During season 5 of the Cascade Virtual Tales, Blair's shaman abilities were introduced. During season 6, there will be a limited number of stories that focus on those abilities and story ideas surrounding their use will be on a first come, first serve basis. There will also be a central running arc that will consist of several episodes. But in between there will be lots of room for case stories, adventures, comedy, suspense, bad girls, old and new villians, and all the other elements that make The Sentinel fun and exciting for its fans!

• Read and inwardly digest the writer's guide.
  

• All stories must follow The Sentinel canon, as established during the four seasons aired, including both parts of 'Sentinel, Too', and 'The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg'.
  

• All stories must be Gen and have a PG-13 or lower rating!
  

• Writers also must follow Cascade Virtual Tales (CVT) canon as established in previous episodes of all seasons. Synopsis for stories 'in progress' will be posted to writer's mailing list.
  

• While Blair has become a detective in this series, it is prohibited to have him actually shoot someone without express permission from the committee (and it will have to be VERY good in order to get pass the committee)
  

• No author may kill off, maim, give an extended or life-threatening illness (i.e. one that takes more than three weeks to completely recover), or injuries that would leave visible scars to a regular character without the express permission of the committee.
  

• Although smarm is a big part of TS fanfic, the committee is trying to keep the show as close to canon as possible. Hurt/comfort is encouraged but the committee asks that smarm be kept to a bare minimum. There is a fine line between comfort and smarm and we will try our best to delineate between the two and hope the writers will also.
  

• Please, no Mary Sue stories.
  

• Lists of Regular Characters, Guest Characters from first three seasons, and Original Characters previously created by CVT authors will be posted. Please use the spelling as set in these lists.
  

• Please, no crossovers. Our network doesn't contain any other shows!
  

• Anyone who wishes to use an Original Character created by another author, (not on the Regular Character or Guest Character lists) must have permission from the original author who created that character.
  

• Please, no well known original characters from other TS fanfic.
  

• Stories should be in prose format and be more than 20 pages (8,000 words) and less than 60 pages (about 25,000 words). Any story longer than this must obtain committee permission for a two parter.
  

• Authors must obey the layout rules for final draft (see STYLE GUIDE).
  

• Authors must meet deadlines, or risk being dropped from the schedule. If a problem comes up that may force you to miss your deadline, please let one of the supervising editors know at least two weeks ahead of your deadline and arrangements will be made. While episodes may be rescheduled in certain circumstances...illness, computer problems etc., the more time we are given, the more likely you will stay on the schedule.
  

• Authors must meet deadlines, or risk being dropped from the schedule. If a problem comes up that may force you to miss your deadline, please let one of the supervising editors know at least two weeks ahead of your deadline and arrangements will be made. While episodes may be rescheduled in certain circumstances...illness, computer problems etc., the more time we are given, the more likely you will stay on the schedule.
  

• ALL writers are required to be a member of the BPP writer's list. If you have a problem with mailing lists, please let us know and we will work it out.
  

• All stories accepted as CVT episodes will be posted at the CVT site exclusively until the start of the following season or four months after the finale, whichever comes first. After that time, the writer may have the story posted on an additional site of his/her chosing. Links from other websites to the CVT site are more than welcome at any time.
  

• BPP does encourage the writing of missing scenes to accompany episodes of the Cascade Virtual Tales. The whole idea behind the virtual season is to treat the 'episodes' as much like the tv show as possible. However, having said that, we would request that the writers who wanted to do a missing scene request permission from the original writer of the ep. This is especially the case if you are using an original character from the episode. Not only is it a courtesy for their work, but they are the ones to pour their souls into new characters - they may not wish for anyone else to play with them. Missing scenes will NOT be considered part of CVT's vanon and will NOT reflect on future episodes or plot strategies.
  

  
  

If you are willing to follow the rules, please contact us at bpproductions@wildmail.com and we will sign you up for the CVT writer's group. We will post pertinent information (running story lines, new canon, story suggestions) to the list for all authors. We will try to keep these posts to a minimum, so not to overload anyone's email.

Once you are signed up, you may submit story synopsis to the committee. The committee will either 1) grant permission and designate an editor and a deadline for first draft completion 2) return with suggestions and ask for resubmission(for instance, perhaps something in your story doesn't match with a previously accepted story or newly developed CVT canon) 3) rejection with reason why (violates rules, villain being used by another story already accepted, etc.) Please do not be scared off by this process - we plan to be very lenient, and we want to work with you!

• Format can be in WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, or plain text.
  

• Please do NOT use special characters (accents, shortcut ellipsis, etc.)
  

• All titles should be in CAPITALS.
  

• The story will be divided into three parts and a tag. The writer can make their own part breaks, or the committee will do it for them. If the writer divides their own story into three parts, the Part breaks should be indicated by a line of ########
  

• Scene breaks should be indicated by a line of =========
  

• All paragraphs must be separated by a blank line. This means an extra return character, not special formatting in a word processor.
  

• No indents of any kind.
  

• Writers may use US or UK spellings, just let us know in advance.
  

• Italics should be indicated by *
  

• Bolds should be indicated by ^
  

• All dreams and/or memories will be set apart by italics. Make sure to designate them by *
  

• Sounds should be in italics and include a ~ (Example: *~clank~*)