The short-story strand of a university-level Creative Writing entry, invented and written by hand in a two-hour supervised sitting and marked afterwards out of 100.
Creative Writing – Short Story Writing is the fiction strand of a three-part Creative Writing entry on a Punjab-region university zonal youth festival format. Each student invents an original story on paper in a supervised sitting, and the finished script is marked afterwards; nothing is read aloud or performed. The source rules treat Creative Writing as one entry of three participants, one each for poem, short story and essay, judged and awarded separately, and eTalenter models those strands as three items. This page covers the story strand only.
The template gives the item a total sitting of 120 minutes, recorded as one total time rather than a live stage clock, with no warning bell. It runs as an Individual competition for both genders in the Students band (ages 17 to 25), is scored out of 100 marks, and leaves the language open, so check the festival’s own notice for the language or languages allowed.
A round looks like a written exam. Entrants sit together, receive the theme or opening situation and paper at the same moment, and write against the clock with nothing prepared beforehand. Scripts are collected when time is called and handed to the judges. Two hours is long enough to plan a plot, draft it and still copy a clean final version, which changes the strategy compared with a one-hour sitting: a fuller story with a real middle section is realistic.
It is not the same item as the shorter-named Short Story Writing found on Kerala university and diaspora festival templates, which runs to a different time limit, and it is not Story Telling, which is a spoken stage item. Organisers keep it on a youth festival programme because a whole cohort can write in one hall with an invigilator and no stage time to schedule, and it gives narrative-minded students a place beside the poem and essay strands.
Where Creative Writing – Short Story Writing is run
Within eTalenter’s templates this item appears on one template, a Punjab-region university zonal youth festival format, where it sits in the Literacy category between the Poem Writing and Essay Writing strands. The separately named Short Story Writing item used by other university and community templates is a different row. This page claims only what the template data records.
- India (Punjab university zonal youth festival)
Key facts
- Individual competition, open to both genders, in the Students band (ages 17 to 25).
- Written, off-stage item in the Literacy category: marked from the script, not watched live.
- Total sitting of 120 minutes, recorded as a single total with no warning bell.
- Scored out of 100 marks.
- One of three Creative Writing strands on the same template: poem, short story and essay, each judged separately.
- Language is not fixed by the template, so check the festival’s own rules.
On eTalenter, Creative Writing – Short Story Writing is filed under Literacy and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 1 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.
Across the templates that use it, Creative Writing – Short Story Writing is most often entered as an Individual competition, typically scored out of 100, commonly time-limited to around 120 minutes where a limit is set.
What judges look at in Creative Writing – Short Story Writing
What a Creative Writing – Short Story Writing panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:
- Plot: a clear beginning, a turning point and a resolution that is reached inside the sitting, rather than a description or opinion dressed as a story.
- Opening: whether the first paragraph sets the scene or the problem quickly enough to pull the reader in.
- Character: people revealed by what they say and do instead of a list of stated traits.
- Development: with two hours available, judges expect a middle section where the situation actually changes, not a thin outline.
- Language and voice: controlled grammar, varied sentences and a consistent point of view from first line to last.
- Originality and finish: a fresh angle on the prompt, a proper ending, and a legible, cleanly paragraphed final copy.
Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Creative Writing – Short Story Writing under Scoring Setup, or start from the full essay & story writing judging criteria guide.
How to prepare for Creative Writing – Short Story Writing
How entrants and their teachers usually get Creative Writing – Short Story Writing right on the day:
- Rehearse a full 120-minute sitting: about 15 minutes planning, 80 writing, 15 copying neatly and 10 rereading.
- Fix the ending before you write the middle, so the plot has somewhere to go and does not wander.
- Keep to two or three characters and one or two settings; a tight story reads better than a crowded one.
- Practise starting from unfamiliar prompts, such as a single image or a first line, so a surprise theme does not freeze you.
- Read published short stories in your chosen language to study how they open, turn and close.
- Use the last minutes to catch missing words and tighten the final paragraph rather than adding new events.
Ready-made event templates that include Creative Writing – Short Story Writing
Open any template to preview it in eTalenter and install it as a live, editable event.
| Template | Category | Score label | Competitions |
|---|---|---|---|
| PTU Zonal Youth Festival | Literacy | Marks | 1 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Creative Writing – Short Story Writing judged individually or as a team?
Across eTalenter’s templates it’s most often run as an Individual entry, though an organiser can set either participation type when assigning the item to an age group.
Is Creative Writing – Short Story Writing the same as Short Story Writing?
Not on eTalenter’s data. Short Story Writing is a separate item used by other templates with its own time limit; this one is the story strand of a three-part Creative Writing entry with a 120-minute sitting for university students.
How long do entrants get?
The template allows 120 minutes in total for the sitting, with no warning bell.
Is it a solo or a team competition?
Solo. Each entrant writes their own story; the Creative Writing entry as a whole has one participant per strand.
What are the other Creative Writing strands?
Poem Writing and Essay Writing, each judged and awarded separately, with the same 120-minute sitting and 100-mark scale on this template.
Want the full judging picture? Read the full essay & story writing judging criteria guide, or browse every literacy competition item.
Try Creative Writing – Short Story Writing in eTalenter
See every ready-made template that runs Creative Writing – Short Story Writing, and install one as a live event — age groups, rules and scoring included.
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