A Story on a Mysterious Letter: Model Answer That Solves Itself in 180 Words
Quick answer: An original 180-word exam story about a mysterious letter with no stamp, set in a Scottish town, with notes on how a short mystery earns marks and three other ways to take it.
A mysterious letter story earns marks when the mystery is small enough to solve in the word limit and the solution is set up by clues the reader could have noticed. Decide who sent the letter and why before you write the first line, then give one clue per paragraph. The answer should change something for the character; a letter that turns out to be a prank changes nothing. The model below is about 180 words and set in a small town on the east coast of Scotland.
Students who start with the letter and invent the sender as they go always run out of words. The sender is the plot. Know them first.
The task
Typical wording: 'Write a story in 150 to 200 words with the title The Mysterious Letter.' Or an opening line: 'The envelope had no stamp and no name, only the words For the girl who feeds the crows.' Plan the sender, the reason and the ending before the second sentence.
Model answer
For the Girl Who Feeds the Crows. The envelope was on the doorstep when Isla came home from school, held down by a stone. It had no stamp and no address, only six words in shaky capitals: FOR THE GIRL WHO FEEDS THE CROWS. Inside was a single sheet. 'They like the crusts best. Do not give them the raisins.'
Isla did feed the crows, every morning on the wall behind the house in Anstruther, but she had never told anyone. She looked up and down the street. The only movement was the curtain in Mr Baird's window, which fell back into place as she watched.
Mr Baird was eighty and had not spoken to her in the five years they had lived next door. The next morning, when she put out the crusts, she left the raisins in the packet and looked up. The curtain moved again.
A second letter came a week later. 'I am going to my daughter's in Dundee. Somebody has to do the crows.' Under it, in the same shaky capitals, was a list of their names. Isla still uses them.
Why it earns marks
Against the three heads:
- Content: a small mystery (who knows about the crows) with a clue in each paragraph (the curtain, the silence, the second letter), solved plausibly and with a consequence: Isla inherits the crows and their names.
- Content: the sender's reason is human and quiet, which fits every school board and reads as more original than a treasure map.
- Organisation: title, four paragraphs, a week compressed into two letters and two mornings.
- Expression: simple past held; written speech punctuated; the raisins and the curtain do the work of description; the last sentence lands the change in four words.
Three other ways to take the same topic
Each knows its sender before the first line.
- A boy in Kochi finds a letter inside a library book addressed to whoever borrows it next, written by a girl who read it twenty years ago and wants to know if the ending still makes people cry.
- A girl in Toronto receives a letter in her own handwriting that she does not remember writing, and works out that her Class 5 teacher kept the letters to the future the class wrote and has posted them on schedule.
- Twins in Nagpur receive one letter between them with a train ticket and the words 'Come on Sunday', and spend the story deciding whether to trust an aunt they have never met.
What writers can take from this
- Know the sender before you write the envelope.
- One clue per paragraph, each one visible to the reader.
- Make the solution change something for the character.
- Keep the mystery small: a note, not a treasure.
- Two letters can carry a whole story; the second answers the first.
- End on the thing the character does with what they learnt.
Try it yourself
Write a 180-word story in which the mysterious letter turns out to have been written by the person who receives it, years earlier, and the story is about whether they still agree with what it says.
Questions
How long should a mysterious letter story be?
As stated on the paper: 100 to 120 words in CBSE Class 9, 150 to 200 in most school exams, 300 to 350 in ICSE. Merge the second and third paragraphs of the model to reach 120.
Can the mystery stay unsolved at the end?
In a school exam, no; an unsolved mystery reads as an unfinished story and loses content marks. You may leave one small detail open, but the main question the letter raised must be answered.
Does a mystery story need a moral?
Rarely, and only if the question asks. The model above could carry 'Quiet neighbours have their own ways of speaking', but it is better without.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
Enter a Writory story contest
Enter the Writory Short Story Contest and have your own story read and scored out of 100. Entries close 30 November. That first entry makes you a Writorian.