Posted by Linds Bayes (Community & Marketing Manager) in 2020 Short Story Competition
It’s back!

We are reprising our short story competition, BUT with a twist! This year, we will be opening it up to anyone who wishes to participate, including those outside of STF. So long as people adhere to the rules, they are welcome to participate. We’re hoping to generate some community building as well as just plain have some fun. Here’s the gist:

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Short Story Competition:

Date Announced: April 6, 2020

Submission Period Opens: 1 May 2020,
Submission Period Closes: 15 May 2020, 0000 Hours EDT (this time zone will be used for all applicable deadlines)

Panel Review: 16 - 31 May 2020

Shortlist Announced and Posted: 31 May 2020

Voting Period: 1-7 June 2020

Winners announced: 8 June 2020

Process:

1. Fan Fiction stories are written and submitted by deadline.
2. The Moderator (Linds) assigns each story a number and gives them to the panel.
3. Panelists read every story and score them on a number of factors.
4. Short list created by adding scores from each panelist and choosing the top five. Any ties will be broken by the panel beforehand.
5. Shortlisted stories are posted in Ten Forward for everyone to read.
6. Everyone votes for their favourite via an external poll set up. Link will be posted in Ten Forward and as a news item.
7. Top votes win (there can be ties).
8. Top three stories noted and their names/club affiliation and links to their stories put up on the Ten Forward MOTD.

Submission Rules:

1. Must be written in English (choice of style of English- American, British etc- doesn’t matter).
2. Must comply with the STF Terms of Service ( https://www.star-fleet.com/core/legal/ ).
3. No less than 1000 words and no more than 5000 words. [see Note below]
4. Must be set in the Star Trek Universe as fan fiction.
5. Must be written in full sentences, with coherent spelling and grammar.
6. Needs to have a title.
7. One submission per person.
8. DO NOT include your name in the story. All submissions will be kept anonymous through the judging and voting phases. But please include your name (and club affiliation) in your email if it is not obvious by your email address.
9. Submissions can be in Word, OpenOffice or PDF, but please make sure you do not include your name in any place but your email.
10. If you are including any STF/other RPG characters that are not your own, you must have permission from the character’s owner before using them in your story. This may be checked so make sure it’s in writing.

All entries are to be submitted to me at stflinds@gmail.com with your name ONLY in the email itself, not the story. I will take each entry, assign it a number and then forward it to the panel who will then read and mark all stories. I will let you know when your entry is received, so if you don’t get a reply from me, your entry hasn’t been received.

Panel: Silke Fahl, Steve Johnson and Iain Foggarty

Please make sure you have read through all these guidelines as any stories not meeting them will be disqualified. You’ve been warned. ;)

Panelist Scoring:

Rated on a scale of 1-5 (5 being highest)

1. Spelling and grammar, and story structure: Do they spell words properly (American and British English are both allowed) and use proper grammar. Do they use proper paragraphs and dialogue?

2. Story Concept: Is the story original? Engaging? Fun and interesting to read? Does it adhere mostly to Star Trek canon? (ie. doesn’t take known events and change them for kicks, but twists on things are fun as it is fan fiction)

3. Characterization: Are the characters believable? Well described?

4. Plot: Is there a beginning, middle and end? Does it flow well, make sense?

5. Overall mark: Out of 10- 1, poor, 5 fair, 10 amazing

Each total scored out of 30. Scores are then combined from the panelists for a mark out of 90.

[Note] 5000 words= ~ 7 pages at 10 point

Via Wikipedia: “As a point of reference for the science fiction genre writer, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America define short story length Nebula Awards for science fiction submission guidelines as having a word count of less than 7,500.”

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So get writing and have fun!

~Linds, CMM

I’m bumping this because I was looking for it and couldn’t find it.

Joe