The Platinum Awards [COMPLETE]

Judging Criteria

How will the judges judge the entries?

On the first round, the judges will judge your book based on the first chapter of your book. Three of the five entries from each genre will be chosen to advance. The judges will then read up to chapter 3 of the book. Two of the three of the entries will advance, dropping one of them. Lastly, to determine the final winner of each genre, the whole book will be evaluated.

The judges and I will vote for the winning book of each round by which books scored the highest amount of points.

Judging Rubric

Round 1 (Judging Chapter 1):
1. The Lead:
(5 points)
The Lead is how the story starts. Does it start with a question, dialogue, an interesting fact, etc.?
•Does the lead catch the reader's interest?

2. Overall First Chapter:
(5 points)
•Was the first chapter attention grabbing?
•Does the reader want to keep reading?
•Was the start too slow or too fast?

3. Grammar, Word Choice, Spelling:
(15 points, 5 each)
•Grammar: Was punctuation and capitalization correctly used? Were the words correctly put together or does it not make sense?
•Word Choice: Was there different words used or was certain words used repetitively?
•Spelling: Was spelling correct?

4. Book Cover and Title:
(10 points, 5 each)
•Is the book cover eye catching? What the quality like?
•Does the title have a meaning? Does it match the story?

Round 2 (Up to Chapter 3):
1. Overall 3 Chapters:
(15 points)
•How well is the story starting to unfold?
•Is the story going too slow?
•How much is being explained? 2
(Ex. Character's back stories, why this is happening, etc.)

2. Grammar, Word Choice, Spelling:
(15 points, 5 each)
•Grammar: Was punctuation and capitalization correctly used? Were the words correctly put together or does it not make sense?
•Word Choice: Was there different words used or was certain words used repetitively?
•Spelling: Was spelling correct?

3. Dialogue:
(5 points)
•Is dialogue being used correctly?
•Is the punctuation in dialogue used correctly?
(Ex. "That's awesome," Rachel added.)

4. Speed:
(5 points)
•Is the story going too slow? Is it interesting or having a slow start?
•Is it passing too fast? Has too muh happened in three chapters?
(Has five different problems been created? Has a character travelled to three different dimensions already?)

Round 3 (Whole book):
1. Overall Book:
(20 points)
•Was the story interesting and fun to read?

2. Plot
(15 points)
•How well thought is the plot?
•Is it interesting? Is it boring? Is it unique?
•Was the scenario easy to visualize?

3. Character Development
(10 points)
•Did the characters grow throughout the story?
•Are they relatable?
•Were they easy to visualize?

4. Grammar, Word Choice, Spelling:
(15 points, 5 each)
•Grammar: Was punctuation and capitalization correctly used? Were the words correctly put together or does it not make sense?
•Word Choice: Was there different words used or was certain words used repetitively?

5. Author's Bonding with the Readers:
(5 points)
•Was the author responding to comments?
•Did they answer questions?

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Next Chapter: Judge Rules