Marking Guidelines

Here are the elements of your story which we will be judging your entries on. Your story will be rated out of /30. At the end of the competition, if you request, we could send you your results. 

Title/Description (2 marks) -

The title and description are what readers first see in a story so whether they will read it or not depends on this first impression. You will be judged on the interest that your title and description provokes from the readers and us.

Plot/Storyline (10 marks) -

This is a very important point. You will be judged on the creativity, detail, twists, etc of the storyline. We are looking for something that is interesting, thus we have given you a theme that has infinite possibilities to explore.

Grammar/Spelling (10 marks) - 

Please make sure you have your tenses, syntax, punctuation, etc and spelling correct. You can easily get a good mark if your work is edited or beta'd. The quality of your writing falls heavily onto these points.

Characterisation (5 marks) -

We aren't looking for overused, cliched characters, make them different, make them memorable!. Incorporate real characters. Make more believeable characters. Develop them. Give them a personality, a voice. Do they have likes, dislikes, habits, pet peeves? Objectives? How are they going about acheiving their objectives? Just some tips. (exception to this rule if you are writing crackfic)

Flow/Structure (3 marks) -

We're looking for a good flow to your story. It doesn't mean you can't suddenly jump to the future or the past. The structure can be very subjective as you decide how you would like to format it but we would like it to make sense.

Overall - ?/30

Remember. Don't just tell the story. Show us your story. :)