Cover, Title, Blurb (5 pts).

* Blurb has the highest percentage of the points, since this is ultimately what makes or breaks a story for me— even if I like your cover and like your title, I will drop it in a hot second if the blurb puts me off. (2.5 out of 5).

* Cover has the second highest, since (despite the phrase), we do judge books by their covers. (2 out of 5).

* Title has the lowest. (.5 out of 5).

Grammar (15 pts).

* Grammar. It's important. There are some people who don't care all that much, but I'm not one of them— if your story has bad grammar, I don't care how good the premise is. I'll probably stop reading it. That's why the points received for grammar are equivalent to the amount received for plot/overall entertainment and characters. Among other things, here's what I'll be looking for:

          o Comma splices.

          o Run-on sentences.

          o Subject-verb agreement.

          o Sentence fragments.

          o Missing commas.

          o Incorrect diction (its versus it's, there/their/they're, etc.)

          o Misplaced/dangling modifiers.

          o Vague pronouns.

          o Incorrect sentence structure.

* If you think that's a long list, imagine how long your story feels to the one who has to point it all out. That's why I will not accept people whose stories are riddled with errors; there's an editing service for that. However, if you suffer only from a couple of these, I'll take yours on.

* Hey, good news: you pretty much can't get below a 7 in this section. If your grammar is worthy of a mark lower than 7, I'm probably just going to refuse your story.

Plot and Overall Entertainment (15 pts).

* You're going to get marked off for cliché plots. I'm not talking about stuff like the "Hero's Journey", but rather about stuff like the bad boy/good girl romance where she runs into him in the hall, they hate each other for a few chapters, they discover they 'just can't stay away', and they get together.

* Since overall entertainment is here too, you're just going to get marked off for bad clichés in general. Yes, pretty much everyone has clichés in their story, but if yours has one that is either poorly executed or just particularly unenjoyable, it's going to drag down your score.

* If it's rushed or drags on too long, the score will be marked down. Honestly, the latter is hardly ever an issue that I see, but hey... there's always a first time.

* If it doesn't flow well, points off.

* Well, this is negative. What can you get points from? Nuance, good foreshadowing, realistic set-up, funny/intelligent/badass moments, creative/interesting plot points, etc.

Characters (15 pts).

* Cliché characters (the dumb, bitchy, popular cheerleader, for example) will get points subtracted.

* Inconsistencies, unrealistic attitudes or set-ups, and "cardboard" characters will get points subtracted.

* Characters that I can empathize with and characters with unique or interesting viewpoints will gain points.

* Basically, if your character feels like a person rather than a character, the mark will be higher; if they don't, then it'll be lower.

Overall Notes (no points).

* These factor into the "Overall Entertainment" section of the rubric. They're just notes that I gather throughout the reading about various topics.

Your score is out of 50 points, but I multiply it by two to give it a clearer meaning. So if you scored 40 points out 50, you'll get an 80 out of 100 as a final mark.