An Online Story Writing Competition You Can Enter Tonight
Quick answer: An online story writing competition should take minutes to enter and return more than a receipt. Writory's is entered at /submit-story: paste or upload a story of 100 to 3,000 words and pay $8. Deadline 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST, judging is blind, and every entrant receives a certificate and a score out of 100.
Paste one story of 100 to 3,000 words at /submit-story for $8 before 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST; every entrant receives a certificate and a score out of 100 by email.
Entering takes about five minutes
The whole entry happens at /submit-story. Sign in, paste or type your story into the box (a file upload sits beside it as a side door), give it a title, and pay $8 for one story, $14 for two or $25 for five. A live counter shows the word count as you paste, and the form will not go forward with anything under 100 or over 3,000 words, so a length mistake is caught before it costs anything. Once payment clears the entry is recorded against your account.
Format does not matter and is not scored. Paste plain text; the judges read words, not fonts or margins, and a story typed on a phone in a chat app is judged identically to one exported from a desktop word processor. Any genre qualifies, from literary realism to horror, and there is no theme to write toward unless a round announces one. The story must be your own original work; it need not be unpublished.
Any country, any language, one pool
Online means the field is the world. There is no residency rule and no excluded country; anyone aged 13 or over can enter from wherever they have a connection. Stories may be written in any language, and each is read in its own language rather than through a translation, then judged alongside every other entry in a single pool. Names come off before reading, so a judge sees prose, not a passport or a postcode.
The sister poetry contest has run the same way monthly for over a year, and its winners have come from India, the United States, Ireland, Kenya and Slovenia, all named on dated pages at /past-winners. The story contest opened on 1 September 2026 and inherits that practice: the same blind reading, the same certificate and score for every entrant, the same dated results pages, starting with the first round's winners on 30 November 2026.
The clock is Indian Standard Time
Entries close on 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST. Writory is run from India, so every deadline is anchored to IST, which is UTC plus five and a half hours and does not shift for daylight saving. At 11:59 PM in India it is early evening in London and Lagos, early afternoon in New York and Toronto, mid-morning in Los Angeles, and the early hours of the next day in Manila and Sydney. Convert once for your own city and write the local time on the deadline, not the Indian one.
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. Results and certificates go out on 30 November 2026 to every entrant at the same moment, wherever they wrote from. A story that arrives at 12:01 AM IST has missed the round and rolls into the next one, so a writer working late in the Americas has the whole afternoon of deadline day, not the whole night.
What entering online does not change
The reading is the same as it would be on paper. Every story is scored blind against the published rubric: Storytelling & Structure 25, Character & Emotional Impact 25, Language & Craft 20, Originality & Voice 20, Impact & Resonance 10. Every entrant receives a certificate and all five marks on results day; the winner takes $100 and free entry to the next round. You keep all rights to the story and may send it anywhere else at the same time.
This is not a free contest, and it is not a publication venue in the magazine sense; a winning story appears on /winning-stories with the writer's consent, and nothing else is printed. It is not for novellas or serialised fiction. It is for a writer who wants a fixed monthly deadline, a fair reading from anywhere on earth, and a number that says where the story stood.
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
Do I need to be in a particular country to enter?
No. The competition is open to anyone aged 13 or over in any country, and there is no residency or citizenship rule. Entry, judging, results and the certificate all happen online, and the prize is paid to winners wherever they live; no country is excluded from entering or from payment.
How much does it cost to enter online?
$8 for one story, $14 for two, $25 for five. There is no open free entry; free entry is earned by winning a round, which makes the next entry free, or by entering three rounds running, which earns the Seasoned Quill badge and a free entry with it.
What does the certificate say, and where does the score appear?
The certificate carries your name and the contest round and records a blind-judged, scored result. The score arrives with it on 30 November 2026, as five marks out of 100 matching the five rubric lines, so you can see exactly where the story gained and lost points. Scores are private to the writer.
Can I upload a file instead of pasting?
Yes. The form leads with a paste box because most stories already live in a notes app or a document and pasting is the fastest road, but a file upload sits beside it for writers who prefer one. Either way the judges receive plain text, and formatting is never scored.
Who owns my story once I have uploaded it?
You do, entirely and permanently. Entering grants Writory permission to judge the story and nothing more. A winning story is published on /winning-stories only with your consent and credit, and you remain free to publish, sell or adapt the story anywhere, before or after results.
Which languages can I write in?
Any. A story is read in the language it was written in, not through a translation, and it is judged in the same pool as every other entry against the same published rubric. Blind judging means a writer working in a second language is measured on exactly what everyone is: the prose on the page.
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.