Here are some great reasons to start entering your writing into contests:

1. The prize. Most contests have a pretty good cash prize on offer. Since a lot of organisations will publish the winning entry, it’s important to choose a writing contest with a prize worthy of handing over publishing rights to your story. Some contests will also offer other great prizes like mentoring sessions or introductions to agents.

2. The prestige and status of winning. This isn’t just for bragging rights, winning writing competitions can look really good when you come to query editors, agents, or publishers.

3. The exposure. It’s important to get your name out there. A competition win will help spread the word about a new name in the industry.

4. The opportunity to challenge yourself to write in new styles and genres, or to explore themes and topics you wouldn’t otherwise write about. Many writing competitions have interesting themes or prompts., this can push your writing in new and exciting directions.

5. Motivation to write. The thrill and excitement of a writing contest can sometimes spur you on with your writing. Submitting your new story for a contest can really help keep you going when otherwise you might start to flag. And the looming deadline can also be a great motivator!

6. They’re a great way to get unblocked. Writing competitions with prompts can be really effective at getting rid of writers’ block.

7. A chance to get feedback on your writing. Some competitions offer judges’ critique or the opportunity to get feedback from your peers. This can be invaluable because getting feedback on your writing is one of the surest ways to see your work improve.

Here are some factors to consider when deciding which contest to enter:

1. Is there an entry fee? There’s nothing wrong with companies charging entry fees. These are not lotteries where the winning entry is pulled out of a hat! Putting on writing contests takes an awful lot of work and we should know! Money from entry fees will go towards the administrative costs of running the contest, compensating the judges for their time and, of course, to fund the prize. That being said, you should still factor in the entry fee when making your decision. Is it a fair amount? Is it something you can afford to lose? Is the prize worth the fee?

2. The prize. Is the prize worthy of your time, effort, or money spent on fees? For example, if a contest is only offering publication as a prize and they expect you to pay to enter, you’re being taken for a ride. You’re essentially giving them money to take your story from you.

3. Are they offering a way to get feedback on your story? Let’s face it, there are going to be a lot more losers than winners at the end of a contest. What are you getting out of it, besides the chance of winning? Some contests will provide judges’ feedback for an additional fee. Again, there’s nothing wrong with this, the judges should be compensated for their time. However, judges’ feedback can be pretty expensive and the value of that feedback can vary dramatically from judge to judge, contest to contest. You’ll usually end up paying quite a lot of money for one judge’s opinion on your story. We believe that peer feedback can be much more valuable. All our contests offer the chance to get free feedback from as many other participants in the contest as you want. Very often some of the other participants taking part in writing contests are just as qualified to give feedback as any judge.

4. How prestigious is the contest? This will determine how valuable winning the contest will be for furthering your writing career. However, very prestigious writing competitions will often have more participants and a much higher standard of entry. This makes these competitions the hardest ones to win.

5. Can you submit an existing story or will you have to write something new? In our opinion, the best contests to enter are the ones you’ll have to write a new story for. It can be tempting to take one story and enter it in as many contests as you can, but we think you should only do this if you’re really busy with other writing projects and you’re being as prolific a writer as you could wish to be. If this isn’t the case and you know you should (and want to be) writing more often, try to only enter contests that will see you write something new each time. The more you write, the better you become. Don’t miss out on any opportunities to write more and add to your canon of work!

Here are our top tips for winning a writing competition:

1. Choose the right contest. If winning is your goal, choose a contest you think suits your strengths. If pushing yourself as a writer is more important, choose the contest you think will challenge you the most. If you’re a new writer, choose a less well-known contest, but make sure they’re still offering a good competition! Don’t underestimate yourself and start entering any contest that will take your money!

2. Read the rules! All reputable contest will have official rules. Read them carefully! If you don’t follow the rules, you’re likely to be disqualified. Most organisations won’t inform participants if this happens. The worst outcome would be that you pay an entry fee, get disqualified without your knowledge and instead just assume you didn’t win because your story wasn’t good enough.

3. Read the submission instructions very carefully before you choose to take part and then make sure you read them again very carefully when you’re ready to submit. Don’t think you’ll just remember them from reading them once. Also, don’t think of the instructions as ‘suggestions’ on how to submit. They are instructions! Follow them to the letter or risk getting kicked out of the contest and not even knowing that your entry wasn’t considered.

4. Follow the theme. If the contest has a particular prompt, theme, or calls for a specific style of writing or genre, make sure your entry meets the requirements. Don’t assume the judges will love your story so much it won’t matter that it doesn’t fit within the parameters of the competition. Don’t forget, they’ll probably be publishing the winning entry alongside details of the theme or prompt. They won’t risk their credibility by choosing an entry that doesn’t fit. So don’t waste your time and money by submitting an old and unsuitable story, instead take this as an opportunity to write something new!

5. Don’t be afraid to interpret the theme or prompt in your own way. Although judges will probably disregard any entry that clearly doesn’t fit the theme, they will be on the lookout for a unique take.

6. Make sure your story is as good as it can be. This means that it has been properly edited. You don’t need to hire a professional editor or proof-reader, but you should edit it yourself many, many times over. You should also try uploading your entry to different devices because new formats can help you spot errors you would otherwise miss. You should also put your writing through editing software and ask friends or family to read it for errors. Most competitions will only permit you to enter your story once and won’t allow you to resubmit if you spot errors later. Make sure you only submit when it’s completely ready and check and double check you submit the correct file!

7. Check out the previous winners. This may sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how few participants actually do this! We know this because we know how many people enter our contests and we can see how many people visit our winners’ page! Read the winning entries and look out for commonalities between the way they are written. This is not to say that you should copy the style, but instead figure out what these writers are doing that is impressive and make sure you’re doing the same sort of thing, but in your own way.

8. Make sure you really understand whichever style of writing you are hoping to submit. If you’re entering a short story competition, make sure you know the fundamentals of short story writing. There are plenty of resources online with tips for writing great short stories. In any contest you’ll be up against a certain amount of seasoned writers, writers who have studied creative writing, or even people who write as their profession. However, the majority of participants will be beginner writers who haven’t studied how to write short stories and some who may have actually never written a short story before. If you’re a beginner too, give yourself an advantage over these other new writers by teaching yourself the basics of short story writing before you begin. Of course, with writing, there are no hard and fast rules, but there are writing conventions and it can be a really good idea to brush up on them. There’s also a lot of resources online about what typically constitutes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ writing and the kinds of things judges and editors love to see (as well as plenty of things that can turn them off a story). For example, did you know that most writing competition judges will be put off by stories that begin with descriptions of weather? And yet, about 80% of stories submitted will begin in this way. These are the kinds of things it’s invaluable to know before you begin writing for contests. We even wrote a whole blog post called ‘Common Writing Mistakes in Entries to Our 7 Day Story Writing Challenges’ that addresses those common ‘errors’ new writers often make. Feel free to check it out, there’s plenty in there that will be applicable to any fiction contest.