A Speculative Fiction Contest That Scores the Consequence, Not the Idea
Quick answer: A speculative fiction contest with a published rubric: Writory accepts stories of 100 to 3,000 words on any premise, judged blind on the five published marks. The premise earns nothing by itself; the consequences followed through a person earn the score. 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 speculative fiction of 100 to 3,000 words in any language, judged blind against a published rubric. 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.
What speculative means here, and how the rubric reads it
Speculative fiction is the umbrella over anything that changes one rule of the world and follows the change: a ministry of time travel, a town where nobody dies, a language that alters how its speakers see. Robert Heinlein used the term in 1947, Margaret Atwood revived it to describe The Handmaid's Tale (1985), and Writory uses it as a shelf label, not a category. There is one pool. A speculative story is read as the story it attempts, and the rubric's five marks apply exactly as they do to a kitchen-table realist piece.
Originality & Voice, 20 points, is scored on the angle, and this is the mark speculative writers most often misjudge. The premise is not the angle. Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life" (1998) uses a first-contact premise that had been done a thousand times; the angle is a mother's grammar. Jorge Luis Borges's "The Library of Babel" (1941) is a single conceit followed to its end in a few thousand words with almost no plot, and it lands because the consequence is followed honestly. Execution scores over novelty, every round.
Craft notes for speculative fiction in 100 to 3,000 words
Change one thing. At this length a second altered rule costs you the words you needed to follow the first, and a judge reading blind will feel the story thin. Attach the change to a person before the reader has finished the first paragraph, because Character & Emotional Impact carries 25 points and a premise with nobody inside it earns none of them. Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild" (1984) opens on a boy, an egg and his mother's refusal, and the aliens arrive already entangled in the family.
Follow the consequence past the obvious one. If nobody dies, the first consequence is crowding; the second is that grief becomes a skill nobody has, and the story is in the second. Write no glossary. Every invented term should be understood from its use within a sentence of appearing, and Language & Craft, 20 points, marks down the paragraph that explains. Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) teaches its vocabulary by having characters use it wrongly at first.
End on the person, not the premise. Speculative stories often close on the reveal of how the rule works, and that ending scores low on Impact & Resonance, the last 10 points, because it answers a question rather than leaving one. Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics (1965) ends each piece on Qfwfq's feeling about the event, not the physics. Check that the last line could not appear in a realist story; if it could, the speculation was decoration. Starting points are at /short-story-prompts.
Any language, one pool, and what you receive
Speculative work in any language is read in that language, in one pool with everything else in the round; a Bengali story about a river that remembers stands beside an English one about a ministry of time. 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 full criteria are 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 speculative fiction eligible in the Writory contest?
Yes. The contest accepts original stories of 100 to 3,000 words in any genre, and speculative work of every kind, near-future, alternate history, soft fantasy, the frankly strange, is read in the same pool on the same five marks. There is no separate category and no literary preference.
What is the entry fee?
$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 speculative work, read Originality & Voice against Character & Emotional Impact: a high first and low second means the idea was noticed and the person was not, which is the shelf's most common fault.
Can I build a world in 3,000 words?
You can build a room in one and imply the rest. Stories that attempt the whole world in 3,000 words spend their length on exposition and lose structure and craft marks. Change one rule, attach it to one person, follow it to a second consequence. Anything from 100 to 3,000 words is eligible.
How is speculative fiction different from science fiction or fantasy here?
It is the broader label and the contest does not split them; a story is read as whatever it attempts. Speculative is useful for work that does not want the furniture of either shelf: a realist story with one impossible fact, or an alternate present. The marks are identical in every case.
Does the science have to be accurate?
Only as far as the story leans on it. A judge reading blind marks internal consistency, not textbook accuracy: if your rule says nobody dies, nobody can die in paragraph nine without a reason. Where the story does invoke real science, get it right, because one error costs the reader's trust in everything else.
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.