Who shot the strawberry picker?

To celebrate this year's Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, we have assembled a group of top short story writers to construct a spontaneous short story, like a game of consequences. Judges Melvyn Bragg (2012 judge) and Joanna Trollope (2012 judge), 2011 award shortlister Roshi Fernando (who recently released a collection Homesick), acclaimed author Louise Doughty (longlisted for Orange Prize for Fiction) and short story impressarios Jon McGregor (twice runner-up of BBC National Short Story Award, author of collection This Isn't The Sort of Thing to Happen to Someone Like You) and Stuart Evers (author of the collection Ten Stories About Smoking) all take part.

2012 is 'the year of the short story' and to celebrate the award and the sheer diversity of the UK's talents in the genre, we decided to set authors a creative challenge, to show that the short story is in healthy form.