Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Submission Guidelines

Submission Guidelines

The rules for each anthology were first announced in the pages of the preceding anthology, and could also be found at the Simon & Schuster website.

Submissions were open only to "nonprofessional writers" (which the rules defined as those who had sold no more than two short stories) who were residents of the United States (excluding Puerto Rico) and Canada (excluding Quebec) over the age of 18 at the time of their submission. The stories themselves were to be original creations no more than 7500 words long and not previously published elsewhere. Writers were permitted to submit more than one story, though required each submission be mailed separately, and no writer could have more than one story published per anthology.

Certain tropes that are common to fan fiction were explicitly outlined in the submission rules as cause for a story to be disqualified from consideration, including "hurt/comfort" and Mary Sue stories. Slash fiction was implicitly excluded by prohibiting stories "focusing on explicit sexual activity" or revealing "the hidden passion two characters feel for each other." Original characters were also prohibited to the extent that stories cannot be centered around "characters that are not past or present Star Trek regulars or familiar Star Trek guest characters."

Other prohibitions included "graphic depictions of violence or sadism" and major changes to the canon, such as "the previously unestablished death of a Star Trek character" or the existence of "a long-lost sibling."