A Sci-Fi Short Story Contest That Scores the Idea and the Person
Quick answer: Writory's sci-fi short story contest accepts original science fiction of 100 to 3,000 words in any language, judged blind against a published five-part rubric that scores the story an idea produces, not the idea alone. 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 whatever the result.
Science 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 science fiction
Science fiction is read as science fiction, which means the panel expects a premise and marks what you do with it. Storytelling & Structure (25) is scored on whether the story follows its idea to a consequence and lands there, so an extrapolation that ends where it logically must earns the mark, and one that swerves into a twist to avoid its own ending loses it. Originality & Voice (20) scores the angle and the telling, not the novelty of the technology.
Character & Emotional Impact carries 25 points, the same weight as structure, and it is the mark that separates a science fiction story from a thought experiment. The premise has to happen to someone. Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life" is about a language that changes how time is perceived, and every page of it is about a mother and a daughter. That is the model: the idea is the pressure, the person is the story. Execution outscores concept every round.
One idea, followed honestly
Three thousand words holds one extrapolation. Take a single change to the world and ask what it does to a breakfast table, a funeral, a job interview. Deliver the exposition as consequence rather than lecture: nobody in the story should explain how the drive works, but someone should be late because of it. Keep the science consistent with itself; the reader will forgive an impossible premise and never forgive a premise that breaks its own rules in the last scene.
Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" has no living human character and is one of the most moving stories the genre has produced, because the house's routine is a portrait of a family. Arthur C. Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God" is a joke with a last line that stops the reader cold. Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" builds a whole civilisation to make one sunset matter. Each takes one idea and refuses to blink.
Craft notes for the 3,000-word science fiction story
Open on the person, not the world; the strangeness should arrive through what they notice. Cut the paragraph that explains the year. Let the title carry the premise so the prose can carry the people. Resist the ending that reveals it was all a simulation, or that the narrator was not human; these were fresh in 1950 and the rubric's Originality mark treats them as furniture now. End on the cost of the idea to one character, and make that cost specific.
Read Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild" for a first-contact story that is really about consent and family. H. G. Wells's "The Country of the Blind" is public domain and still the cleanest study of a premise pushed to its end. Le Guin's "Nine Lives" does cloning through grief. Clarke's "The Star" fits a crisis of faith into a few pages. Story prompts at /short-story-prompts include speculative seeds, and the Story Craft course at /academy/story-craft covers structure at this length.
Entering, and what every writer gets back
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 story scored here can go straight to a magazine or an anthology afterwards. Scorecards for a round arrive together, so two entries can be read side by side.
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 science fiction judged against literary fiction, and does it lose?
It is judged in the same round, blind, against the same five-part rubric, and the rubric contains no bias toward realism. A story is marked on whether its structure does what it attempts, whether we care about the person, and how well the sentences work. Genre is a setting, not a handicap.
How much is the entry fee for a science fiction story?
$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 entering a hard-science piece alongside a soft social extrapolation shows which mode you write better. The fee is the same at every length.
What does the certificate and score show?
Every entrant receives a certificate and a score out of 100 on 30 November 2026, divided into the five published marks. For science fiction the telling pair is Originality & Voice against Character & Emotional Impact: a strong first and weak second means the idea landed and the person did not.
Is there a word limit, and is 3,000 words enough for science fiction?
Stories run from 100 to 3,000 words. Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" and Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God" both run a little over 2,000. One idea, one person and one consequence fits; a galactic war does not, and trying to fit it costs Language & Craft marks to exposition.
Does my science have to be accurate?
It has to be consistent. Judges are not marking physics; they are marking whether the story keeps the rules it sets. A faster-than-light drive is fine if the story never quietly breaks it. Hand-waving that the plot depends on, or an ending that contradicts the premise, loses Storytelling & Structure marks.
Can I enter science fiction in a language other than English?
Yes. Stories in any language are accepted and each is read in its own language, all in one pool. Science fiction has long traditions in Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and Bengali, and a story written in any of them is scored on the same five dimensions as one in English.
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.