Embracing the Zen of Writing Contests

Writing contests might seem intimidating at first.

You might think, “What if my story isn’t good enough? What if someone else’s work outshines mine? What if nobody likes what I write?”

Yeah, you feel that anxiety monster clawing its way to the surface, don’t you?

But here’s what I think.

Writing contests aren’t about beating others.

They’re about challenging yourself.

Let’s Get All Zen About It

Okay, take a long, deep breath, feel the floor under your toes (or your butt in a chair), and slowly exhale, concentrating on the present moment. Accept that …

• Yes, you’ll pay real money to enter a contest. It might be as little as a morning coffee or as much as a night out. Just accept it. It takes labor and materials to put on a contest. The people who do it should be fairly compensated. Accept the fact that you’re going to be out a few bucks. Farewell, sweet money; you were meant to be spent. Kisses.
  

• Yes, there’ll be lots of competition. Most writing contests have hundreds of participants, sometimes thousands, and the likelihood you’ll earn back that money is slim. Like all gambling, don’t spend more than you couldn’t afford to lose.
  

• Yes, you are vulnerable. You’re laying your work on the line for evaluation and critique by strangers. You’re setting yourself up for a fall — disappointment and rejection are tough feelings. It's time to noodle through those, buster. Emotional processing is your responsibility!

• Yes, you’re taking a risk. You’ve real jeopardy here: money, time, the sweet taste of appreciation, and the fear of rejection. You’ll likely receive criticism about your work, not just brainless praise from your friends or aunt. (Uh-huh. Did they read your story, or are they just placating you? Think about it.)
  

Embrace the moment; feel the burn. Realize that you’re doing the same thing you’d typically do if you were trying to publish your work.

1. You spent the time to write a story — time is money.

2. You find a call for submission where your story might fit and submit the work for consideration.

3. You bite your nails and await the verdict. You’re vulnerable, and there’s competition for an editor’s attention.

4. Odds say you’ll receive a rejection, but that makes the acceptance letter even more vindicating.

5. And a risk taken resulted in failure or reward.

Contests Are Practice

By entering a contest, you’re practicing for the real world of writing and publication. Think of writing contests like runners think of 5Ks. It’s not about crossing the finish line first. It’s about pushing your limits, gaining experience, and always learning something new.

For writers, contests are a way to sharpen skills, build confidence, and grow into better storytellers. You’re learning — in the moment — while doing. I don’t know about you, but doing is the only way I know how to improve my writing. Heck, it’s why I write this blog.

When you enter a writing contest, you commit to crafting something within constraints — word count, theme, or genre — delivered in a certain amount of time. These constraints often force creativity to a boil on the stovetop of your brain. You learn to say more with less, to focus your narrative, create compelling characters, and polish your prose until it shines.

But let’s get back to the Zen of it all.

Winning? Sure, it’s a great feeling and elevates the smug in your life, but it’s not the heart of the experience. Go deeper. The real magic lies in showing up and being in the moment, even when you lose.

In performing the acts of writing, editing, and submitting, you learn to quiet the inner critic and let your creative voice flow. Every contest is a stepping stone on your journey to mastering the art of storytelling.

And let’s not forget the community. Writing contests bring together people who share your passion. There’s camaraderie in knowing that others are staying up late, wrestling with characters and plot twists, and wondering if they’ve gotten that ending just right. Contests foster an invaluable connection, whether exchanging feedback, sharing struggles, or cheering each other on.

Ultimately, You Are in a Contest With Yourself

Isn’t that true?

Embrace the challenge. Push yourself. Treat every contest as a chance to grow, celebrate storytelling, and practice the craft. You’re not competing against others; you’re competing with yourself to improve, step by step, just like runners prepare for a marathon.

Next time you see a writing contest pop up, don’t hesitate.

Jump.

Embrace the moment.

Write boldly and submit proudly.

No matter the outcome, you’ll come away with something far more valuable than a prize: the satisfaction of knowing you gave it your all. Maybe you’ll get knocked down. Maybe you’ll learn something about yourself. Perhaps you’ll improve? Why, you might even win!

Regardless, isn’t the price for that journey the best $30 you’ve ever spent?

R

Fluffy Cats

I’ve written about Cats and Oranges.

Cats are adorable stories you’d love to pull into your lap. Everyone wants to pet a cat. They’re attributes most likely to appeal to a generalist reader or judge.

On the other hand, Oranges are a story’s technical attributes — its cadence, form, delivery, mechanics, techniques, and specific terminology related to the genre — the overall use of technical attributes that might make the composition stand out from a competitor. Oranges are writing techniques that might appeal to a judge who admires your command of a genre or appreciates your application, elevating your story above a competitor.

In the context of the “art” of writing, I argue that these two ideas contend against each other. Overly technical stories might alienate a generalist, peer-judged audience, whereas advanced techniques might draw the eye of a professional judge looking for a distinctive voice.

Lately, I’ve encountered outcomes in peer-based judging that favor flowery, overwrought descriptions, where I’ve lost by a relatively small margin (one point) to stories that are exceptionally saccharine-rich with descriptions.

The Fluffy Cat vs. The Short-Haired Cat

I’ve come to realize that I favor writing short-haired cats. I like telling tight, succinct stories with embellishments in essential places that might appeal to a broader audience. I strive for efficiency and word economy and, in so doing, avoid flowery descriptions, balancing the product at 50% cat and 50% orange: a story with strong plots, a relatable character arc, and a concrete transformation/resolution at the end of the story, combined with strong efficiency in the prose. I’ve successfully submitted short-haired cats with a couple of stories in professionally judged competitions like NYC Midnight.

• Bottomfeeder, a 1,000-word flash, came in #1 in its cohort and leveraged that balance between word economy and description.

• I employed the same technique in The Miller’s Wife, a 2,500-word short story that also came in #1 in its cohort.

• The Monsters We Know, a 500-word flash that came in at #3 in its cohort, was my first trial with this style. I suppressed flowery descriptions until I got to the most relevant parts of the story.

But this short-haired cat thing doesn’t translate well into peer-based judging.

• Seng of Titan was an overtly technical (Orange-heavy) sci-fi story that failed to gain traction in Writing Battle. Figuring my audience was into sci-fi as much as I was (wrong!), I wrote over their heads and alienated the audience.

• Under the Knife missed the Writing Battle finals by one contest out of ten, scoring a seven and receiving an Honorable Mention. It was highly efficient and spared description to deliver a comprehensive horror in 500 words.

• Similarly, my latest Writing Battle with The Baker of Bogwollow, it missed the finals by one contest out of ten, scoring a six and, once again, receiving an Honorable Mention. Another short-hair, it was highly efficient with overt areas where I poured on the description to yank an emotional response out of the reader.

I seem to be mastering the art of barely getting into the finals by not convincing one person — just one more person — to like my story. I lost to stories with a fluffier cat, offered with more description.

However, it’s not just the peer-judged competitions. This year, I’ve found that I underperform in NYC Midnight contests when I lean too heavily into the short-haired cat.

• Loose Ends, a 500-word flash, was an extremely short-haired cat where I was all about the technical delivery of a complex espionage story. I sacrificed a lot of description in favor of dialogue and internal monologue. In the 1st round, it didn’t place but received an Honorable Mention. It did worse than I expected it to.

• Skyward Horizons 424, a 1,000-word flash, was all dialogue, no descriptions; a pure short-haired cat if there ever was one. I tried to make the dialogue funny and relatable, using a lot of dialect to help drive character description (a good Cat), but the delivery fell flat. The judges wanted more description. It came in 12th in its cohort.

• The Last Train Out of Viena was a third-round NYC Midnight that received a good technical critique from the judges but lacked emotional punch. It was nearly all dialogue and overly ambitious for 1,000 words. It didn’t place or move on.

So, okay, I can’t escape it! I must add more description! I need a fluffier cat!

The Argument for the Fluffy Cat

I believe that writing contests (peer-judged or professional) desire an immediate emotional impact from a fictional story. This is different from academic or technical writing or scoring. This isn’t an essay, and it’s not non-fiction; we don’t need to weigh its evidence or argument critically. Judges are looking for that sugar high, “How did this story make me feel?” So you must present a Cat. In some way, the story must be emotionally connected and resonant to stand out.

I presume peer judges speed-read entries and rely more on their initial gut reactions. Flowery, poetic language evokes strong visuals and emotions in fewer seconds than it takes to appreciate the layered precision of efficient prose. Saccharine-laced descriptions are like neon signs screaming “Feel something!” in a crowded street, and it immediately grabs the mind. It overwhelms. This is the fluffy cat in action, and since the amateur isn’t likely to re-read the story, they’re left with what they felt at the end.

The Argument for the Short-Haired Cat

Meanwhile, I presume professional judges will take an initial read and then re-read the work several times, critically identifying its merits and flaws. I imagine them dissecting a story, examining its entrails, weighing its organs (the critique is part of their job), and are less influenced by the “fluffiness”. Sure, they want to feel something from the story, but the emotional resonance is just one aspect of a rubric. A short-haired Cat presents succinct descriptions, perhaps timed with the emotional waves of a story.

Leaning Fluffy or Short-Haired

But here’s the catch. While efficiency alone might not win contests, precision in storytelling builds pace, sharpens tension, and creates memorable, distinct characters with arcs that wrap to a conclusion. That’s one of my biggest grievances with Fluffy Cats. They seem to go nowhere. You’re immersed in a vivid world, but the world itself isn’t the story.

Maybe what I’m trying to describe is the difference between a fleeting sugar rush and a lasting, savory meal: where good technique helps deliver a solid story, its emotional resonance makes it memorable. It’s what sticks in the mind.

So, I think the next frontier may be recognizing areas in my writing where I’ve gone too efficient, sacrificing description. Where do I need to add more fluff or remove it?

With peer-based work, I’d hope to see my entries final more often, attracting that one missing vote, whereas, in professionally judged competitions, I may place higher, creating more resonance.

We’ll see!

R

Cats and Oranges

On Oranges

Years ago, my wife and I attended a theater show where oranges were rolled onto a stage during a live performance. The actors, still thoroughly engaged in the story — dancing, moving, repeating their lines — struggled to avoid slipping on the oranges. Some, in fact, did, and when it happened, I burst out in laughter. I couldn’t help myself.

Well, my outburst wasn’t well received. Most of the audience turned to glare at me as if I was some Neanderthal who didn’t appreciate good art.

I use this story to illustrate the problem of art. A rolling orange can be one person’s serious artistic statement and another’s comedic moment. Art is entirely subjective, and what constitutes artistic expression isn’t up to us, but the judgment of our audience.

In the art of writing, we use the tools of our craft to relay a story to a reader.

We have nouns and verbs, adjectives and adverbs; we have intensifiers and modifiers. We have punctuation, sentence structure, and paragraph sequences. We have tools like flashbacks and flash-forwards. We have perspectives like 1st and 3rd person. We might tell more than show. We might have a story of one word, a hundred words, or a hundred thousand words. We strive for eloquence and brevity in our expression and, for some, capture universal themes of the human experience in our writing.

Oranges are our art. How well tell a story is the subjective choice we make as authors to relay how we feel it should be told. When someone judges our writing and experiences our art, they see it through a lens of their own personal experiences and biases. They might not like nor prefer the tools we used to tell it and may score us poorly. If anything, poor use of oranges may diminish our credibility in the eyes of readers, judges, and publishers.

On Cats

Cats, on the other hand. Everybody likes cats. People are obsessed with cats. People share cat pictures all day long. People love cats.

Cats are the bread and circus of writing — they’re stories readers want to read. A cat is what a reader expects when they read your story. Whether or not it’s a horror, romance, or adventure, readers have certain expectations about what that story should feel like. The major scenes. The characters. The action.

I often use the phrase “writing a good cat.” People must be attracted to the story to read it. They must want to pet and cuddle with the story, scratch behind its ears, feel good with it, and ultimately share it with others.

As a writer, my ability to “write a good cat” relates to telling a good story, regardless of the oranges I might have used to tell it.

On Writing Contests

In traditional publishing, we want to write stories with a good balance of oranges and cats.

Our oranges establish credibility with readers and publishers, and our cats compel our publishers to keep buying our stories, and readers to keep reading our stories.

Writing contests, however, are different.

Some contests are more cats than oranges; some are more oranges than cats.

In my opinion, peer-based contests like Writing Battle require a cat-heavy story to be successful. Stories must meet genre and connect with a broad audience of amateur writers. They don’t put as much weight in the oranges we use to tell the story; readers want a good cat. If you fail to tell a good cat, regardless of how beautiful your oranges, it will fail.

On the other hand, prestigious amateur contests like NYC Midnight and GlobeSoup require more orange-heavy stories to be successful. These are contests judged by more seasoned, if not professional, writers, not amateurs. The stories that win these contests must pass a litmus test on how those judges perceive the art. It doesn’t matter how astounding your cat is. You might write a very compelling and attractive story, but if the oranges don’t line up with the expectations of the judges, you will fail.

How You Can Tell

In my opinion, you can tell what a contest is like by reading their past winners.

Orange-heavy contests will showcase slow, dull, prodding stories on typical themes that are expertly told. No risks are taken, and there’s no excitement in the story — it’s all very bland and predictable — we’re bored, as readers, because we’ve read these stories before. But that’s what the judges expected, so it’s what the writer wrote.

On the other hand, stories (art) that are more exciting, out of the box, and fun to read, enjoyed by many regardless of technique, that take risks on art, are more cat-heavy. They’re the surprise hit experts didn’t expect, or, when we read them, may completely disregard traditional oranges. They’re stories that resonate with people, regardless of the tools and techniques used to tell them.

On Cats and Oranges

If we’re writing for contests, we generally have to write a good cat stuffed with oranges, or, as the picture above suggests, a good orangey cat. The story itself has to be compelling and meet the reader’s expectations, and our use of the art must not distract from the story or penalize it.

Now, in my opinion, some writers might gravitate towards one or the other.

Authors might struggle to win peer-based competitions but may excel in writing a predictable story well. They’ll shun the erratic, unpredictable nature of these contests and declare them “not real writing contests.” They’ll upturn their nose and go to where they’re appreciated.

On the other hand, the creative writer who fails in a structured, oranges-heavy contest may be so frustrated by the judges’ gatekeeping that they vow never to pay the $30 entry fee again and go home. They might even pack it in as a writer and give up.

The trick, I think, is found in adapting to the expectations of the contest and being mindful of both problems. At the end of the day, I think most writers would agree that cats and oranges make for better writing. We have to write strong, relatable stories, that people want to hold in their laps, and to do that, we often have to take risks and use our tools in ways that are exciting. Unpredictable. Even if they don’t meet the formal expectations of a literary judge.