Guest Post by Savannah Cordova

Image courtesy of Unsplash
As a writer, there are plenty of ways to share your work with the world, from creating your own blog to having your stories published in literary magazines. But one option that every writer should consider is submitting to writing contests — which is not only a great way to challenge yourself, but also to gain opportunities for prizes and wider recognition!
In this post, I’ll share my five top reasons why every writer should try entering writing competitions to help their work ethic and career, along with five great contests to look out for.
1. They’ll challenge you to try something new.
It’s easy for us writers to stick to what we know, but sometimes the best way to evolve is to step outside your comfort zone. If you’ve been in a writing rut, joining a competition in a different form or genre than usual could give you fresh inspiration.
For example, if you’re a short story writer, a poetry competition will force you to approach the creative process in a totally different way. Or if you write literary fiction, a fantasy or sci-fi contest could be your ticket to exploring new creative territory. However you choose to diverge from the norm, breaking out of your “routine” practice can definitely help you come up with new ideas!
If you’re just starting out, consider joining a competition that doesn’t have an entry fee… zero risk, high reward! Storyshares’ Story of the Year Contest is one to look out for: it has multiple categories and prompts, is free to enter, and is offering $15,000 total in cash prizes this season — plus will remain open until January 13th, 2025.
2. Their deadlines will motivate you to write.
If you’re a procrastinator like me, getting sidetracked from writing is a common occurrence. But everything changes when I’ve got a time limit to work against.
Entering a writing competition is a particularly good way to motivate anyone who hasn’t written in a long time; if you’ve been distracted by work, family, or whatever else, perhaps this will be what convinces you to get back to it. Indeed, many of us writers work better with a sense of urgency — so a contest deadline could be just what you need to knuckle down.
Don’t forget that writing competitions all have different requirements, and some word counts and deadlines may not be feasible for you. If you’re not able to write a 3,000-word piece in the near future, you could always try something with a low word count requirement, such as Tadpole Press’s 100-Word Writing Contest. This flash fiction competition is held twice a year, in April and November, and accepts all genres of work.
3. Competitions can help with recognition and exposure. If your dream is to become a successful author, writing contests are also a great way to get your name out there and increase your chances of being noticed by an agent or publisher. You don’t even have to win — just being longlisted or shortlisted can give you exposure to industry pros.
Many writing contests announce not only their winners, but also their runners-up, which is perfect for anyone who wants to put themselves on the map. For example, the UK’s Poetry Society runs an annual National Poetry Competition (accepting entries from all over the world) which highlights the winning, second-place, third-place, and other commended poems.
Non-poets might also consider the competitions run by Mslexia — a British lit mag which runs multiple fiction and poetry contests a year. They’ve recently closed their non-poetry submissions for 2024, but look out for them next year: Mslexia typically runs an annual short story contest, novel contest, and flash fiction contest, and many past winners have gone on to mainstream success.
4. They also provide a way to receive feedback.
Of course, in addition to prizes and general recognition, writing competitions also offer writers potential feedback on their work from judges. If you’re always looking for ways to grow and improve your craft, getting that expert commentary back could be invaluable!
That said, not all writing competitions include feedback (the really big ones, which can get hundreds or even thousands of entries, hardly ever do). So if this kind of critical assessment is important to you, do your research beforehand.
If you’re working on a novel, one great place to start is the Cheshire Novel Prize, which claims to be the only worldwide prize offering feedback to every single entry (quite a feat for a novel-based competition!).
5. Lastly, they can lead you to a welcoming community.
Finally, one more reliable way to improve your writing skills is to join a writing community, and contests can be a natural path to that. As part of a community, you and your fellow writers can comment on each other’s work and share tips and advice — not just about the contest at hand, but about everything in your writing lives.
Reedsy Prompts, which is Reedsy’s weekly writing contest, not only offers $250 to each winner, but also allows anyone who joins the contest to become part of its community! On Reedsy Prompts, all submissions are open to likes and comments from passionate writers like yourself — and the more active you are, the more feedback you’ll get on your own work as well.
And there you have it: five reasons why every writer should try their hand at writing contests. Putting your work out there may seem daunting at first, but the first step is often the hardest.
The more you submit, the more you’ll grow, challenge yourself, and hopefully win some prizes and make some friends along the way. Best of luck!
Savannah Cordova is a writer with Reedsy, a marketplace that connects authors with all the resources they need to write a book (or get it ghostwritten). For the Reedsy blog, she writes about everything from literary craft to what it’s like to work in publishing. In her spare time, Savannah enjoys reading contemporary fiction and, of course, entering writing contests.
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