All around us, kids and teachers are headed back to school. The weather hasn't cooled down yet, but we're already dreaming of crunchy fall leaves and cozy sweaters. It's the perfect season for a new writing contest!
That’s right: our Fall Writing Contest is now open! Read on to learn why we're so excited about this contest.
Or, click here to get all the details and sign up for the Fall Writing Contest.
Get a Free Copy of Scrivener Superpowers
It's no secret that we love Scrivener. It's a fantastic tool for writers, designed to handle long manuscripts and all the extraneous research and complicated organization that comes with them. But it's also true that the learning curve can be off-putting for writers.
In Scrivener Superpowers, M.G. Herron gets you up and running with Scrivener quickly, walking you through every feature you need and nothing that you don't. The best part, though, is the complete writing system he outlines. This will revolutionize your writing, helping you to focus on your stories and write faster, better, and more easily.
Best of all, every writer who enters this contest will receive the Scrivener Superpowers ebook for free!
What We Love About Writing Contests
It’s no secret that we love writing contests here at The Write Practice. Here’s why:
A Fantastic Way to Grow
A writing contest challenges you to write a new story within certain parameters (word count, contest theme). Every time, it’s a challenge with a specific focus, stretching your writing skills in a new way. Plus, you have a deadline: you can’t tinker with your story forever; soon, you’ll have to submit it to the judges.
Writing short stories is one of our favorite ways to practice writing, and a contest gives you just the push you need to finish.
A Chance to Get Feedback
Of course, just writing a short story isn’t enough to grow. To deliberately practice writing and become a better writer, you need feedback to show you what’s working, what’s not, and how to improve.
Feedback is one of the best parts of our writing contests. In the exclusive Facebook group, writers share our ideas, brainstorm exciting twists, and troubleshoot when we get stuck. In Becoming Writer, we read each other’s stories and offer helpful and encouraging critique.
Plus, when the contest is over, we offer feedback directly from the judges on why your story won or didn’t. This expert critique is invaluable in taking your writing to the next level.
You Can Win Prizes
And who doesn’t love prizes?!
This contest, we’re offering over $1,200 in prizes. The grand prize winner will receive one year of free premium membership to Becoming Writer. Their story will be featured on the front page of Short Fiction Break, and they’ll be invited to become a monthly contributor to the literary magazine. They'll also receive a print copy of Scrivener Superpowers, as well as a cash prize of $300.
There are prizes for two runners-up, too, and five honorable mentions. Check those out here!
If you get stuck writing your story, these prizes might be just the push you need to keep going.
Everyone Gets Published
We love to celebrate good writing. You worked hard on your story, and we believe your writing deserves recognition.
That’s why we publish all the stories entered in the contest, not just the winners. We want to help great stories find great readers.
(If you would rather we not publish your story, you can opt out.)
Meet Amazing Members of Our Community
This is one of my favorite parts of our writing contests: we get to introduce you to some really cool members of our community, people and organizations who share our love of good stories and value helping writers grow.
These amazing sponsors are supporting us in this contest:
Scrivener Superpowers by M.G. Herron is the premier guide to Scrivener for creative writers. We believe Scrivener is one of the best tools for writers out there, and Scrivener Superpowers will help you get started fast. Plus, it outlines a system for using Scrivener that will revolutionize your writing.
Short Fiction Break literary magazine deeply values new and emerging writers and is committed to regularly publishing stories by upcoming authors. Often, the stories they share are a writer’s first published piece. You can see their publishing guidelines and submit your story here.
We love working with each one of these people and organizations, and we’re excited to introduce you to them over the course of this contest. I think you’ll like them, too!
Are You Ready to Join the Fun?
Are you ready to enter? Here’s how the contest will work.
Entrants are asked to write a new story up to 1,500 words long based on the contest theme: Fall in Love.
You will then workshop your story within the Becoming Writer community, getting personalized feedback to help you make your story better.
After workshopping your story within the writing group, you can you submit your story to the contest.
Judges from Short Fiction Break will choose the eight winning stories.
Then, all submitted stories will be published on Short Fiction Break literary magazine.
What are you waiting for? Join us as we kick off the fall with an exciting writing contest. I can’t wait to see what you write!
I hope I see you and your story in the contest! Good luck!
I get so nervous when I hear about writing contests. I want to enter in one, but get gun shy when I read about a theme or word count. I guess because it can be interpreted in different ways. But sometimes, I don’t know the best way to interpret a theme.
The overlying issue is that I’m not always confident about my work. I know that there’s much I need to learn about writing. So much has changed since I graduated over ten years ago. I feel like there’s so much more I need to learn. Sometimes I feel like these contests are a reminder of that, but not in a good way. I worry that I will never get to be the writer I want to be.
I know this sounds silly. And I’ve heard dozens of times that rejection is part of the writing process. Personally, I hate being rejected. But it’s something I need to overcome. If I’m going to be a better writer, I need to shrug the voices off. I need to jump in. I need something like this as a step in the right direction.
I write for me
George. Don’t worry! The worst thing is to write and not get it out there. I am probably a rubbish author, but when I got my first book on Amazon and told my friends about it, a few of them bought it and then chased me for my next. It seemed they liked it. I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t taken the plunge. However, one needs to constantly review what one has written and shorts are a good place to start. Write it, leave it, read it, re-write bits, leave it , read it – I think you’ve got the idea. As I said, I probably suck as writer, but as Marilyn says below, I write for me, and if others get some pleasure from it, so well and good.
Thanks for the picture…
i want to join i think am capable of doing it but its hard for me to pay the fee for the contest because am a student and i stay abroad plz help….. 🙁 :”
I entered the Summer Writing Contest this year and I had a ball writing and meeting new people and the feedback from them helps with breaking out of the comfort zone and try something new.
I’ve read and re-read the entire articles about the writing contest several times since Joe put it out. I love writing. But scared? Absolutely ! I already have a story started and have come up with a dozen reasons why it’s stupid….silly…. not good enough… needs more. You get the picture. So, I’m paying the fee. Today! I’m not going to read the article and all the related stuff again – until I have more work done on my story. It’s about Fall. And love. What could be more fun to write about than that ?
This seems really really interesting and I would love to join but I have a few questions. One – is there a fee to enter?
and
Two – Love has to be included in the story, right? But does it have to be romantic love or can it be parental love or love between friends? I don’t really like writing romance stories. I hate it in fact.
I just wondered, is it ok to enter the contest outside of the US? I’ve seen them come up a few times and been nervous at the thought but I’d really like to go for it this time.