How to Win Writing Competitions: Advice From an Award-Winning Writer (45 Awards and Counting)

When you’ve won 45 writing awards, people want to know your secret. So I sat down with Emily, an award-winning writer, and asked her the question every hopeful entrant wants answered: how do you actually win a writing competition?

Her answer was refreshingly straightforward. No gimmicks, no shortcuts — just consistent, deliberate craft-building. Here’s what she told me.

1. Get Trained

Emily’s first piece of advice was simple: invest in your training. That means:

• Take courses. Formal learning sharpens skills that self-teaching often misses.
• Read widely. Reading other writers’ work — both inside and outside your genre — teaches you what works and what doesn’t.
• Attend webinars. Ongoing education keeps you current with what judges and readers are responding to.
• Use good software. The right tools make the writing and editing process smoother, letting you focus on the story instead of the mechanics.

2. Craft the Story — Then Do Your Homework

Talent gets you a first draft. Homework gets you a winning entry. Emily was clear that craft isn’t just about writing well — it’s about understanding your story from the outside in:

• Sit outside your story. Step back and read it as a stranger would. Distance reveals problems that are invisible when you’re too close to the material.
• Try something new. Competitions are flooded with familiar structures and safe choices. Judges notice when a writer takes a risk.
• Ask yourself: does anything leap off the page? If nothing stands out, that’s a sign to revise until something does.

3. Be Careful Who You Trust With Feedback

This was one of Emily’s most pointed pieces of advice: if more than one person is giving you critique, seriously consider whether you need to make a change.

She learned this firsthand. When multiple readers flagged the same issue in her work, she took it seriously, did the rewrite, and the results spoke for themselves — the revised piece made it to the semi-finals, and then the finals.

The lesson: one person’s opinion might just be a preference. But when the same note comes up again and again, it’s usually pointing at something real.

4. Join a Critique Group

Emily strongly recommended finding or forming a critique group, built on a few key principles:

• Read each other’s work. Regular exchange keeps everyone sharp and accountable.
• Build trust. Honest feedback only works if the group feels safe enough to give it.
• Copyright your work. Before sharing drafts widely, especially screenplays, protect what’s yours.

5. Use FilmFreeway

For screenwriters specifically, Emily pointed to FilmFreeway as an essential platform. It’s the world’s largest hub for film festivals and screenplay competitions, and it’s worth the investment.

Entry fees typically run $60–$120 per submission, and there’s no guarantee of success — but even a loss often comes with written feedback, which is valuable in itself. Every entry becomes an opportunity to learn what’s working and what isn’t, straight from industry readers.

6. Show Up in Person

Online tools and courses only go so far. Emily also emphasized the value of face-to-face industry events. She attended the London Screenwriters’ Festival, and came prepared: she brought three postcards, one for each genre she writes in — Romance, Sci-Fi, and Detective — as quick, memorable calling cards to hand out and make connections.

It’s a small, practical example of a bigger point: competitions aren’t won in isolation. Building relationships within the industry matters just as much as the writing itself.

The Takeaway

There’s no shortcut hiding in Emily’s advice — just discipline, humility, and a willingness to revise. Train consistently, know your story inside and out, listen carefully when feedback repeats itself, and put yourself in rooms (and on platforms) where the right people can discover your work.

Forty-five awards later, it’s advice worth following.