Tell it in 100 words

Novelist Jeffrey Archer, who has sold about 300 million books worldwide, has set a writing competition to encourage budding writers.

The winner will receive £250 in book tokens and the top ten best entries will be published in The Mail on Sunday.

Flash fiction writers, give it a go!

Make every one of your 100 words count.

100 words excluding title.

Send your entry to shortstory@mailonsunday.co.uk.

Deadline midnight 17 November.

Here’s Lord Archer’s 100-word short story:

‘Unique’

Paris, March 14^th, 1921. The collector relit his cigar, picked up the magnifying glass and studied the triangular 1874 Cape of Good Hope.

‘I did warn you there were two,’ said the dealer, ‘so yours is not unique.’

‘How much?’

‘The thousand francs.’

The collector wrote out a cheque, before taking a puff on his cigar, but it was no longer alight. He picked up a match, struck it, and set light to the stamp.

The dealer stared in disbelief as the stamp went up in smoke.

The collector smiled. ‘You were wrong, my friend,’ he said, ‘mine is unique.’

                                                               image - public domain

Good luck!