A Contest Goblin's Advice for Doing Well in Writing Contests
As we get ready to launch our inaugural writing contest, I wanted to reflect a bit on what I think makes for successful contest stories. I’ve been a very active contest goblin for the last year, having participated in more than a hundred contests in that time (insane!). I’ve read lots of winning stories, I’ve beta read winning stories before the fact, and I’ve even had my share of successes, including wins and selling contest stories.
Top tips for writing contest success
If you’re entering a writing contest for the first time, you might be wondering how to increase your odds of doing well. In this post, I’ll lay out what I think makes a story the most likely to have success
1. Lean into the prompts
One of the most obvious ways for a story to fail is to not make effective use of the provided prompts. Some folks seem to think of prompt use as a box to check: “I need a fork? Great, I’ll open my story at the breakfast table.”
While this technically fits the brief and prevents you from getting disqualified, it’s unlikely to wow readers. Try to find ways to make the prompts integral to the story, so much so that the story would fall apart without them. Your prompts should be so tightly woven into the fabric of what’s happening that you can’t even see them—if they’re obviously stuck in somewhere just to pass the requirements, your story isn’t going to wow the judges.
2. Write what you want
This might feel like it goes against “lean into the prompts,” but I don’t think it does. You’re somewhat constrained by the prompts, but that doesn’t mean they should dictate the entire story. You need to find a way to take what you’re given and write something that’s truly you, rather than what you think will do well. Trying to write “the kind of story that wins a contest” is likely to create a story that’s fine, but doesn’t sing in the way it needs to to win.
Personally, I’d much rather see whatever creative take your brain comes up with, as wacky and wild as it may be, than what kind of story you think might win.
3. Beware of tropes
In the contest world, there are some well known tropes that come up so often in winning stories that they’ve becoming kind of a joke. Most of them revolve around grief: dead spouses and kids with cancer seem especially common.
Look, I’m not telling you that you can’t write about grief or loss—I’ve done it myself, and even had stories on those topics do well. But I do think that you need to make sure you aren’t doing it just to evoke an emotional reaction. Ironically, doing so seems to steal the oomph out of whatever impact you were hoping to have.
4. Write memorably
This is perhaps another way of saying “beware of tropes.” Every contest, publication, etc. gets a ton of well written stories—far more than they could ever do anything with. If you want to stand out, that means you can’t just write well, you must stand out from the crowd somehow—a unique POV or voice, an excellent hook, a twist (not a surprise ending)—something that will make your story memorable in a stack of hundreds of others.
Twist versus surprise — what’s the difference?
Twists can be very effective in writing contests, but surprise endings are less likely to get you points. So what’s the difference? A twist ending is an ending that makes the reader say, “Oh my god, I should have seen that coming!” and immediately jump back to the beginning of the story to read it again and look for clues—think The Sixth Sense.
A surprise ending is a non sequitur. “It was all a dream” is the classic example here. Instead of reframing everything that came before in the story, it sabotages it, removing whatever impact and growth happened to the character.
5. Break some rules
If you Google up writing rules, you’ll find all kinds of lists. Some contests have even used breaking writing rules as a prompt.
But if you go through your story trying to follow every rule, removing every adverb or errant “that,” you’re going to end up with a story that feels flat. Let your own voice creep by keeping some of the messiness in your writing.
Wrapping Up
I hope these tips have given you some ideas for how to approach short stories for writing contests. And if you want to put this advice to use right away, our first contest is launching on January 30—join us?