How We Judge: The 100-Point Rubric in Full
Quick answer: Writory scores every story against a published 100-point rubric: Storytelling and Structure 25, Character and Emotional Impact 25, Language and Craft 20, Originality and Voice 20, Impact and Resonance 10. Judging is blind, and every entrant receives all five marks with a certificate. Most contests judge on similar criteria and publish none of them.
Most contests treat their judging as a trade secret. Ours is on this page: five dimensions, a hundred points, and what a judge is actually reading for in each one. Check your draft against it before you enter, because you can.
The five dimensions, and what a judge actually reads for
Storytelling & Structure, 25 points. Does the opening raise a question, does the middle move because scenes cause each other, and does the ending pay off what the opening promised. A judge holds one question the whole way through: do I need to keep reading, and was I right to.
Character & Emotional Impact, 25 points. Do we want something with this person, and is the feeling built by what they do and choose rather than announced in adjectives. Stories in which nothing changes for anyone rarely climb out of the middle band.
Language & Craft, 20 points. Precise prose, dialogue that sounds like people, a controlled point of view, clean mechanics. Any register can score here, spare or lush, as long as it is deliberate. Wasted words leak marks on every page they appear.
Originality & Voice, 20 points. The angle only this writer could take, in a voice that could not be swapped for another entrant's. Execution beats novelty: a familiar premise told with command outranks a wild idea that loses its own thread.
Impact & Resonance, 10 points. What the story leaves in the room after the last line. The smallest dimension and the usual tiebreaker: the difference between a story that scores well and one a judge is still thinking about the next day.
What drops a story into the low bands
Five patterns pull scores down faster than anything else: an opening that clears its throat instead of starting; a premise dead from overuse, played straight; mechanical errors in the first paragraph; no stakes, so nothing can be lost; and a message or a shock delivered in place of a story. None of these is a talent problem, every one is a revision problem, and that is the point of publishing the list.
Note the difference between scoring low and being disqualified. Low scores are craft. Disqualification is rules: a story outside 100 to 3,000 words, work that is not the entrant's own, or an entrant under 13.
How the blind judging works
Names come off before anyone reads. Each story is scored against the five dimensions, the marks are recorded, and every entrant receives the full five-part scorecard with a certificate on 30 November 2026. Winners are simply the top of the same list everyone is on: no separate shortlist logic, no popularity vote, no result the numbers cannot explain.
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. Winners earn free entry to the next round. Enter at https://writoryofficial.com/submit-story.
Common questions
What score counts as competitive?
The rubric is criterion-scored, not curved: a story earns marks against the published criteria, not against the rest of the month's field, so no fixed total guarantees a place. Read the five dimension marks before the total. They tell you what to revise, which is the scorecard's real job.
Do judges explain the marks?
The scorecard is itself the explanation most contests never give: five dimension marks showing where the story held and where it leaked. For sentence-level reasons, the optional written feedback goes through your actual story; the scorecard says where, the report says why.
What gets a story disqualified rather than scored low?
Rules, not craft: falling outside the 100 to 3,000 word range, submitting work that is not your own, or entering under the age of 13. Everything else, including a story a judge happens to dislike, is scored on the rubric like every other entry.
Does one weak dimension sink the whole score?
It costs exactly its weight and no more. A thin theme can only lose you 10 points; a structure that never becomes a plot can lose 25. That is why revision should follow the weights: fix the heaviest dimension you are leaking first.
Is the rubric the same every month?
The dimensions and weights do not move between rounds, deliberately, so a 74 one month and an 81 the next measure real movement in the writing rather than a shifted goalpost. Writers who enter monthly read their scores as a progress line.
Do I keep the rights to my story?
All of them. Entering changes nothing about who owns the work: you can publish it, sell it, or enter it elsewhere, before or after results. The certificate and scorecard are records of how the story was read, not claims on it.
More story contest pages
About Writory
Writory (writoryofficial.com) is an international monthly poetry contest founded in 2025 by Shivay Mehra. Poets from 40 countries have entered, readers come from more than 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.