5 Innovative Strategies That Could Help You Win a Writing Contest

One person I love having at the blog is Savannah Cordova from Reedsy, because she always has an innovative take on every subject. If you enter writing contests, this post is one you will want to read, because she offers a ton of great ideas on how to make your entry stand out. Enjoy!

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If you���ve ever participated in a writing contest, you���ll know that it���s one of the most exhilarating, motivating, and overall craft-stimulating experiences you can have as a writer. Indeed, what starts off as a modest contest entry can even turn into a much bigger project, like a book.

However, the flip side of the coin is
that if you���ve entered multiple writing contests and still haven���t won, the
experience can become intimidating, demoralizing, and frustrating.

I���ve personally been on both sides of the
contest conundrum: I���ve lost time and time again and felt incredibly
discouraged, then had all faith in my writing restored after a win. And recently, my knowledge of writing contests has gained
yet another dimension ��� the perspective of a judge, as I help decide the winner
of a weekly contest we hold at Reedsy.

My experience as both a writing contest
participant and a judge has given me a finely-honed sense of what contributes
to a winning entry��� and what doesn���t. To that end, here are five innovative strategies that could
help you win ��� some of which I���ve used myself, some of which I���ve seen in
action, but all of which have proven concretely successful (as you���ll see from
the examples below).

1. Draw from a recent experience

���Write what you know��� is some of the most
oft-given writing advice for a reason. Writing about something you���ve
personally seen, felt, or done lends the story an air of authenticity that���s
nearly impossible to replicate in any other way.

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My key addition to that advice is to make
it recent: the fresher the
experience, the stronger your writing about it will be. Of course, if you want
to write about something from a long time ago that affected you deeply, that���s
your prerogative ��� but you might find it hard to dredge up the words to describe
something that happened months or years ago.

I���ve found that the more recent the
experience, the more smoothly the words flow. Indeed, this was the tactic that
I used for my story ���Perspective,��� which
actually won the Reedsy short story contest last May (and led me to my current
job). When I wrote ���Perspective,��� I was getting ready to move away from my
family and feeling sentimental, which I indulged by watching old home videos.
The intensity of emotion I felt then inspired me to write a story that started
with a woman watching her home videos
and see where things might go from there.

2. Subvert the prompt

Many contests provide writers with a
prompt or theme to write about. In this case, another highly effective
technique is to subvert the contest theme/prompt. Of course, this can backfire
if the rules of the contest are particularly rigid ��� however, in most cases,
judges will appreciate writers who think outside the box.

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