Middle Deckers – Fiction Writing

Across Star Trek shows, movies, and stories, we’ve seen an enormous amount of focus on senior officers, and there is now a whole show about ensigns on the Lower Decks, but between ensigns and commanders are lieutenants: the section and department heads that do the day-to-day work of managing operations aboard starships. These middle-deckers are neither fresh out of the academy nor highly experienced officers with dozens of years of service under their belts, so the storytelling potential they offer is being able to take from character archetypes associated with the levels above and below them.

Creating characters below the level of senior staff is an excellent opportunity to introduce foils for your main characters. For instance, if you have a stuffy and uptight science officer, their deputy might be the opposite. On your command, you probably know who the Chief Engineering Officer is, but do you know who their Assistant Chief is? Or the Head of Warp Systems Engineering? For this competition, you’re invited to write a story from the perspective of one of your command’s middle deckers—a lieutenant or a lieutenant junior grade who holds a role no higher than assistant department head.

Senior officers and junior officers may feature in your story, but the focus should be on your middle decker. You may write about anything you like, as the range of possibilities for middle-deckers to connect to a plot is huge. They could be leading an away mission, coordinating repairs, overseeing a shift in their department, or just relaxing.

To submit to this competition, simply provide a link to a story on your command that meets the above description. This story must be created after this competition opens and before it closes, so there is no reusing of existing stories. This will be judged based on the publication date of the story within the BFMS.

It is highly recommended that you complete the Fiction Writing Program as practice for this competition, but you may not submit a story to this competition which has received feedback from the Academy staff. You can see examples of middle-decker stories here.

NB: the story submitted for this competition does not have to include a character submitted for the Middle Deckers — Biography Writing competition.

Criteria

• Stories should be submitted directly to the BFMS, and your entry should be a link to the published story. Stories should be at least 500 words and no more than 2,000 words.
• Stories must be from the point of view/perspective of a middle decker character, i.e. someone with the rank of lieutenant or lieutenant junior grade holding a position no nigher than assistant department head. The story may feature senior officers or junior officers, but the focus should be on the point of view character's thought, feelings, and actions.
• Stories will be graded in accordance with the Bravo Fleet Fiction Rubric, which marks on the following criteria: Language, Style, & Mechanics; Adherence to Canon; Perspective; Characterization; Originality; Use of the Prompt.
• This story must be created after this competition opens and before it closes, so there is no reusing of existing stories. This will be judged based on the publication date of the story within the BFMS.
• Your story must be a single-author post, not a jointly written post.
• Using generative AI in this competition is forbidden.