Write the World FAQs

Every month, Write the World holds a new competition developed around a particular idea or genre of writing, such as poetry, fantasy writing, op-ed, or flash fiction. Our competitions, which are always free to enter, are judged by renowned and respected writers from across the globe. Winners receive cash prizes and a feature on our blog and social media. The Competitions page contains information about current, upcoming, and past competitions.

1. If you haven’t yet, sign up for a free account for Write the World as a young writer here.

2. Hit the “Enter Competition” button on the left! Click on the open competition and read the prompt carefully.

3. When you’re ready to write, click “Respond to Prompt,” and start writing! Your draft will automatically save. You can also click “Save Draft” and name that version for later, if you want to return to it.

4. (Optional) To receive feedback from your peers and/or an expert, select “Request Feedback.”

       a. If you want an Expert Review: Check off the “Request an Expert Review.” The first 50 people to submit a draft before Monday, February 12th, can receive an in-depth review from one of our Expert Reviewers—authors, writing teachers, and educational professionals—that you can use to revise your final entry. This will not publish your draft to the site.

       b. If you want peer reviews: Check off the “Publish for Peer Review.” This will publish your draft to the site, making it viewable to other writers on the dashboard so they can read and review your work.

Once you’ve made your selections, click “Submit.” **We recommend that you continue to revise your draft based on feedback from your peers and Expert Reviewer, if you receive one. You can revise your draft and request feedback from your peers as many times as you like!**

5. When you’re ready to submit your draft as a final entry, hit the "Submit to Competition" button. **Note: Once you submit, you can no longer revise your submission. You must SUBMIT to the competition, not just publish, in order to be considered. All final submissions will automatically be published on Write the World’s website.**

An Expert Review is personalized feedback provided by a volunteer from our team of experts, which includes authors, writing teachers, and education professionals. Expert Reviews provide detailed feedback on your competition entry so that you can edit and develop your piece for final submission to the competition. Every month, we offer 50 free Expert Reviews—first come, first serve!

A Peer Review is a way for you to leave feedback for another writer. You can write in-line comments and respond to questions about what you liked about the piece, and leave suggestions you might have for it. Writing and receiving Peer Reviews are a way for you and your peers to improve each other’s work and grow as writers. Here at Write the World, we believe in the importance of drafting and redrafting, and that revision is so much easier (and more fun) when we have eager readers telling us what’s working well and where we might strengthen our craft.

Once you click the “Submit to Competition” button, your submission is final – you will not be able to edit the piece after submission. Consider publishing your piece to the dashboard first so you can receive feedback from your peers. You can continue to revise and republish the piece until you’re ready to submit your final perfected version to the competition!

Final submissions are always due at 11:59 PM in the writer's timezone, wherever they are in the world, on the day that the competition closes.

The word count should be taken as a strong recommendation. We will usually consider pieces within 100 words on either side of the word count, but not if they’re much shorter or longer than that. In general, you should keep in mind that the competition is asking for pieces of a certain length, so fulfilling that expectation means you’re meeting the competition ask – and thus more likely to win!

Our monthly competitions are designed to get you writing across a range of genres throughout the year, so we encourage you to write a new work for each competition, but we will also accept work that has been previously shared with a small, local audience (e.g. a piece that was published in a school journal).

Students who publish their work on Write the World are allowed to republish that work elsewhere, because they retain all ownership rights to their pieces. We do request that the young writers mention in a footnote that it was originally published on Write the World, but we understand that this is not always possible, which is acceptable by our terms. (You can read those terms in full here.)

That being said, you should check to see if the other site or contest has any rules about a piece being published elsewhere first. If you would like a non-competition piece deleted from Write the World so it can be entered elsewhere, you can remove it by locating it in My Writing and deleting the piece by selecting the ellipses menu. If you have any other questions, you can contact us at support@writetheworld.org.

All competition entries should be written primarily by the person who is submitting the piece. That being said, we understand that writing and editing can be collaborative processes. Some competitions are more suited for collaboration than others – for instance, you might collaborate with a friend in our Songwriting Competition to write a melody or play an instrument in your performance. Our rule of thumb: You should always have done the majority of the work.

The power of our writing goes hand in hand with responsibility. Make sure that you’re supporting other people through your writing rather than pulling them down. The types of content that will be removed from the site include, but are not limited to:

• Anything that may be deemed hurtful, defamatory or discriminatory in nature.
• Anything deemed explicit or gratuitously violent.
• Anything referencing self-harm.
• Any commercial posts and/or spam.
• Plagiarism (see more at our Writing Guidelines page).
• Personal contact information—including usernames on social media or other platforms. This is to protect the privacy of our members.
• Links to any external websites, with the exception of links to citations as part of an essay, or including links to illustrations or audio as part of a Write the World competition or prompt.

If a writer posts content that violates our terms or goes against our guidelines, we will remove the post and contact the writer when necessary. Please refer to our Writing Guidelines and site’s terms for further information.