bewitched us via email…
Hi everyone, thank you so much for your comments and votes. We've chosen a winner and will be in touch with them shortly. We loved reading everyone's entries and will hopefully do this again soon!
Love the plot*..... in the sense I can relate, I have geo locators tracking me & my crew on duty, managed by an AI bot.... We often joke, i.e. what if (?) that app goes stealth & migrates over to your personal stuff, mobile phone, video doorbell link, computer, digital watch, + + including friends & family just to keep track of us..... (go4it) well done....
Thanks Kris :) It's not a big leap from fiction to reality with AI, and it's progressing so fast. I did a lot of research for the novel and found out some crazy stuff. This is the first novel in a series - that's how much material there is!
Its not a big leap-so true Anna-... moving fast it is.... if you ever need a few short paragraphs of some of the funnier stuff to work into your content i.e. that happened to us on the tracking, risk management, weather models, security face ID, AI drones, booboo's, burps, poopoo's, software crashes & + stuff... I'd be glad to share, dont say it came from me, the software gurus & the € budget Ppl will get irritated, I'd probably get called in HQ & disciplined again. I'm at the infraction limit for this year, but they say that every year... I'm sure you got the sinister side covered.... for sure let me know when its published* #Fan
Thanks - that's made my day! I'm just about to submit it to agents so fingers crossed :) I would be very interested to know your experiences if you want to share them, funny or otherwise. Not sure how we PM on here as I'm new to this platform.
1983: Landslide swallows Lynsey's brother, and best-friend. ‘Both dead’. ‘I never saw their bodies.’ 2023: she returns, upturning thirty-year-old secrets.
A young Bangladeshi woman, navigating love and cultural identity in New York, confronts unresolved desires, societal expectations, and complex friendships.
Hi everyone, thank you so much for your comments and votes. We've chosen a winner and will be in touch with them shortly. We loved reading everyone's entries and will hopefully do this again soon!
When Celeste's date jumps off her office building after uploading a sex tape, she becomes entangled with a sinister AI.
Love the plot*..... in the sense I can relate, I have geo locators tracking me & my crew on duty, managed by an AI bot.... We often joke, i.e. what if (?) that app goes stealth & migrates over to your personal stuff, mobile phone, video doorbell link, computer, digital watch, + + including friends & family just to keep track of us..... (go4it) well done....
Thanks Kris :) It's not a big leap from fiction to reality with AI, and it's progressing so fast. I did a lot of research for the novel and found out some crazy stuff. This is the first novel in a series - that's how much material there is!
Its not a big leap-so true Anna-... moving fast it is.... if you ever need a few short paragraphs of some of the funnier stuff to work into your content i.e. that happened to us on the tracking, risk management, weather models, security face ID, AI drones, booboo's, burps, poopoo's, software crashes & + stuff... I'd be glad to share, dont say it came from me, the software gurus & the € budget Ppl will get irritated, I'd probably get called in HQ & disciplined again. I'm at the infraction limit for this year, but they say that every year... I'm sure you got the sinister side covered.... for sure let me know when its published* #Fan
Thanks - that's made my day! I'm just about to submit it to agents so fingers crossed :) I would be very interested to know your experiences if you want to share them, funny or otherwise. Not sure how we PM on here as I'm new to this platform.
When Lily gets sent to Dreadmarsh - the school for magical misfits - will she finally be able to find her Hexcraft?
Too derivative of Harry Potter.
but the Potter idea was similar to The Worst Witch.
Mrs Mac and Joy are strangers who meet on the road, twenty minutes later they’ve killed a man. They run.
Ya, there ya go...... that's a story setting the pace right outta the gate (from the start)......
in my dialect = read-in, grab-on & go 4da ride! ... #vryCoolYvon'
Thanks 🙏
Man comes round from surgery finding he can talk with his pets. Transpires they’re smart enough to solve his problems.
A medieval minstrel who committed suicide gets another chance at life and pop stardom thanks to a time-travelling music mogul.
Love the idea, but not sure about the suicide angle.
On discovering that his beloved has been captured, a musically talented farmhand works with William Shakespeare to plot her rescue.
Sounds interesting. Are you missing a word? a musically (gifted?) farmhand.
Thanks for pointing that out, Diane. It should say ‘musically talented’! Thank you .
Love it that Shakespeare can plot rescues as well as plays.
Lost in Paris, Lucy's friendship with Alessandro deepens into obsession—can she untangle her feelings without losing herself?
A happy family of six. Seventy years later, two surviving sisters know they could kill the other with three words.
I'm really intrigued by this one!
Grieving her beloved mother, Isobel stumbles into another world, Isglair. Can she save Isglair and also the Earth?
I can write fluently, but my editing skills are so poor that I cannot capture anything in exactly twenty .....
Reg... Go 4-it.... fear is good... fear with a bunch of cool writers & on a editors blog is better.
Its here to help.... Throw the 20... even snap shot phrases..... we're all waiting with baited breath.....
Theres no vampires here..... (hmm)(?)....... anyway.... its safe here....
Very funny. I like it!
While in coma, Pippa meets dead boy who returns back to earth to clear his fathers name of his murder
They got lost in the thick, grey fog. The werewolf said he knew the way out. Should they trust him?
Ya... I would trust him.... sometimes... rarely... they're not so bad, for a little while....
(but the smell... you can follow that in the fog #4sure)
Capecoast Castle, had long been deserted and forgotten, but this weary traveller cares not, ghosts are better company then humans at times
Trapped with the president, his haughty daughter, an unhelpful ghost and ‘Hypnotism for Beginners’, a nerdy boy outwits their kidnappers.
Man flees his repetitive existence . Faced with saving a woman's life there's only one problem - it's something he's done before.
This is a dilemma faced by the hero of my novel The Man Who Would Do Nothing Twice. Thanks for liking.
Speed dating is real hell. Then Karen meets Luke. However, there’s more to this handsome devil than meets the eye…
I like the sound of this!
At the knife edge of night and nightmare, I wait, my fish-eyes bulging with decay, my lips black with rot.
In Dubai, a wrong word or liaison lead to jail, and lawyer Zoe has been treading carefully – or has she?
A story about the fragility of friendship, the murky world of teenage sex, and the shame and secrecy that follows.
1983: Landslide swallows Lynsey's brother, and best-friend. ‘Both dead’. ‘I never saw their bodies.’ 2023: she returns, upturning thirty-year-old secrets.
Boy discovers digital clues suggesting missing dad isn’t dead, eventually leading him to save virtual civilisation from very real villain.
Two sisters arrive in a mysterious world where they must battle a monster who feeds on anxiety, doubt and guilt.
Espionage meets “the Furies”: Jessie must trust a ragtag team of ex-spies when searching for her half-sister uncovers a conspiracy.
A detective, after being possessed by his personified PTSD, must solve a murder to rule himself out as the killer.
Gethyn wakes with a new identity and helps Kat save the lives of an old friend and a multi-dimensional entity.
The Headless Horseman was speechless as the ghoulish nymphomaniac slowly removed the white sheet she had worn for Halloween.
Love this one!
Sounds hilarious, but we might need to a bit more of the plot.
A young Bangladeshi woman, navigating love and cultural identity in New York, confronts unresolved desires, societal expectations, and complex friendships.
Young couple rescues a runaway genetically engineered military prototype - and must protect him and everyone they love from his creators.
Amelia Tremayne returns to the crumbling, clifftop house where her father was killed - with one last chilling mystery to solve.
An Irish castle is crumbling. Its inhabitants with it. Eviction is looming and as more uninvited guests arrive chaos ensues.
Dickensian London. Can Rosa save the zoo's bears from the bear-baiting ring, and rescue her bearkeeper father from debtors' prison?
In saving the local ecosystem, average boy discovers what makes him extraordinary
Broken-hearted woman escapes to Spain in a campervan and meets a man who challenges her to overcome her traumatic past
Thats a rescue story* I'm all in with that*
Thanks Kris 😊
A suffocated teenager goes against the grain of her perfect family and joins a seductive world of wicked witches.
Bea’s marriage is haunted by Lily, Paddy’s beloved sister – missing, presumed dead. Then Paddy is murdered. Could Lily be guilty?
Alex and Lucy fall in love. Lucy makes a mistake. Alex tries loving someone else. They get back together, forever?
What I like about this is that it's the synopsis in 20 words, and not just an idea or scene.
The Rootless Tree, an alien city faces extinction. Only Hineni, smuggled to Earth as a child can save it.
Amy refuses to let the small matter of her boyfriend's death get in the way of her relationship with him.
Wow i had to go back and read that a second time. Nice
A magic stone, a missing Princess and someone who doesn’t want either to be found. Tammy has to find both.
Robyn wants a good life. She can see her future. So she gets to choose what to keep or change.
Domestic disturbance emergency. Wife dead, husband in ambulance, paramedic triggered. Needle, syringe: justice. Just like she’d done to her abuser.
King Arthur awakes from his earthbound slumber, embarking on a quest inextricably tied to the carving of a totem pole.
Love the idea of King Arthur being resurrected.
Trapped in a Dome after the apocalypse, a thief, an illegal and a psychic untangle the lies and seek freedom.
A tap on my shoulder.
I spin round.
A disembodied hand hangs in mid-air, beckoning me into darkness.
I run.
‘Doing the right thing’ wrecks Jen’s love-life, but her guilty pleasure, K-Drama, shows her how to love and be loved.
16 year old runs away to join the army- his nemesis also joins - promising torment in and beyond the trenches
When successful author Emma struggles to complete her next book, Her Dissociative Identity Disorder -triggered -Introducing Helen -Who will survive?
Her twin’s shadow continually threatens her existence. Leaving her family and striking out could be her solution. Or her downfall.
He remembered his father in the asylum, but when he read the letters he realized he did actually love her.