Mechanics of Project Franklin: A FAQ for Authors

The mission of Project Franklin, what that means for story and worldbuilding, how we protect author rights, AI-free content zone.

Frequently Asked Questions for Authors

Q: How do I submit a story?

A: Right now, public submissions are CLOSED. To know when we open them, make sure you’re subscribed to the Project Franklin Newsletter!

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Q: What is Project Franklin?

A: Conceived by

Thaddeus Thomas

and originally introduced via

The Literary Salon with Thaddeus Thomas

, Project Franklin is a collaborative, open-world fiction project that focuses on promoting authors. This promotion is done primarily through a story-web structure where a reader starts with one story and, at the end, may choose to follow one of to characters into their own story.

Q: What does “collaborative, open-world fiction” mean?

A: It means that authors work together—through writing and voting—to determine everything about the city of Franklin, USA. This fictional city is set somewhere in the Midwestern United States, on an unnamed river.

From time to time, we put out a call for authors to submit to a new collection of stories. These authors then contribute flash fiction pieces (500-1,000 words) over five rounds. Those pieces become official parts of Franklin’s lore, and help fill in a bit more about the city, its secrets, and its residents.

Q: How is a collection structured?

A: A collection is a themed group of 31 stories, written over several weeks in five rounds, and published simultaneously on an official release date.

Here’s a handy info-graphic to help illustrate what’s going on, from the reader experience.

Q: How does it all work?

A: We start with a release date and a theme. Next, we open the call for 16 authors who can commit to (up to) five stories.

Then, we begin writing; 16 authors, 16 stories, one deadline. When the stories are written, the authors vote on their favorites. The authors of the favorite stories then move on to the next round (one level up).

In the second (and third, and fourth) round, the promoted authors write a story that includes an encounter between a character in their winning story, and a character in one of the stories by an author who wasn’t promoted. These story pairings are assigned by the project’s Worldbuilding Deity,

Haly, the Moonlight Bard ✒️

.

This process repeats until the final story.

After all 31 stories are written, the links are added (to index, first story, previous story, end-of-story choices) as well as the collection’s official copyright graphic. They are then released, all at once, on the release date.

They are available for people to read for 30 days, and then, the archive copies (kept in the Manuscripts on WorldAnvil) are locked behind a paywall, and authors are free to choose how to proceed with their works.

Q: How are stories in a collection copyrighted?

A: Each collection has a 30-day “public access” window. During this time, stories are required to display the Project Franklin Official Content copyright graphic and must maintain a CC BY-SA 4.0 license. In addition, stories written in rounds 2-5 must include a credit line, “Featuring original characters by:” and the names of the authors who first created the characters.

After that 30-day window, authors have a number of choices.

• Edit the story, removing references to Franklin and changing character names. The original text of the story will remain in the Manuscript archive with the Official Content graphic. The author does not need to maintain copyright notice, as it is, in practical effect, a different story.

• Edit the story, changing only character names but leaving it set in Franklin. The original text of the story will, again, remain in the Manuscript archive with the copyright graphic. The author needs to maintain a CC BY-SA copyright notice, but not the Official Content graphic. The author does not need to credit other authors specifically.

• Edit the story, leaving character names, but changing the setting. Original text of the story remains in the Manuscript archive, with the Official Content graphic. The author needs to maintain a CC BY-SA copyright notice, but not the Official Content graphic. The author must additionally have a credit line “Featuring original characters by:” and the names of the authors who first created the characters.

This is a living document and will change as necessary.

Changes will be announced in posts released in the For Authors section. Adjust your account settings here.

Project Franklin is Proud to Be AI-Free!

In cities, suburbs, and towns across the Midwest, USA, communities are rising up to protest the building of AI data centers. AI companies want to strip the farmland and hinder America’s ability to feed itself, while poisoning the little water that remains for crops, herds, and people.

Generative AI is not welcome in Franklin, please and thank you!

Please notice that all of the graphics and .CSS editing have been done by

Haly, the Moonlight Bard ✒️

and

Perry Chalmers

.

Out of respect for the people and places in the Midwest, the food that we eat, for our peers in the fiction community, and ourselves as artists please do not bring AI content into the project. Spell-check your writing, of course! But robots have nothing new to contribute to creativity, only regurgitations of previous iterations. They cannot create, only recombine as they destroy.

And to show our respect for you and your hard, human work and creativity, this publication has been set up to deny AI-training bots. This is a setting provided by Substack, and you can enable it for your own publication in the “Privacy” section of your “Settings.”

As you can see, this will hurt our discoverability and so we are relying on you to boost that. Feel free to cross-post, restack, and even forward emails to creative peers and fans who will LOVE this project as much as you and I do!