A Young Adult Writing Contest That Reads YA as a Genre, Not an Age
Quick answer: Writory's young adult writing contest accepts original YA short stories of 100 to 3,000 words from writers aged 13 and over, judged blind against a published five-part rubric that reads young adult fiction as a genre with its own rules. 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.
YA short stories of 100 to 3,000 words enter 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.
YA is a genre, whoever is writing it
Young adult fiction is defined by its protagonist and its readership, not its author. A YA story has a narrator of roughly 13 to 18, told close and in the present or near past, about a first: first loss, first betrayal, first time the adults were wrong. S. E. Hinton wrote "The Outsiders" at 16, and Suzanne Collins wrote "The Hunger Games" in her forties; both are YA. This contest reads it that way. Writers of any age from 13 up may enter a young adult story, and it is judged as one.
Teen writers entering their own work, whatever its readership, have a separate page at /writing-contests-for-teens. This page is about the category. There is no YA checkbox on the form at /submit-story; the story goes into the round with everything else and is read blind against the rubric at /short-story-judging-criteria, which scores it on what it attempts. A judge does not know whether the writer is 15 or 50, and the rubric does not ask.
How the five marks read a YA story
Character & Emotional Impact (25) is scored on whether we want something for the narrator with the intensity the narrator wants it, and YA lives or dies on that. Stakes that seem small to an adult reader, a text unanswered, a seat at a table, are not small to a 15-year-old, and the rubric does not ask the judge to shrink them. Storytelling & Structure (25) rewards the story that ends on change rather than on a lesson learned; the moment the narrator understands something is usually the moment to stop.
Originality & Voice (20) is the mark YA is built to collect. The genre's whole tradition, from Judy Blume to Angie Thomas's "The Hate U Give", runs on a voice so close the reader forgets there is a page. Language & Craft (20) scores that voice for control: the sentences should sound like a teenager and be built by a writer. Impact & Resonance (10) is the story a 16-year-old rereads.
Craft notes for entering YA at 100 to 3,000 words
Keep the adults in the room but out of the solution; the moment a parent or teacher fixes the problem, the story stops being YA. Stay in the narrator's head and time, not in an adult's memory of being young, unless the distance is the point. Let the dialogue run ahead of the narration. Use one concrete object the story can turn on, a hoodie, a bus pass, a phone left face down. End on the narrator's choice, not on the consequence a grown-up would want shown.
Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak" is a novel, but its first chapter is a lesson in how much a YA voice can withhold. John Green's "The Fault in Our Stars" earns its grief by being funny first. Walter Dean Myers's "Monster" changes form to match its narrator. These are novels because most YA is; the contest wants a self-contained story, so take the mode and fit it to one afternoon. The free Story Craft course at /academy/story-craft covers voice and endings at exactly this length.
Fee, deadline and what every entrant receives
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 separately. 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 YA story scored here can grow into the novel it may already want to be.
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
Do I have to be a teenager to enter a young adult story?
No. YA is a genre defined by its narrator and readership, and writers of any age from 13 up may enter a young adult story. A 40-year-old teacher's story about a 15-year-old is YA; so is a 15-year-old's story about herself. Both go into the same round and are read blind. Teen writers have their own page at /writing-contests-for-teens.
Is YA eligible in a general short story contest?
Yes. Any genre enters the same round and is judged against the same five-part rubric, which scores a story against what it attempts. A YA story is read as YA: close voice, teenage stakes taken at face value, an ending on change. The only rules are 100 to 3,000 words, original work, age 13 and over.
How much does it cost to enter a YA 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 a first-person present-tense piece entered beside a third-person one shows which distance your YA voice needs. The fee does not change with the writer's age.
What does the certificate and score record for a YA writer?
Every entrant receives a certificate and a score out of 100 on 30 November 2026, split into the five published marks. For young adult fiction the useful pair is Originality & Voice against Storytelling & Structure: a high first and low second means the narrator is alive and the story has not yet been given a shape.
Is there a word limit, and does YA work at short-story length?
Stories run from 100 to 3,000 words. Most YA is published as novels, so the short form asks you to pick one afternoon, one corridor, one conversation, and let it stand for the year. A 2,000-word story about a single lunch period can carry everything a coming-of-age novel does, if the want is clear.
Can YA deal with hard subjects like abuse, self-harm or drugs?
Yes. The genre has always gone there; "Speak" and "The Hate U Give" are about assault and a police shooting. The rubric scores whether the story handles its subject with craft and whether the narrator stays a person rather than a case study. Write for a readership aged 13 and over and let the character, not the narrator, carry the weight.
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.