Star System

*: This story is horrible. Why even bother reading it?
**: It is alright. Loss of IQ points are not possible, but sometimes you wonder...
***: An average story. You could do better.
****: This story is only a star away from being great. Perhaps great writing, just obvious errors...
*****: Fantastic plot, great writing... overall, great!

Why a Story Will Not be Reviewed

There are probably  many factors at work if I do not review your story. One is that less than four people have agreed to review the story. A story will not be reviewed when less than four people will review the story. Please remember this.

Another is how many stories this site has accepted. The limit is ten stories. Once there are ten reviews going on, there will be no more submissions until all ten are finished. If the reviewing is slow, I may change it to four reviews are finished, however, there is no way to tell at this point.

The last is if a submission form has not been filled out, or there is no link. I will no longer accept submissions unless the form is filled out and there is a link, no matter what.

Points to Star System

It starts out as points, then gets translated to stars. How? Rather simple, once you think about it. There are five categories: grammar, spelling, readability, how the plot is handled, and the plot itself. Each category can have a maximum of twenty points. Then all the points are added together to get the individual Slayer star score.

20 points= 1 star

40 points= 2 stars

60 points= 3 stars

80 points= 4 stars

100 points= 5 stars

If the total number of points lands close to or on 10, 30, 50, 70, or 90, then half stars are rewarded. After the total points are added up, the review may add or subtract up to 5 points based on their biases. To get the total score, all the Slayers points are added up, then divided by how many Slayers reviewed the story. Usually, no more than 6 people will review.

Example:

Story X is being reviewed by five Slayers. Slayer A reads Story X and gives it the following points:

Grammar: 12

Spelling: 20

Readability: 17

How plot handled: 6

Plot: 2

When added together, the total points are 57, which would have given Story X three stars. However, Story X is a yaoi story, and Slayer A does not like yaoi. So Slayer A subtracts 5 points, giving Story X 52 points instead. That lowers Slayer A's rating to 2 and 1/2 stars.

And yes, during a review, the Slayers reviewing must say what they have given each section, as well as how to improve each section.

Total Score Example:

Story X gets the following scores:

Slayer A, as we know, gave it a 52.

Slayer B gave it a 45.

Slayer C gave it a 69.

Slayer D gave it a 22.

Slayer E gave it a 30.

When added up and divided by 5, the total score is 43.6, which would be rounded up to a 44. Since it is close to 40, Story X is given the total score of 2 stars.

A Slayer may review without giving each category points, and giving an overall point value to the story.

What do you mean by grammar (spelling, ect)?

Here is a rundown on what we will be looking for:

Grammar: Sentence structure. Is it easy to understand their point? If the story is one huge paragraph, even with dialogue, that will dock quite a few points off the grammar score, more to those who's problem in Slayers fanfiction is grammar. Another thing we will be looking for is punctuation, and its overuse (or under use).

Spelling: Are there obvious spelling errors? Are the errors ones that would have been fixed easily by running it through a spellchecker?

Readability: This calls heavily on grammar and spelling, however, it also has to do how it is presented on the web. Text files that are not formatted should not dock points here, but it is the Slayers own personal choice.

How the plot is handled: Is the emotion real? Is every plot point explained completely, not just left out to dangle? I, the Lord of Nightmares, will grade this heavily, since this is my pet peeve.

Plot: Is the plot old and overused, or new and interesting? Or is it an old plot with a new twist? Stories of Lina blowing away bandits then falling in love with (fill in blank) will get quite low points.