LegendFiction: Writing Guidelines & Copyrights

Writing Guidelines for Contests & Community, & Your Copyrights

Updated: 11/3/2025 • Contact us

Our community is for high school students through adults, and as such, content entered into anthologies and contests should be free of strong language, smut, and gore: let’s keep things relatively family friendly.

Stories you share for feedback should follow the guidelines in our terms and conditions, and on this page. Post your stories in the right space. For 18+ level content, use the Adult group.

Stories are reviewed before publication in an anthology by a mentor. This does not mean that we endorse or approve of all content contributed, or endorse activity by our contributors on other websites. All opinions from our contributors are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of LegendFiction, its mentors, or other contributors. Publication in the LegendFiction community or anthologies is no cost to you. You retain all copyright and other intellectual property rights in your submission, and you’re allowing us to use your content too. By submitting your story to an anthology, you are granting LegendFiction a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, distribute, and display your submission in connection with the contest and its promotion, including but not limited to publication in print or digital format, on websites, social media platforms, and any other promotional materials. We encourage you to post your story on your blog, with a backlink to the anthology. By submitting your story, you affirm that you have the legal right to grant the aforementioned license and that your submission does not infringe upon the intellectual property rights or any other rights of any third party. Your Copyright Safeguards Contributors who display unkind or harmful activity in their interactions, or celebrated within their stories, will not be published. We have a zero-tolerance policy against trolls, and a 2-strike policy for members on flagged or toxic behavior. Your work is automatically protected under Copyright Law as soon you put it into a fixed format, like writing it down. If you believe your work has been copied improperly, you can submit a takedown request and we will immediately investigate to remove the infringing work.

Any anthology agreements entered into before November 2025 are not eligible for royalty share payouts. For these anthologies, you agree that LegendFiction shall not be obligated to pay you any compensation, now or in the future, for the use of your submission as described. Inspired by the success of our friends at Raconteur Press, starting in November 2025, LegendFiction will split the book sales equally among all the contributors. Anthologies will be processed through Pubshare, so that you get your own dashboard and full transparency about income and payouts. Here’s what this means: for an anthology with ten authors, each author ends up getting roughly a 6.5% – 7.0% of the net. So for $100 in net sales of an anthology, Amazon gets $30, Pubshare gets $7, and each contributor to the anthology gets paid $6.50 – $7.00. The LegendFiction team doesn’t take anything off the top for expenses. Instead, everyone involved in the project is considered an equal contributor. We take that $63 and split it up equally among all those people. LegendFiction will act as a contributor with you: this means editor, layout designer, mentors, and all our work gets as much as you do as a creator. Even better for you: those payouts keep happening as long as the book is available for sale. Those royalties keep coming to you for as long as the book is in print, even when you publish your story online. So if you place a story in one of our anthologies, and someone buys it five years from now… you’re still going to get paid. Our community mentors are not eligible for royalty shares. They are welcome to submit, and are treated as honorable mentions. That’s because they offer other services to serve members.

1) Share up to 3 story pitch ideas in the anthology feed. A mentor will review and give feedback. This semi-private process helps us all see and share feedback together, and learn faster. 2) Once your pitch is approved, create your story. Publish it in the Stories group to gather feedback. Share the link at the bottom of the open call announcement. Note: An approved pitch does not guarantee your story is accepted. Each story stands on its own merits and excellence. 3) The mentor will make every effort to provide structural feedback and suggestions on all stories up to the deadline. Feedback is not guaranteed, so ensure you also seek feedback from peers and friends. Stories submitted on the day of the deadline will pass or fail based on their excellence. 4) When the deadline passes, the mentor will read through and prioritize all entries where: - They best fit the contest requirements - They Are well crafted stories, according to our Short Story Checklist - The authors respond well to feedback for change requests

We provide feedback and editing recommendations on every entry in the anthology feed. Poorly written stories, or entry-level submissions, are passed over in favor of entries with demonstrated skill. The LegendFiction team reserves the right to cancel an anthology if the submissions do not reach a publishable standard. An author continues to earn their place by incorporating feedback and demonstrating improvement. All our editors have been trained to help guide the development of each piece to reach its fullest potential in keeping with the author’s vision. We value your effort. Preference is given to stories with solid storytelling structure, well constructed and written, and is consistent with the LegendFiction vision, as determined by contest staff and administrators, in their sole but reasonable discretion.

Overtly religious stories are welcome, but we are not here to write evangelistic fiction.

We understand that stories are about characters seeking the truth on their own terms, and a believable story is consistent with the character, context, and goal of the story. Fictional characters can be religious, and we welcome stories and conversations that are confident about religious life and themes, but stories are about people, not selling ideas. We do not welcome content intended to shame or divide members or groups. We are here to encourage writers of mature faith, who understand the need for nuance, and who wrestle with the realities of our modern world.

Graphic depictions of violence, sexuality, or strong language are not appropriate for contest submissions, or for sharing in our general community. Mature themes are welcome, but we have opted to publish relatively family-friendly context. We understand that not every story should be for all ages, and it is a story's strength to create for its intended audience and their expectations. Shaming language, glorification of self-harm, or hate speech of any kind will be rejected.

Please ask if you have questions.

Using AI can be helpful for authors, such as for brainstorming, outlining, and getting feedback.

For our community, don't use AI to create and write the story, and submit it as if you wrote it. This form of creativity is more like commission, where you are are a creative director. That is not how this community works.

Pitches, stories, and written works shared with our LegendFiction community, are written 'by hand' by an author who is seeking to master the practice of writing, and discover themselves and their style.

Pitches and stories that are edited by AI are reviewed with care, and clarification is often asked, because AI can flatten your style and voice into its default settings. This will raise questions about the entire entry being generated.