Newsletter · Reader Engagement
Dying to Write
A corner of the newsletter archive set aside for readers who like to put pen to paper themselves — short writing competitions and prompts inspired by the world of psychological thrillers.
Past Challenges
The Perfect Postcard
Readers were invited to pen the perfect postcard and post it to Rachel Abbott — a compact challenge that asked entrants to say a great deal in very few words.
The Shopping List to Die For
An opening-line style challenge built around an everyday shopping list, turned unsettling in the hands of thriller-minded readers.
Entering the Fun
These competitions were run as part of the newsletter for subscribers who enjoy the creative side of storytelling as much as the finished novels. Entries were creative writing submissions inspired by each challenge's theme.
Results and highlights from these challenges appeared alongside other newsletter features, including book news and reading recommendations.
More From the Newsletter
Dying to Write sits within the wider Newsletter archive, alongside features, reading lists, and writing updates from Rachel Abbott.
Competitions for writers and readers offer a refreshing way to step away from passive reading and into the creative process themselves. A psychological thriller author running small writing prompts gives fans a reason to pick up a pen, sketch out an idea, or experiment with a voice they have not tried before. Even brief challenges can spark something unexpected, turning a quiet evening into an opportunity to write a few lines that surprise the writer who penned them.
Short writing competitions built around tight constraints tend to sharpen instinct. Asking entrants to craft a postcard, an opening line, or a single unsettling scene forces decisions about rhythm, implication, and what to leave unsaid. These are the same instincts that drive a thriller novelist, so the exercise becomes a small apprenticeship in atmosphere. Readers discover how difficult it is to compress a story into a handful of words and how satisfying it can feel when the mood lands.
A corner of a newsletter archive dedicated to reader challenges helps build a community rather than just a mailing list. When prompts are themed around psychological thrillers, contributors start sharing instincts about tension, motive, and the quiet wrongness that precedes a crime. Discussing submissions, favourite lines, and near misses becomes part of the reading habit. The archive turns into a quiet workshop, where readers return each month to test their own dark ideas.
Past challenges, such as postcards from an imagined holiday or shopping lists written by someone hiding something, demonstrate how ordinary objects can become sinister under the right handling. The exercise is less about polished prose and more about shifting perspective, noticing the detail that would unsettle a reader, and trusting implication over explanation. Participants often finish with a renewed appreciation for the craft behind the thrillers they love and a quiet curiosity about what they might attempt next.