I read a writer's magazine a while ago which gave a free booklet of tips for people sending stories to competitions. It is worth sharing with you the most important ones. First, if a story is requested at 2000 words, you must make sure you reach and do not go over 2000 words. It has to be correctly typed and punctuated - you cannot expect the editor to put it right once you have written it. And lastly, the tip I really had not understood before - you must send short stories to competitions as early as possible. I read that many publications that hold short story competitions will pick the winners as they come across them and entries sent late will often not be read at all! As my habit was so often to send a story on the last possible day I feel a bit miffed that it was probably binned whilst still in its envelope. Hope these tips help you all out there.