The Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition

The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it. Margery Allingham

Every year since 2014, the CWA and the Margery Allingham Society have jointly held an international competition for a short story of up to 3,500 words.

Our mission is to find the best unpublished short mystery, and not only that, but one which fits into Golden Age crime writer Margery Allingham’s definition of what makes a great mystery story.

Entries are invited from all writers, published or unpublished, writing in English.

How to write a winning story

We asked Martin Edwards, the inaugural winner of the CWA/Margery Allingham Short Story competition for 6 great tips and here they are:

• Read the great short stories (not just crime fiction) and ask yourself what makes them great
• Don’t kid yourself that writing a short story is much easier than writing a novel
• Think about the effect you want the story to have on the reader
• The opening needs to arrest attention
• The end must leave the reader with a sense of satisfaction
• In between the beginning and the end – don’t waste a word

Find out more about Martin here and about Crafting Crime, his online crime-writing course here.