A Humor Writing Contest Where the Joke Has to Be a Story
Quick answer: Writory's humor writing contest accepts original comic short stories of 100 to 3,000 words, judged blind against a published five-part rubric that reads a funny story as a story first: structure, character and timing score, not the count of jokes. Entry is $8, the deadline is 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST, and every entrant receives a certificate and a score out of 100.
Comic fiction of 100 to 3,000 words enters Writory's short story contest for $8, with a deadline of 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST, and every entrant receives a certificate and a five-part score out of 100.
How the rubric reads a comic story
Comedy is the genre judges are most nervous about, because taste in jokes varies and a panel knows it. Writory's rubric sidesteps the problem by scoring the story the jokes are attached to. Storytelling & Structure (25) asks whether the situation escalates and the ending pays off the setup, which is also the definition of a comic plot. Character & Emotional Impact (25) asks whether we want something for the person the indignities happen to. A funny story that fails both is a list of gags, and is marked as one.
Language & Craft (20) is where comedy either lives or dies, since timing on the page is sentence rhythm: the funny word goes last, the setup sentence is long and the payoff short. Originality & Voice (20) is the mark comic writers should chase hardest, because a comic voice is the rarest thing in the round. Impact & Resonance (10) rewards the story that is still funny the next day, which usually means it was also about something.
Escalation, specificity, and the straight face
Saki's "The Open Window" is under 1,300 words, has one liar and one victim, and ends on a line that is both the punchline and the whole story. "Tobermory" gives a cat the power of speech and follows it, without flinching, to a country-house dinner. James Thurber's "The Night the Bed Fell" is a family in the dark and nothing more. Mark Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is a man who cannot stop talking. None of them explains the joke.
The engine in each is the same: a premise taken more seriously than it deserves, a narrator who does not smile, and an escalation that stops one beat before the reader expects. P. G. Wodehouse built a career on that last rule. O. Henry's "The Ransom of Red Chief" reverses a kidnapping. Nikolai Gogol's "The Nose" loses a man's nose and files a police report about it. Specific detail is funnier than general absurdity, every time.
Craft notes for entering comic fiction
Give your character a real want and a plausible plan, then let the plan meet reality; the comedy is in the gap. Keep the narrator deadpan and let the reader do the laughing. Cut every sentence that signals a joke is coming, and every one that lingers after it lands. Escalate in threes at most; the fourth attempt is where a story starts to feel like a sketch. End as a story, with the character changed or exposed, not as a sketch, on the biggest laugh.
Humor travels badly between languages, which is why this contest reads every story in its own language. A comic story in Hindi, Tagalog or Spanish is read by someone who hears the idiom, so the wordplay you would lose in translation is scored as written. Dorothy Parker's "The Waltz" and Stephen Leacock's "My Financial Career" are worth an evening for pace. The free Story Craft course at /academy/story-craft covers voice and endings, both of which comedy depends on.
Fee, deadline and what every entrant receives
The first contest runs from 1 September to 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST, with results and certificates on 30 November 2026. From December the contest is monthly: entries close on the 25th, results on the 30th, and the next round opens the moment they land. Entry is $8 for one story, $14 for two, $25 for five, each judged and scored on its own. The top story of the round takes $100 and free entry to the next round. Every entrant receives a certificate and all five marks out of 100, and writers keep all rights, so a comic story scored here can be performed, published or podcast afterwards.
The published rubric, 100 points
- Storytelling & Structure (25 points): Does every scene cause the next, and does the ending pay off the opening?
- Character & Emotional Impact (25 points): Do we want something with your character, and does the story make us feel it?
- Language & Craft (20 points): Clean, deliberate prose: rhythm, precision, and nothing wasted.
- Originality & Voice (20 points): The angle only you could write, told in a voice that sounds like nobody else.
- Impact & Resonance (10 points): What the story leaves behind after the last line.
How it works
Submit an original story of 100 to 3,000 words by 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST. Every story is judged blind against the rubric above, and results arrive on 30 November 2026: every entrant receives a certificate with their name and a score out of 100. Writers keep all rights. Monthly winners earn free entry to the next round. Enter at https://writoryofficial.com/submit-story.
Common questions
Is comic fiction eligible, or does the contest favour serious work?
Comic fiction is eligible on identical terms, and the rubric has no clause that rewards seriousness. Structure, character, craft, voice and resonance are scored the same way whether the story is a tragedy or a farce. Saki and Thurber would have been marked on the same five dimensions as Chekhov. The rules are 100 to 3,000 words, original work, age 13 and over.
How much does it cost to enter a humor piece?
$8 for one story, $14 for two, $25 for five, paid online at /submit-story before 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST. Each story receives its own scorecard, so a deadpan piece entered beside a broad one tells you which register your comic voice actually has.
What does the certificate and score record for a comic writer?
Every entrant receives a certificate and a score out of 100 on 30 November 2026, split into the five published marks. For comedy the useful pair is Originality & Voice against Storytelling & Structure: a high first and low second means the voice is funny and the story under it has not yet been built.
Is there a word limit, and how long should a comic story be?
Stories run from 100 to 3,000 words. Comedy tends to run short: "The Open Window" is under 1,300 words and most of Saki is shorter than 2,500. A comic premise has a natural length, and the entrants who stretch one past it lose Language & Craft marks to repetition. Stop one beat early.
Is satire or dark comedy allowed?
Yes. Satire, black comedy and absurdism are all comic fiction and are read as such. The rubric scores whether the story works, not whether the subject is comfortable. Write for a readership aged 13 and over, keep the target of the satire clear, and let the story carry the argument rather than the narrator.
Will a judge who does not share my sense of humour mark me down?
Judging is blind and against the published rubric, which scores the story rather than the laugh. A comic story with a real want, a real escalation and an earned ending collects structure and character marks even from a reader who did not laugh out loud. A string of gags with no story underneath loses them from everyone.
More story contest pages
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 impact and resonance. 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.