Evaluation Criteria
Each entry to the competition will be evaluated based on 10 criteria:
- Intentionality (20 points)
- Character Work (15 points)
- Readability (15 points)
- Plot (10 points)
- Marketability (10 points)
- Use of Worldbuilding (10 points)
- Impact (5 points)
- Innovation (5 points)
- Fun (5 points)
- Representation (5 points)
for a total of up to 100 points.
More details on these criteria can be found in this table:
| Intentionality | What we want: to feel the intention of the author in every scene, paragraph, and sentence; for everything to have its own place and to be there for a reason What we don’t want: a story that feels random and all over the place |
| Character Work | What we want: to see that the author really understands the character they’re writing about, whether they’re exploring the backstory of an existing character or creating a new one; for the author to put their character in difficult situations and show how that character would react and change in a way that is authentic to them What we don’t want: inconsistent character behavior (especially for existing characters) |
| Readability | What we want: technically polished prose that reads quickly and easily; concise and to-the-point descriptions and scenes, strong narrator voice and dialogue What we don’t want: difficult-to-understand text, overly long sentences and descriptions, overwriting |
| Plot | What we want: good pacing, thought-out setup and payoff, conflict and tension What we don’t want: clichés, weak endings, rushed plot |
| Marketability | What we want: a strong hook and a good selling point for the story, gripping title, having the target audience in mind What we don’t want: an overcomplicated story that’s difficult to pitch |
| Use of Worldbuilding | What we want: the author taking advantage of the pre-established worldbuilding and expanding on it, including the description of sensory experiences and highlighting the use of the magic system What we don’t want: white room syndrome, contradictions with the existing lore and geography |
| Impact | What we want: a story that makes us laugh, cry, scream, think, or all of the above What we don’t want: A story that tries too hard to do these things, or doesn’t try to do them at all |
| Innovation | What we want: to see the author doing something of their own in whichever part of storytelling they’re most comfortable in, to explore a currently unknown piece of the story and put their own spin on it What we don’t want: something too similar to Winds of Strife, (e.g. another revenge story, or another story that happens solely in Olyanath and places we’ve already seen) |
| Fun | What we want: something for people to say, “Oh, I loved this part!” What we don’t want: A story that feels like a chore to read, or tries too hard to be funny (like new-age Marvel) |
| Representation | What we want: a genuine exploration of a character from an underrepresented group, showing feelings, thoughts, and issues that are specific to them and not necessarily representative of the whole group; having their identity be an important part of how they move through the world without making it the only important part What we don’t want: tokenism (inserting a character with a certain identity just so you can say you did it), relying on stereotypes |
The top 10% of the highest-scoring entries (regardless of the language they are written in) will be promoted to the finals.
All the finalists will be additionally judged on:
- Book hangover potential (10 points)
- Breaking expectations (20 points)
- Addictiveness (20 points)
- Most impactful moment (20 points)
- Overall opinion (30 points)
for a total of 100 additional points, in addition to the points accumulated in the first round.
More details on these criteria can be found in this table:
| Book hangover potential | You know that feeling when you finish a story and coming back to the real world is painful? That. We like that. |
| Breaking expectations | Surprise us. Break a rule of thumb or shock us with a twist that we didn’t see coming. Think outside the box and make us gape at the page (but don’t forget it needs to make sense within the story). |
| Addictiveness | Many things can bring us to never want to put down the book. Maybe it’s a very relatable character, or a scene that has us on the edge of our seat, or maybe just feeling great reading it. We want this feeling in the winning story, a manuscript that will be difficult to put down or stop thinking about. |
| Most impactful moment | In the first round, the overall impact of the story matters more than the impact of individual scenes. However, in the finals, we’re looking for those special moments that we will remember for a very long time. |
| Overall opinion* | Finally, we will take a look at the story as a whole, how it made us feel and how likely we’d be to re-read it? |
*We try to be as non-biased as possible with all of these criteria, except the overall opinion in the final. This will be our place to give points as naturally as possible according to our experience with the story.