A written fiction competition, scored off-stage on plot, characterisation and language within a set word limit.
Story Writing is eTalenter’s solo written-fiction item: each entrant is given a topic, character, opening line or picture prompt and a fixed sitting in which to compose a short story from scratch, and the finished piece is marked afterwards rather than watched or read aloud. It sits in the Literacy, Off Stage or Written category depending on the template’s own scheme, and it is always scored as marks rather than a rating – out of a hundred in most school, university and diaspora-festival templates, or on a compact ten-point scale in church youth-wing talent tests that mark quickly across a large entry list. Language is set per template: English, Malayalam or Hindi in most South Asian sources, Marathi specifically in a Maharashtra university circuit, or left open where a talent test accepts any language its entrants choose.
A round is run the same way Essay Writing’s is – entrants sit together, receive the prompt and paper at the same moment, and write against the clock with no drafts or reference material to hand, so the time recorded is a single total for the sitting rather than a per-head stage clock. Where eTalenter’s templates set a time it ranges widely: 45 minutes in a secondary-school arts festival, 60 minutes in the platform’s own generic literary-festival template, 90 minutes in a diaspora kalotsavam and a full two hours in a university circuit’s college-level round, two of which set a warning bell exactly one minute before time is called. Two church youth-wing talent tests run it with no fixed time limit at all, marking the finished piece however long it takes.
A strong entry does what Essay Writing’s does not need to: invent a plot with a beginning, middle and end, give its characters a voice through action and dialogue rather than description alone, and sustain a consistent narrative point of view throughout – first person, third person, or, more rarely at younger ages, an unreliable narrator used deliberately rather than by accident. Judges read for the same craft a published short story is read for in miniature: a hook that draws the reader into the first paragraph, a middle that develops rather than repeats the opening idea, and an ending that resolves the story’s own question rather than trailing off once the time is nearly up.
Organisers keep it alongside Essay Writing rather than in place of it because the two competitions test different instincts even though they share a sitting format and a judging guide: Essay Writing rewards developing an argument or an observation, while Story Writing rewards inventing and sustaining a plot. Offering both gives entrants who think in narrative a competition suited to that strength, separate from the argumentative or descriptive prompts an essay sets – and because both are off-stage and written, a school or festival can run large entry lists for each in parallel sittings without needing separate stage time.
Where Story Writing is run
Story Writing appears under exactly that name across eTalenter’s own generic school-arts, literary-festival and youth-festival templates, a CBSE-affiliated Kerala school-complex kalotsav’s older class categories, a Maharashtra university’s inter-collegiate youth festival (run specifically in Marathi), a diaspora Malayalee community kalotsavam in the UAE, and two church youth-wing talent tests that mark it quickly on a compact ten-point scale rather than a hundred-mark sheet. Across every source it skews toward older entrants than Essay Writing does – none of the real-world templates in the dataset offer it to their youngest age category, and eTalenter’s own templates likewise restrict or weight it toward the upper secondary band – consistent with a fiction-writing task needing more sustained composition ability than a shorter written response.
- India – Kerala (a CBSE-affiliated school-complex kalotsav and church youth-wing talent tests, at their older age categories)
- India – Maharashtra (a university’s inter-collegiate youth festival, run in Marathi)
- The UAE (a diaspora Malayalee community kalotsavam)
- No fixed country or region for eTalenter’s own generic school-arts, literary-festival and youth-festival templates, which any organiser installs and edits for their own event
Key facts
- Solo, individual entry in every template that carries it – no team version exists.
- Off Stage / Written / Literacy category, marked from the submitted piece rather than watched live.
- Always scored as marks, never a rating: out of a hundred in most school, university and diaspora-festival templates, or a compact ten-point scale in untimed church youth-wing talent tests.
- Time allotted, where set, ranges from 45 minutes to a full 2 hours, with two real-world talent tests running it untimed instead.
- Restricted to older entrants everywhere it appears – no template in the dataset offers it to its youngest age category.
- Language is set per template – English, Malayalam or Hindi most commonly, Marathi specifically in one university circuit, or left open in church youth-wing talent tests.
On eTalenter, Story Writing is filed under Literacy, Off Stage, Written and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 8 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.
Across the templates that use it, Story Writing is most often entered as an Individual competition, typically scored out of 100, commonly time-limited to 10–120 minutes where a limit is set.
What judges look at in Story Writing
What a Story Writing panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:
- Plot – a story with a real beginning, middle and end within the sitting, not a description or an opinion dressed up as narrative.
- Characterisation – characters shown through action, dialogue and detail rather than simply told to the reader in a list of traits.
- Narrative voice and point of view – a consistent first- or third-person perspective sustained across the whole piece, rather than drifting between them.
- Language and vocabulary – grammar, sentence variety and word choice suited to the entrant’s age group, exactly as Essay Writing is judged, but applied to dialogue and description rather than argument.
- Originality – a story that goes beyond the most obvious reading of the prompt; judges mark down entries that read as a well-worn plot template rather than the entrant’s own invention.
- Legibility and pacing – handwriting a marker can read at speed, and a story that reaches a real ending within the time rather than being cut off mid-scene or padded to fill it.
Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Story Writing under Scoring Setup, or start from the full essay & story writing judging criteria guide.
How to prepare for Story Writing
How entrants and their teachers usually get Story Writing right on the day:
- Practise inventing and finishing a plot inside a fixed time, not just writing fluently – a story cut off mid-scene loses more marks than a shorter one that reaches a real ending.
- Plan the shape of the story in a minute or two before writing – who the characters are, what happens, and how it ends – so the middle of the piece develops rather than wanders.
- Write dialogue and action rather than only description; a scene shown through what a character says and does reads stronger than the same event simply narrated.
- Keep the language natural for the entrant’s own age and fluency rather than reaching for words that don’t come easily under time pressure – judges credit control over ambition.
- Practise the same prompt-to-plot leap under a clock at home, since the real constraint on the day is turning an unfamiliar prompt into a finished story in one sitting, not editing a story already planned.
- Leave a couple of minutes at the end to reread rather than writing until time is called – catching a missing word or an unclear sentence matters more than one extra paragraph.
Ready-made event templates that include Story Writing
Open any template to preview it in eTalenter and install it as a live, editable event.
| Template | Category | Score label | Competitions |
|---|---|---|---|
| CSI Youth Kalamela | Off Stage | Marks | 1 |
| Fine Arts Festival | Off Stage | Marks | 4 |
| Literary Festival | Off Stage | Marks | 10 |
| Malappuram Sahodaya Kalotsav | Off Stage | Marks | 6 |
| University of Mumbai Youth Festival | Literacy | Marks | 1 |
| PYPA Talent Test | Written | Marks | 3 |
| Youth Festival | Off Stage | Marks | 7 |
| Yuvakalasahithy UAE Kalotsavam | Off Stage | Marks | 6 |
Frequently asked questions
Is 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 Story Writing the same as Essay Writing?
They’re closely related written-composition items that often share a judging guide, but they’re usually listed as separate competitions: Essay Writing marks a discursive or descriptive piece on a set topic, while Story Writing marks an invented narrative with its own plot and characters. Check the specific event’s item list rather than assuming one covers the other.
Is Story Writing the same as Story Telling?
No. Story Telling is a spoken, on-stage item – the entrant narrates live and is judged on delivery – while Story Writing is written in a single off-stage sitting and marked from the finished page afterwards.
How long is a Story Writing sitting?
It varies widely by event: eTalenter’s templates that set a time allow anywhere from 45 minutes to a full 2 hours, and a couple of real-world talent tests run it with no fixed time limit at all. The exact allowance is set per event and age group.
Can I write in any language?
It depends on the event. Some templates fix one language – English, Malayalam, Hindi or Marathi are the ones recorded in the dataset – while a couple of church youth-wing talent tests leave the language open to whatever the entrant is comfortable writing in.
Want the full judging picture? Read the full essay & story writing judging criteria guide, or browse every literacy competition item.
Try Story Writing in eTalenter
See every ready-made template that runs Story Writing, and install one as a live event — age groups, rules and scoring included.
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