After signing up for the online writing competitions many contestants totally forget about the contest. Only in the last minute they try to get back to it and make and produce a rushed through work for submission. You should not take such an approach because it would affect the quality of the work that you submit. One of the first things that you must do is to check the contest guidelines and the contest rules.

You might have attended many writing contests but every single writing contest that you come across is different. Each one will have their own set of rules and guidelines to follow. You should therefore not take the contest guidelines for granted. Before you get started you must first check the rules because that is where you will get all the information you need about the contest. You will know the do’s and don’ts of that respective contest when you read the rules. Without knowing these details, you cannot make a submission that is fully qualified. 

The contest rules should be adhered to completely only then your submissions would be accepted. If you are signing up for the free writing contests you must make sure that you ensure that there are no strings attached. Unless you read the contest rules you will not know whether you would be made to pay in a different form. At times the contest fee is collected in a number of different ways. Some of them charge a fee when you submit the work. They will allow you to submit your work only upon the payment. Initially when you signup for the contest, they will not share this information but when you access the contest information you would find such details under the contest terms and conditions. You do not want to waste your time by ignoring the guidelines. If you want to join only free writing contests then you would have wasted your time on creating the work for submission where you are eventually asked to pay. 

The submission formatting style should also be followed when you participate in the writing contests. You need to therefore pay attention to all these details before you sign up. After working hard on creating a highly impressive piece of work, if your work is rejected just because it failed to comply with the submission format then it would be such a great waste of time. 

All that it takes is a few minutes of your time before you get to do anything about the contest submission. As soon as you access the contest details after signing up, double check the details in the contest guidelines. This will help you travel in the correct direction right from day one. In case you do not understand any of the terms and conditions or rules you would still have time to contact the contest organizer and have things clarified so that you know what exactly is expected of you before you get started.