Every writer dreams of winning a short story competition at some point. It is one of those sweet dreams that push you towards writing better and fills you with the essential motivation to keep doing the lonely task of writing well. 

But the real question is:  what does it take to be one of the winning few? Is it just the quality of writing or do other elements like the topic for the story competition have some weightage too? 

We think and so do countless editors that the topic for the story writing competition definitely has a lot of relevance. The quality of writing matters but the choice of topic can make or break the winning entry. 

{Check out this list of 40 Literary Magazines to Submit Short-stories, Non fiction and Poetry in India}

Why Focus on the Topic for a Story Writing Competition?

Here’s why: 

1. If you have ever scoured Twitter, where the lit mag twitterati resides, then you will know that many times editors post about the kind of stories they are looking for. For example, recently an editor from the acclaimed lit mag Cimarron Review had asked for fiction about characters with irrational fears where the story explores how they come to have it and what they did with it. Editors are human, and sometimes they have an affinity towards certain topics more than others. Just like we read certain genres at certain times and stages of life.
   
2. All Story Writing Competitions have judges. And judges have their own choices, likes, desires and authors they admire. Knowing more about the judges and what kind of writing they like, and how they themselves write helps in knowing what kind of topics they would enjoy reading. 

{Check out this list of 22 Literary Magazines in Hindi – Publish Poetry, Short Stories, and Non-fiction Online}

12 Themes or Topics for Story Writing Competition

We have divided our list into three areas –

1. The Classics: which are evergreen topics of comparatively sombre theme. These topics always work for story-writing competitions because they deal directly with the human condition.
   
2. The Unusual: These are topics that you wouldn’t think could win these prizes, topics far from the spectrum of emotionality that we operate in, they are weird and at times can make us uncomfortable.
   
3. The In-Between: These are topics that probably aren’t very loaded in themselves, they are neither too familiar nor too weird. They are likely to not get a particular response of like and dislike from your editor. In fact, these are topics that can shine just through the power of your writing. 

{You can submit your short stories to these 15 Contests and Awards for Short stories in India}

The Classics

1. Issues or Hardships in Marriage or Love

A topic for having a shot at a story writing competition that can be written with great variance and depth is the topic of an affair, love, relationship or marriage falling apart. One does not need to reach into the prize winners of yesteryears to impose the point that marriage or relationship is a great topic for a story writing competition because there is a range of short stories written by the masters of the short story – from Katherine Mansfield’s Bliss to John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums.

2. Loss of Home/Identity in a New Land

A lot of literature in the past few decades has found its strength in writing about the loss of home. Probably, we as a generation are facing it so intensely for the first time in this unique way when globalisation, fast travel and many border crisis have reached their peak. 

And so when we see a winning story such as ‘A Simple Animal’ by Pallavi Wagharkhar published in Iowa Review, we are not in a bit of shock. It captures many things such as modern dating, and grief but at heart talks of identity and home. Home in places, in people, in memory is a powerful thing. And a great idea as a topic for a story writing competition.

3. Familial Relationships

If you are good at finding patterns then reading the previous two topics for story writing competitions, you would have noticed that all these story topics relate to either intimate relationships or intimate spaces. So we thought this list is not complete without the larger umbrella of familial relationships as a good topic. Family, close or far, even friends for family is a powerful theme. Universal and conflict-prone, as readers we are always looking to understand our lives better through these stories and find the courage to do the hard work that familial relationships require. You could write about your aunt, your father’s estranged brother who you grew closer to as you aged, or the little five-year-old in your house and the searing questions they can ask. 

The story that won The Paris Review’s 2021 Plimpton Prize for emerging writers took a similar path, even more so when it named itself ‘Brothers and Sisters’. It was written by Chetna Maroo who is a British Indian author and currently her novel Western Lane is in line for the 2023 Booker. 

4. Grief

Grief is powerful and the stories written from that place usually take the reader with them. It could be a story about the loss of a pet and how that takes over us so entirely, and no one tells us that losing a pet could be so hard. Grief does not depend on enormity, there are smaller griefs, daily griefs. It is a vast subject that does not even have to be a direct theme in itself or a direct topic for the story writing competition that you’re applying to. It can be used as a sub-theme to a larger story that you are writing. There are far too many good stories here. 

Check out this story by Rowan Beaird called Perennial that won the Ploughshares Emerging Writers Content in 2017-18. 

5. Motherhood/Child Loss/Infertility

Some of the most visceral stories ever written, stories that gut us and pierce our hearts and stay there for a good while are written on the topic of motherhood, on loss relating to it, or the relationship between mothers and their children. All of us have mothers and it might be safe to say that we have complex relationships with them which is why it is so universal. Having this as the topic for a story-writing competition and doing it the required justice will definitely enhance your chances of getting shortlisted.

Here is this winning story by Casey Gentry Quinn that won the second prize in the Masters’ Review 2022-23 Winter Short Story Award which was judged by Morgan Talty, author of the short story collection Night of the Living Rez. The story is about infertility and how that can affect couples but the setting is magnificent and otherworldly under full moons and whatnot. So different the setting is that it takes us to our next segment – The most Unusual topics for story writing competitions.

{Here’s How will beta reading improve your story?}

The Unusual

6. Commodification/Famous People/Fame 

The winner of the Donald Barthelme Award for short fiction last year was a story that had us in stitches – of all sorts. It was funny surely, it was a beautiful cocktail of soothsaying and apocalyptical fiction concocted with a not-so-experimental form. This story was titled Taylor Swift and it was a searing commentary on what the world has done to her, and what the world does to its idols in general. 

This story is so unusual that the judge Steve Almond himself said that he tried to resist prizing this entry with all his might. And so that’s the thing, you can write any story well if you know what you are doing and no idea is a bad idea when it comes to choosing a topic for a story writing competition.

7. A Thing or Object – Carmen Maria Egg
   

When choosing a topic for a story writing competition, sometimes you don’t have to look deeply within yourself, you don’t even have to look far, you can probably just open your fridge and look at the top shelf in the door area. You might find an egg there, and then you might think of writing a good, really good story around it. Perhaps that’s what the PEN and Lambda Literary award-winning author Carmen Maria Machado did when she wrote this story. 

She wrote 15 observations around an egg and we think that just goes to show the range of emotions and ideas that everyday objects or things generate within us.

In the same way, you would do good with reading The Mark On The Wall, where Virginia Woolf, one of the greatest writers of our times wonders about everything by looking at the mark on the wall. The story isn’t about that thing or object but through that thing or object. 

8. A Bizarre Setting – rainmaking
   

In the shop of unusual topics for story writing competitions, you should definitely check out the item that is creating a mesmerizing and bizarre setting. A bizarre setting with similarly bizarre characters and a sense of the unknown are great themes for story-writing competitions. Judges are usually receptive when writers can deliver an entirely new sense of place. 

I think a story that greatly does this is Rainmaking by Lindsay Drager which was published by the acclaimed litmag Conjunctions for its 80th issue. 

{Brush up your knowledge of 17 Types of Creative Writing}

The In-Between

10. A Budding Friendship

A budding friendship is a sweet, tender theme that when done with skill allows the reader to experience and reminiscence the warmth of friendship. People get busy with their families or work and life goes on, and somehow friendships become a thing of the past. So it is definitely ranking high in our list of topics for story writing competitions compared to other things.

11. Coming-of-Age

Everyone is asking: Is Coming-of-Age done as a genre? Is it? Yet we see countless stories and novels where its characters are coming of age. So we don’t think it is done, because it too, is an evergreen topic. 

The reason that this topic wields the power it does is because it captures the times the character is growing up in. For years and years, readers have read coming-of-age fiction because of its ability to tell us what is the nature of certain youth of our times. It captures the younger values, ideas and sensibilities of a place or time.

Conclusion

When writing for a competition, it is important to consider everything and topics are no less important. But keep in mind that the themes mentioned above are simply suggestions and the central idea is to find something that truly matters to you because that is what brings true depth to a work. 
The thing that really makes any topic and any idea come to life in a brilliant manner is the craft or skill of the writer. All the above-mentioned stories have one thing in common – they are extremely chiselled and every word used is intentional. Craft takes time and work. We have HWR have some craft-focused courses like Kritika Pandey’s Short Story Writing Workshop, the Creative Writing Course or the Writing Masterclass with Jerry Pinto.