Short Fiction Grading Rubric
Judging Criteria:
5 | 3 | 1 | |
DEVELOPMENT:
| The story has: – unique and fleshed-out characters. – an original and creative plot. | Fair attempts are made to develop a rich setting, interesting characters, and a creative plot. However, more could have been done. | Flaws/problems with the story’s development render it difficult to follow. For example, character motivations may be unclear or difficult to discern; setting may be inadequately described; etc. |
STRUCTURE: | The story has: – an identifiable theme and resolution. – a logical flow of action/events. | The piece includes some (but not all) of a strong theme, an identifiable resolution, and a logical flow of action/events. | Missing elements interfere with the flow of the piece, making it feel meandering or lacking clear purpose. |
STYLE/VOICE: | – The author demonstrates a strong and unique personal voice. – Creative/ thoughtful word choices are evident. – Descriptive details are used. – Sentence structure is clear and easy to understand. – The author experiments, as appropriate, with various sentence lengths and structures. | Efforts to create a personal style are evident. The author uses some creative language and description, but more work was needed. | The piece is dominated by conventional ideas, language, and structure. Anyone could have written it. |
MECHANICS: | The piece – conforms to the expected format stipulations (legible typeface, 12 pt. font, double-spaced). | The piece – does not conform to the expected format, but is reasonably formatted and clear to read. | Inaccuracies and non-traditional formatting make the piece difficult to understand. |