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, Theme 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 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.
- Theme & Resonance (10 points): What the story leaves behind after the last line.
How it works
Submit an original story of 100 to 2,000 words by the 25th of the month, 11:59 PM IST. Every story is judged blind against the rubric above, and results arrive by the 30th: 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
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 2,000 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 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.