Hello Everyone! Today I’ve got some big and exciting news regarding the multiple fiction-related rubrics the club uses. There is also some recap regarding our most recent fiction release.

One Rubric To Rule Them All

To date, this club has utilized quite a few different fiction rubrics. Several variants of standard fiction, ACC, and run-on have all been developed. This has led to some discrepancies between them, along with complications to what is expected within club fiction. To help combat that, we have taken some of the best bits of each and rolled them into a universal fiction rubric. That's right, a standard scale and percentages for fiction, co-ops, run-ons, and the ACC.

It is the culmination of many brilliant minds working on the rubrics we have had over the years, condensed down into one resource.

This new rubric can be found here. (Copy this doc each time you run a comp to use it)

Rubric Categories, Scale, and Weight

Like the previous “main” fiction rubric, this one is divided up into four categories: Syntax, Creativity, Realism, and Story. Pulling from the ACC Rubric (and the Graphics Rubric) the scale for each of these categories is set as a 1 to 5.

This move from 1 to 4 gives a bit more granularity to the scoring system, as well as allows for the over all concept to be: very bad, bad, decent, good, very good.

Each of the four categories has a suggested default weight. These will be the standard going forward. However, the scoring page makes it very easy for a competition runner to set their own weights for what specifically they would like out of the competition. I’ll explain that further down.

Syntax is worth 15% of the total score. This score is based upon the adherence to standard English. This includes vocabulary, capitalization, punctuation, and formatting. In multi-authored fiction (such as co-op, run-ons, or the ACC) syntax also includes the presentation of the submission as a uniform body of work.

Creativity is also worth 15% of the total score. This score is the spark of unique inspiration wiithin the fiction. This can range from narrative styling, unique interactions with skills and powers found on the Character sheet, or fun utilization of possessions found in loadouts.

Realism is worth 30% of the total score and is a bit more complicated than previous rubrics. For fiction types such as co-ops, run-ons, and ACC battles, realism now includes the continuity score. This score is based on following the Dark Brotherhood canon, character sheet system, character loadouts, and general Star Wars universe.

Continuity: In fiction types with multiple posters, Continuity is considered part of the Realism score. This means posts should not ignore previously established events within the fiction written by other parties. Continuity also factors into the general flow of the multi-author fiction, allowing the story to be read as a whole."

Story is worth the most at 40% of the total score. This score is based on the sophistication of the writing, distinctiveness of the story, development of objectives, motivations, and actions taken. The better the story, the more the reader is invested in the narrative. This is the most important factor of all fiction within the Brotherhood. The telling of a compelling narrative is key to a well-done fiction submission.

Now obviously, it is still possible to result in an exact tie of points. While you are encouraged to set your own tie-breaking criteria, it is recommended it come down to which piece of work you personally liked better. As much as we try to maintain objective scoring for these things, at the end of the day all things do have a subjective component, so just pick one.

Scoring Sheet

Included as part of the rubric is a fully functional scoring sheet. This is based on a format I stole borrowed from Atra that we use when handling large Vendetta competitions.

This sheet works for both a single judge or comparing scores with two. If for some reason you have more than two people judging a fiction comp, Howie would probably urge you not to. But it shouldn’t take a lot of work to just average the scores yourself.

Hopefully, it is pretty self-explanatory how this page works. You can place the participant’s name, followed by a score of 1-5 in each of the four categories. It will calculate the total based on the default weights. If you are scoring a comp by yourself, the results sheet pulls from the left set of scores when sorting for the winner. (Two Judges should be the same order, but score totals will be half of what they are otherwise)

IF you wish to run a competition with different weights, the conversion factor is pretty easy. After you know the total of all categories is 100%, just move the decimal over a place and put it in the colored cells above the category names. So if you wanted Syntax to be 20% of the grade, you would place a 2.0 there, and reduce one of the others by .5.

While for most of you, the default scale should work just fine, those of you who want to hone in on specific components should be able to do so with this sheet.

The third included sheet on the rubric is the placements. This will automatically sort the scores in order and tell you who placed. The only thing you need to pay attention to here is to look for tied scores, at which point you will need to make some sort of judgment to split them.

Shadows Unveiled

Our most recent fiction pulled back the curtain on the Children of Mortis, the long-awaited new Force using enemy. Coming out of the last Great Jedi War, the number one thing we heard regarding plot and story was that people wanted a Force using enemy group to face off against. While the Seer did play a large role in the RoS last summer, the story group elected to hold off on dropping any more details about them (A bit from the Seer announcing their name was originally included in the closing fiction).

There is a lot more to come about them but lets address some of the comments/questions that I have seen pop up since this fiction dropped.

No. the logo is very much not a woman giving birth. You are absolutely insane Other-Mav, please find an interesting conspiracy theory to support instead.
Mortis is a reference to the Mortis. No, I’m not telling you anymore on that.
The Father, is a title, just like The Seer. They have real names as well, which may or may not get revealed over the coming months.
The Father like Mortis is a reference. All good lies need a little bit of truth and known facts to work. The Father from Mortis as seen in the Clone Wars is canonically dead.

This brings us to the currently running “Who Are The Children” competition. This competition ends at the end of the month. Participation in this competition will result in more information being released, both as part of the Shadows Unveiled Chapter 1 update, and on the Children of Mortis wiki page.

I have been designing the wiki pages and future plot updates with multiple stages of redacted information. To better know our new enemy before the GJW, this information can be unlocked, but only through special things, such as this competition. Otherwise, it's going to be a big info dump come GJW time.

The criteria for more information this time is participation from each clan. Thats it. One Submission per clan is all that is needed.

Important Links

• Fiction Resources
  
• Fiction Center
  
• Fiction Rubric 3.0
  
• Voice Feedback Form
  
• [Log in to view e-mail addresses]

Thank you for reading. As always if you have any Fiction related questions, concerns, comments, snide remarks, feel free to message me on Discord or send me an email [Log in to view e-mail addresses].