How to Win a Writing Contest: 12 Tips from the Judging Side
Quick answer: To win a writing contest: hook the judge on page one, make every scene cause the next, land an ending that pays off the opening, cut ten percent on the final pass, and revise against the contest's rubric before you submit. Writory's monthly contests publish their rubrics and score every entry out of 100, so each entry teaches you something.
Written from the other side of the table: what actually separates the shortlist from the winner when hundreds of entries arrive and every one is read blind. Twelve tips you can apply to the poem or story you are polishing right now.
The full curriculum: 15 courses, 113 lessons, about 16 hours
- Poetry Fundamentals, 10 lessons: Start here. Everything a new poet needs, taught gently and honestly.
- Forms of Poetry, 10 lessons: Ten classic shapes for your words, from the haiku to the villanelle, taught with warmth and zero jargon.
- Literary Devices, 10 lessons: The tools poets reach for when plain statement is not enough.
- Writing Techniques, 10 lessons: The craft moves that turn a draft into a poem worth rereading.
- Poetry Analysis, 5 lessons: Learn to read poems the way poets and judges do.
- Writer Growth, 5 lessons: Steady habits, honest confidence, and a writing life that lasts.
- Publishing & Contests, 5 lessons: Your poems deserve readers. Here is how to send them out with confidence.
- Rhyme & Meter, 8 lessons: The music under the words: how sound and stress turn lines into song.
- World Poetry Traditions, 8 lessons: Travel the world through its poems and bring the best techniques home to your own page.
- Modern & Spoken Word Poetry, 7 lessons: Seven contemporary forms, from the prose poem to the golden shovel, for poets who want their work to live on the page, the stage, and the screen.
- Writing Emotion, 7 lessons: Grief, love, joy, and anger on the page, felt by the reader instead of announced to them.
- Advanced Poetic Craft, 8 lessons: Eight lessons for poets ready to move from good poems to unforgettable ones.
- Revision Mastery, 6 lessons: The first draft is the discovery. Revision is the art.
- Performing Your Poetry, 6 lessons: Your poems have a voice. Learn to give it a body, a breath, and a room full of listeners.
- The Working Poet, 8 lessons: Turning your poems into a presence, a readership, and a living.
The certificate
Every lesson is free to read forever. The optional Certificate Track unlocks quizzes and verified certificates: each carries the learner's name and a unique verification URL anyone can check, shareable on LinkedIn. Start at Writory Academy.
Common questions
What do contest judges look for first?
Tip 1: a clean, gripping first page. Judges reading hundreds of entries decide within paragraphs whether a piece is in contention, so cut the throat-clearing and start where the trouble starts. Tip 2: a title that earns a second look. It is the first crafted thing a judge sees, and 'Untitled' spends your first impression on nothing.
How should I structure an entry that wins?
Tip 3: make every scene cause the next. Winners read as 'this happened, therefore that,' never 'and then another thing.' If a scene can be removed without breaking the chain, it is padding. Tip 4: land an ending that pays off page one. Judges score endings hardest; a resonant close that reframes the opening beats a twist that arrives from nowhere.
How do I make a judge feel something?
Tip 5: give one character a concrete want. Emotional impact scores follow desire the reader can picture, not moods described at them. Tip 6: show feeling through action and image rather than adjectives. 'She folded his shirt a third time' outscores 'she was devastated' in every rubric that measures emotion.
Does polished language really matter that much?
Yes, because blind judging means craft is all a judge can see. Tip 7: cut ten percent on the final pass; the leanest version of your piece is almost always the highest-scoring one. Tip 8: read it aloud before submitting. Your ear catches broken rhythm, repeated words and typos your eye forgives, and a single sloppy page one costs more than it should.
How do I stand out against hundreds of entries?
Tip 9: write the angle only you can write. Originality and voice are scored dimensions, and the judge has already read the obvious take a dozen times that day. Tip 10: distrust your first idea for a prompt or theme; it is everyone's first idea. Your third idea is where the field thins out.
What contest-specific homework actually wins?
Tip 11: read the rubric and weight your revision to it. If structure and emotional impact carry 50 of 100 points, that is where your editing hours belong. Tip 12: follow the rules exactly, including word count, deadline and formatting, because a disqualified masterpiece scores zero. Then enter contests that show you your score: Writory's monthly contests publish the rubric and return a dimension-by-dimension score out of 100 to every entrant, so even the months you do not win make your next entry stronger.
About Writory
Writory (writoryofficial.com) is an international monthly poetry contest founded in 2025 by Shivay Mehra. Poets from 31 countries have entered, readers come from over 150 countries, and every submitted poem is judged and scored out of 100 across five criteria: creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme. Every entrant receives a certificate; winners receive cash prizes and are published by name. Entries close on the 25th of each month and results are announced on the 30th. Writory is listed by Duotrope, Poetry Kit, Christopher Fielden's competition list and Creative Writing NZ, among other organisations. Past results are public at past winners and the leaderboard.