Contests & Challenges - Ready Chapter 1

Test your story in the forums. Then give it a trial by fire.

Already signed up? Click here to access the Peer Critique Forum.

The Ready Chapter 1 community is built by writers, for writers, with tech-enabled tools to help writers thrive. Notice the common thread? In our Peer Critique Forum, writers swap feedback to create a Story Score for each scene or chapter they submit. It’s a great go-to for critique of your work in progress and, when you’re ready, a chance to get in front of agents!

Win a critique from a literary agent.

The three top-ranked stories in each challenge will receive a critique of their first ten pages from our faculty of literary agents and industry gatekeepers. This level of feedback can help you identify exactly what’s right with your story and what will make it ready for submission. And maybe, just maybe, some magic will happen.

Upcoming Events

Built by writers, for writers.

Win a critique from a literary agent.

We’ll let you know when each challenge opens.

Some of our challenges are community-wide; others are exclusive for RC1 Pro members. But no matter what, you’ll get the email when the next one opens for which you are eligible. Here’s how to make sure you’re in the know.

If you don’t already have one, create a FREE account on our Peer Critique Forum. Challenges are held in the forum, and each contest category will appear when submissions open.
Review the required number of entries from fellow writers to ‘earn’ your entry.
Post the opening 500 words of your latest work of fiction in any genre.

Collectively, the community picks the top story, but everybody wins in the end. You’ll not only receive valuable feedback from fellow writers on your first pages but also contribute to the growth and development of an entire writing ecosystem. If the feedback helps you on your journey, stick around! You can give and receive daily feedback on longer sections of your story in our regular forum categories.

Level up your entries!

Our challenges shuffle back and forth from First Pages to Pitch contests, and we’ve got a couple of giveaways to help you get ready. Check out this Where Should My Story Start? worksheet to help with your first pages and this Jacketflap Copy Worksheet for the pitch challenge. Both of these are from our Total Story Accelerator program and will help you prepare the best version of your entries.

You can’t level up without feedback

RC1 is designed to discover writers who are ready to be published. But we were all brand new once, so we’re making space for writers at all levels. No matter what stage you’re at on your journey, our Peer Feedback Forum is intended to be a safe place for you and your ideas.

It’s really, truly, totally 100% FREE

RC1 has a paid pro-level membership designed for career driven storytellers actively submitting their work, but we’re making sure there are also free opportunities for regular members to get discovered. We hope you’ll help us spread the word about our community and, as we grow, pave a new path for writers everywhere.

Contest Rules

RC1 is a professional writing community. Please read each entry that you judge fully and take the time necessary to write specific feedback for each entry. Anyone found trying to game the system, Christmas tree their answers, copy and paste the same review, etc, will be disinvited from future participation. (Basically, just be good to each other.)
At RC1, we give first. The system will tell you how many posts you need to judge before posting yours.
One entry per person per contest.
Once you’ve submitted, we’re asking you not to edit so remember to polish before you post.
Don’t post something that’s already a winner. If you’ve won a previous contest, great! Hit us with something brand new.
If you’re having trouble, please ask questions in the Site Feedback category. We don’t expect everything to work perfectly on the first try, so thanks for being patient.
Contests will open at 9 a.m. EST on Tuesdays and close at 8 p.m. EST on Thursdays. At that point, your posts will convert to read-only and may disappear while we tabulate the winners.
Old contests will disappear forever after a week, so remember to review your scores and critique notes.

FAQs

How many times can I enter?
Just once per contest, please.

You said entries should be 500 words, but I can post 514 (or some other number)?
Right now, we can only limit the number of characters, not words. And we want our sesquipedalian writers to be able to post 500 words, too. So after trial and error, we chose 2900 characters as a good estimate of 500 words. If you can fit in 514 words, go for it.

What if I’m one of the very first entries and there aren’t enough posts to review yet?
If there are fewer than the required number of entries, review what you can, then the system will allow you to post your entry!

Ak! I signed up but I can’t find the contest entry page.
So sorry this happened. Our system uses email authentication to log you in, so when you go this login page, it will send you a verification email link. Once you’ve clicked that link, you’ll be automatically logged in and redirected to the forum. If there are any hiccups, click here to get to the forum and see all the categories. Navigate to the contest category, give your five reviews to ‘earn’ your entry, then enter the contest with the “Start a New Post” button. If you’re still having trouble, email us at team at readychapter1 dot com.

Can anyone enter? Even if I’ve already been published?
RC1 is designed to help writers at every level, including those who have already had books published. While we think this is a great place to test out your first pages and new ideas, please don’t enter stories that have been published.

How do I give a review?
Be honest. Be kind. (Be both, actually.) The review has two parts. The first is a quick, gut-level 1-5 assessment of the piece. Don’t overthink it, just remember that what’s most helpful is knowing a relative strength and weakness. If it’s mostly level-3 writing, is there any aspect that’s a 4? A 2? The second part will ask you for two sentences: one that mentions a highlight, and one that mentions something that needs work.

Any rules for reviews?
Our goal is that all feedback is helpful and actionable for the person receiving it. Qualifying reviews include something positive to encourage the writer, something they can work on, and should be at least 75 words. Please take thirty seconds to write something specific to each entry you review. Participants can be disqualified if their reviews don’t meet community standards.

How will you pick the winners?
First, we’ll check the posts to make sure each poster has reviewed five other posts, hasn’t been a troll, and hasn’t copied and pasted the same response. Then, of the folks that meet those requirements, we’ll choose the three entries with the highest overall scores. (If, for some reason, we have several people with the exact same score, we’ll be really surprised. And then we’ll assign them numbers, and pick three randomly.)

What’s the story here? What are you guys REALLY up to at Ready Chapter 1?
Like you, we’re a bunch of writers. We’ve got some out-of-the-box ideas to leverage tech-enabled tools (like this contest) to discover new talent. And guess what? Publishers are taking notice. As we become more and more comfortable giving each other measurable, constructive feedback, we’ll become a go-to writing community that publishers trust to deliver market-ready stories. Everyone wins.