Submission Evaluation

This page shares the scoresheet we use for a basic evaluation of a submission for publication in the Horrific Scribes archive. Completing the scoresheet isn’t the entire decision-making process, but it does a lot of work for us. It also helps us be consistent and as unbiased as possible.

Provocative: challenging, thought-provoking, controversial, shocking

Scary: creepy, suspenseful, revolting, inspiring fear and/or dread, cosmic or otherwise

Strange: unconventional, experimental, striking with regard to imagery, themes, plot, etc.

Polished: shows mastery of style, requires no developmental and little copy editing

Intangible: has hard-to-define qualities that just make it great

We add up the numbers on a submission’s scoresheet and end up with a total score out of 25 (easy to convert to percentages for those who like to think that way). I think we’ve published everything with a score of 20 or higher, but I don’t think we’ve had anything score higher than a 22. Stories with scores in the high teens might get a new review. A story that does very well in “provocative” but not so well in “scary” might get selected if it’s in a niche we’ve been looking for. Bottom line: this scoresheet isn’t everything, but it is what I call the “gauntlet” every submission must run. –Andrew

P.S. “Polished” is the category for assessing the writing’s professionalism and proficiency in Standard Written English (when appropriate, which is most of the time). A low score here is likely to sink the submission no matter what.