How a story earns its place
The monthly cycle
No permanent spots and no favorites. A story stays for as long as readers keep choosing it.
- 01
Enter the arena
One complete story a month, 1,000 to 100,000 words. It's screened before anyone sees it.
- 02
30 days
Your story goes public as a challenger and collects votes for a month.
- 03
Vote
Every reader gets three votes a month, one per story at most, and only after reading.
- 04
The Reckoning
On the 1st of every month, the top twenty stay. The rest return home to their authors.
- 05
Legend
Six months in a row in the top twenty earns a permanent place in the Hall.
The language of the arena
Every story has a record
Winners get the drama. Stories that leave the board are treated with respect, and nobody here is ever "defeated."
- Challenger
- A new story in its first 30 days on the site.
- Champion
- A story holding one of the twenty places.
- The Reckoning
- Reveal day, the 1st of every month, when the new board is set.
- Fight record
- Months held, peak rank and current streak, shown on every champion.
- Returns home
- A story leaving the board goes back to its author with its full record.
- The Hall
- The Hall of Legends: a permanent, never-edited copy of every story that holds the board for six months running.
Hall of Legends
Earned, then kept forever
When a story holds a top-twenty place for six months running, an exact copy goes into the Hall of Legends. That copy is never edited, re-ranked or removed.
The original keeps fighting on the board for as long as readers keep voting for it.
A place in the Hall can't be bought, assigned or given as a favor. It can only be won, one month at a time.
House rules
Short and firm
If a story would fit in one of the films, in tone and intensity, it fits here.
- Audience
- 13+Nothing a 13-year-old shouldn't read.
- Stories
- Complete onlyNo works in progress or chapters added later.
- Length
- 1k–100k wordsShort stories through full novels.
- Entries
- 1 per monthThe same limit for every author.
- Continuity
- All erasCanon (today's official story), Legends (the older Expanded Universe) or AU (your own what-if). Every story is tagged so readers can filter.
- AI use
- DeclaredEvery story is labeled human-written, AI-assisted or AI-generated.
- Cost
- Free, alwaysNo fees, ads or donations. No money changes hands.
- Language
- LimitedA little strong language is fine. Slurs never are.
For writers
The fine print, up front
- Who owns my story?
- You do. Always. Twenty Suns only shows it while it's in the arena, plus the one permanent copy in the Hall if it earns a place.
- Can I post it elsewhere too?
- Yes. Keep it on AO3, FanFiction.net, your own site, anywhere. It just has to be your own work.
- What happens if it drops off the board?
- It returns home: it comes off the site and we email you a copy with its final rank and record. You can enter it once more, after six months, as a fresh entry.
- Can I edit it after it's up?
- No. Once a story is public its text is locked, so every vote counts for the same words. Changes mean withdrawing it, which counts the same as returning home.
- How do you stop vote-stuffing?
- New accounts wait 14 days before voting, every reader gets three votes a month, you can only vote after opening and reading a story, and suspicious voting is flagged and reviewed. Confirmed fraud voids the votes and disqualifies the story it helped.
- When does it open?
- When there are enough founding writers to fill a real first board. Everyone on the list gets the opening date, the full rules and the submission form by email first.
Before launch
Be here on day one
Twenty Suns isn't open yet. Founding writers get their stories onto the very first board, so readers find a full arena the day the site opens.
Twenty Suns is built by Eric, an indie author who writes as E. Lawrence Anderson, as a free fan project.
Readers get one email when the site launches, then a short email on each Reckoning with the new top twenty and any Hall inductees. Nothing else.