TOI Write India: Introduction

Times of India is a big media giant, and hence a big platform for one to showcase his talent on. So their Write India competition is a very promising venture indeed. For more details of this section, please read on.

Write India campaign is a short story writing competition organized by Times of India in collaboration with 11 eminent authors from across the country. The aim of the campaign is to showcase the talent and passion in Indians for writing stories. The tagline for the competition is 'No one can tell your story better than you.'

This section will have all the stories that I write as my submission to these competitions. One story every month hardly sounds like a bad deal. Given that the results take about one and a half months to come out, I am starting this section about two months late. Copyright issues prevent me from putting up stories before I know what the result is. On the bright side, even if I don't win, you guys get a story. On the brighter side, I missed the deadline for the first two stories, so you get those as soon as possible. On the brightest side, I am scouring the net for others like me who participated in the competition. If I life what they did with the passages, I might convince them to share their stories here as well!

How does it all work, really?

Starting July 2015, every month, one author releases a passage to help people kick start their stories. The participants have till the end of the month to submit their story (which must include said passage anywhere in it). The TOI Write India experts cell then goes through the stories and short lists the top 50, and then uses input from the author who reads and critiques them himself to funnel out the top 10. Finally the names of the top 10, and the three best stories are decided and released.

The best story of each month wins its author an Amazon Kindle, and a chance to sit in a writing workshop conducted by the famous authors at the end of the year. Apart from this, there are many goodies also in the offing that one has a chance to win.

Are there rules?

The following are the rules of Write India contest:

1. Read carefully the passage provided by the author to help kickstart your story. You can use this passage at the beginning, anywhere in the middle, or the end of your story, but you must use it.
2. Each author has provided some rules he/she would like you to follow. Stick to the rules please.
3. Stick to a minimum of 1500 words, and a maximum of 2000-2500 words.
4. The story must be written in English. Be careful with your editing, grammar, and punctuation.
5. Please submit your story before the last day of the contest for it to be considered.
6. If you send more than one entry, we will be considering only the last one sent.

So who are these authors?

The winners of all the authors, as announced are updated on this page.

1. The author for July is Amish.

His competition is now ended. You can read my story for this competition here.

2. The author for August is Chetan Bhagat.

His competition is now ended. The winners will be announced on November 15th.

3. The author for September is Ashwin Sanghi.

His competition is now ended. The winners will be announced on December 15th.

4. The author for October is Ravi Subramanian.

His competition is currently active and closes on November 30th.

5.The author for November is Preeti Shenoy.

Her competition will begin on November 7.

6. The author for December is Tuhin A. Sinha.

His competition will begin December 7.

7. The author for January 2016 is Ravinder Singh.

His competition begins on January 7, 2016.

8. The author for February 2016 is Durjoy Datta.

His competition starts February 7, 2016.

9. The author for March 2016 is Madhuri Banerjee.

Her competition starts March 7, 2016.

10. The author for April of 2016 is Jaishree Misra.

Her competition begins April 7, 2016.

11. The author for May 2016 is Anita Nair,

Her competition starts on the 7th of May 2016.