A Slice of Life Story Contest That Knows an Ordinary Day Still Needs a Turn
Quick answer: A slice of life story contest with a published rubric: Writory accepts stories of 100 to 3,000 words, judged blind on the five published marks, with structure scored as shape rather than plot, so a quiet story is read fairly. 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.
Writory's short story contest reads slice of life fiction of 100 to 3,000 words in any language, judged blind against a published rubric that scores structure as shape. 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.
How the rubric reads a quiet story
Slice of life is judged as slice of life, and the rubric was built so that it can be. Storytelling & Structure, 25 points, is scored as shape, not as plot volume: the question is whether the piece opens in the right place, turns once and ends on a line that alters what came before. Anton Chekhov's "The Student" (1894) is a young man walking home on Good Friday who tells two widows a story from the Gospels; nothing happens, and by the last paragraph his sense of the world has changed. That is a complete structure.
Character & Emotional Impact, another 25, is where the form lives, and it is earned by specificity. A judge reading blind wants to know exactly which cup the woman reaches for and why she puts it back. Katherine Mansfield's "Miss Brill" (1920) is a woman in a park on a Sunday, and the whole story turns on one overheard remark about her fur. Language & Craft, 20 points, rewards the prose that carries a quiet story; with no event to hold the reader, the sentences must.
Craft notes for slice of life in 100 to 3,000 words
The day still needs a turn. The commonest failure in the form is the story that is only a day, faithfully recorded, with no shift in what the character or the reader understands. The turn can be tiny: a perception, a refusal, a thing noticed for the first time. Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" (1983) turns on a man drawing with his eyes closed. James Joyce's "Araby" (1914) turns on a boy realising, at a bazaar stall, that he has been foolish. Find the moment, and put it near the end.
Select, do not record. A slice of life story is not a transcript of a day but a choice of six details from it, each one doing work. Lucia Berlin's stories, collected in A Manual for Cleaning Women (2015), read like reportage and are in fact ruthlessly cut. Choose a viewpoint close to the character and stay there. Let the weather, the food and the furniture carry feeling instead of naming it; Language & Craft marks the named feeling down and the observed one up.
End on the ordinary object that has changed. Yasunari Kawabata's Palm-of-the-Hand Stories, many under 1,000 words, close on a gesture or a piece of fruit, and Impact & Resonance, the last 10 points, is earned by exactly that: the thing the reader will notice in their own kitchen. Avoid the epiphany stated aloud; Joyce's boy does not say what he has learned, and the story is stronger for it. The free Story Craft course at /academy/story-craft covers structure and ending at this length.
Any language, one pool, and what you receive
Ordinary life is written in every language, and Writory reads stories in any language in that language, in one pool with everything else in the round; a Marathi kitchen stands beside an English bus stop. Writers must be 13 or over and the work must be original. Entry is $8 for one story, $14 for two and $25 for five, each judged separately by a blind panel. 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.
Every entrant receives a certificate and a score out of 100 on 30 November 2026, with the five marks shown separately: Storytelling & Structure 25, Character & Emotional Impact 25, Language & Craft 20, Originality & Voice 20, Impact & Resonance 10. The top story takes $100 and free entry to the next round; free entry is earned, not open to all. Writers keep all rights. Optional written feedback is available at entry, and the criteria are published in full at /short-story-judging-criteria.
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 slice of life fiction eligible in the Writory contest?
Yes. The contest accepts original stories of 100 to 3,000 words in any genre, and a quiet story is read as a quiet story: structure is scored as shape, not plot volume, so a piece in which nothing outwardly happens can take the full 25 if its one turn is earned. There is no separate literary category.
How much does entry cost?
$8 for one story, $14 for two, $25 for five, each judged and scored separately. The winner of a round takes $100 and free entry to the next; free entry is earned that way and is not open to everyone.
What do I receive if my story does not win?
A certificate and a score out of 100 split into the five rubric marks. For slice of life the line to read is Storytelling & Structure: a low mark there beside a high Language & Craft mark means the sentences held and the day never turned, which is the form's most common fault.
How long should a slice of life story be?
Anything from 100 to 3,000 words is eligible. Chekhov's "The Student" is under 2,000 words and Kawabata's palm-of-the-hand pieces are often under 1,000, so the cap suits the form. A 200-word slice with one noticed thing is complete, and is read as flash.
Does a slice of life story need a plot?
It needs a turn, which is smaller than a plot. Something about how the character or the reader sees the day has to be different at the end from the beginning, even if nothing happens. A day recorded without that shift is a sketch, and it will lose structure marks however well it is written.
Can I write about my own ordinary life?
Yes, as fiction. Shape it: choose the six details that matter, put the turn near the end, and cut what a diary would keep. Judging is blind, so nobody knows whose day it was, and writers keep all rights to what they enter, so the piece can go anywhere afterwards.
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.