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! You can find the current competition under “Featured Competitions” halfway through the page. Click “View Competition” to learn more. 
3. When you’re ready to write, click “Join Competition” and start writing! Your draft will automatically save. You can also click “Save as Draft” and name that version for later if you want to return to it.
4. Click “Continue to Enter.” In the box that pops up, you can check off one or more of the following options:
   • Would you like to request an Expert Review? The first 50 people to submit a draft before Wednesday, September 11, 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.
   • Would you like to ask for Peer Reviews? This will allow other writers to review your work.
5. Once you’ve made your selections, click “Enter.” At that point, you will automatically be entered into the competition. All entries will be published on Write the World’s website. You can return to the piece and edit it (we recommend that you continue to revise your draft based on feedback from your peers and Expert Review!) as many times as you want until the competition closes and judging begins. We will judge the most recently updated version of your entry.

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 as much as you like before the competition deadline. 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.

The use of AI-generated content is NOT permitted in competition entries. In fact, we review entries with AI writing detectors and human readers; any entry that includes AI-generated text will be disqualified. You may use AI as a brainstorming tool, as explained by our Guest Judge Jennifer Lewy – but every word of your draft should be entirely your own.

We’ve taken this stance because our competitions are focused on recognizing and celebrating original work. At present, we do not have a rubric for evaluating AI-generated content (which is its own separate skillset from original writing). Also, competition winners sometimes have the opportunity to publish their winning piece in external publications that do not allow AI use.

That said, our rules around using AI for competitions is different than Write the World’s approach to AI for other writing on the site! AI can be a helpful tool as you craft a piece. Check out our statement on AI here.

Once you have entered, you can return to the piece and edit it as many times as you want until the competition deadline. We recommend that you continue to revise your draft based on feedback from your peers and Expert Review!

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.