2011 Fanfiction Awards - Suggestions & Planning Thread

[The Great Butler]

With the relative success of last year's awards and the continuing permission of Dragonfree, I will once again be hosting the Fanfiction Awards thread. To make the planning process a bit easier and avoid some of the issues that came up last year due to the thread being made on November 1, I'm making this thread for suggestions, ideas and so forth now. Here is the awards results thread from last year for reference.

Here is a list of categories used in the last awards that can serve as a preliminary list of categories for the next ones:

Overall Fiction Awards
Best Pokemon Chaptered Fic
Best Pokemon One-Shot
Best Non-Pokemon Chaptered Fic
Best Non-Pokemon One-Shot

Other Fic Awards
Best Plot
Most Original Overall
Best Writing Style
Best Setting
Best Expansion of Canon
Best Character Development
Best Characterization in a Short Story
Best Original Species
Most Suspenseful Fic

Pokemon Genre Awards
Best Trainer Fic
Best Horror Fic
Best Comedy Fic
Best Pokemon-Centric
Best Canon Character-Centric

Character Awards
Best Human Main Character
Best Non-Human Main Character
Best Human Supporting Character
Best Non-Human Supporting Character
Best Human Villain
Best Non-Human Villain
Best Minor Character
Funniest Character

Fic Moments Awards
Funniest Scene
Most Frightening Scene
Most Heartbreaking Scene
Most Heartwarming Scene
Best Action Scene
Best Cliffhanger
Most Memorable Quote

Author Awards
Best Established Writer
Best New Writer
Most Dedicated Writer
Most Improved Writer

Reviewer Awards
Most Helpful Reviewer
Most Dedicated Reviewer


With that out of the way, there's one thing I wanted to put out. One problem we had the last time was that the eligibility period and nomination time were not solidly established. Now that we have time to plan it more... what about making the eligibility anything that had a post this year (January 1, 2011 - December 31, 2011) and then work from there on how long nominations should be?

 

[bobandbill]

I'll admit I didn't expect this to appear already. ._.

what about making the eligibility anything that had a post this year (January 1, 2011 - December 31, 2011)

Agreed.

and then work from there on how long nominations should be?

I think thm starting a bit early and running a couple of weeks/month at most into 2012 would be fine again personally.

Not too sure on an award just for fic title as it seems a bit too minor an aspect personally but then again I wouldn't mind it either. As for the Most Original Concept, how would that differ from Most Original Overall?

 

[Becoming]

*shrugs* I've some ideas for possibly categories . . .

Best Use Of First Person Narrative - can't really think of a justification, but . . . I dunno, just thought it'd be cool . . .

Best Chapter Title - if "best title" is acceptable, then I don't see why not chapter title award. I've seen some pretty crazy chapter titles . . .

Best Co-Written Fic - Just 'cause I'm doin' a co-write!

That's my two cents . . . well, ya know, until next time

 

[Antithesis]

I personally don't think an award for a title makes any sense at all, since it has nothing to do ith the quality of the actual writing. Cowboys and Aliens is one of the best titles ever. The movie? Not so much, and it isn't going to pick up any awards solely for having a good title.

 

[Griff4815]

Most Developed Character? There's Best Characterization in a Short Story, but what about Best Characterization in a Chaptered fic?

 

[JX Valentine]

I personally don't think an award for a title makes any sense at all, since it has nothing to do ith the quality of the actual writing. Cowboys and Aliens is one of the best titles ever. The movie? Not so much, and it isn't going to pick up any awards solely for having a good title.

Seconding this thought. Conversely, there are fics with pretty godawful titles that are actually pretty good. (I really, really don't want to state examples, even if one of them completely acknowledges the fact that she could've come up with better fic titles herself.) So, it'd be like this award would be for judging a book by its cover.

Besides, the awards are meant to encourage people to open up the threads, right? You don't really have to open a thread and read through it to judge which one would be best to nominate/vote for this category, which means that by itself, it actually defeats the purpose of the annual awards, doesn't it?

Also, going to have to shoot down the idea for the first person narrative category. Off the top of my head, there's only a handful of fics that actually use it to begin with. We could broaden this to cover best narrative style in general, but that's a thought already covered by best writing style.

Most Developed Character? There's Best Characterization in a Short Story, but what about Best Characterization in a Chaptered fic?

Actually agreed. Or maybe just take it out completely because it's already covered by the character awards? (Or maybe condense that category down to just "best characterization"?)

Also, would it be a good idea to include awards for shipping fics this year? I mean, there's an entire other forum, and I'm not sure if they're getting as much love over there as the fic forums here do. (I never did understand why there wasn't so much as a link to the shipping fics forum attached to this one. I keep forgetting it even exists.)

 

[Diddy]

Maybe Best Fic with a title inspired by Norse Mythology? Okay, shameless promoting aside, the title thingy, as JX said is kinda counter-productive to the whole "reading fics" thing.

I actually don't have a problem with the categories as they are now, the problem has never been a lack of category variety, but a lack of people voting in enough categories, sometimes we end up with only one nomination in a category or even no nominations at all.

It's nice to have more categories giving me more chances to win but if we can't fill up the ones we already have, why would more categories help?

 

[Becoming]

Seconding this thought. Conversely, there are fics with pretty godawful titles that are actually pretty good. (I really, really don't want to state examples, even if one of them completely acknowledges the fact that she could've come up with better fic titles herself.) So, it'd be like this award would be for judging a book by its cover.

Besides, the awards are meant to encourage people to open up the threads, right? You don't really have to open a thread and read through it to judge which one would be best to nominate/vote for this category, which means that by itself, it actually defeats the purpose of the annual awards, doesn't it?

Also, going to have to shoot down the idea for the first person narrative category. Off the top of my head, there's only a handful of fics that actually use it to begin with. We could broaden this to cover best narrative style in general, but that's a thought already covered by best writing style.

Hmm . . . I see your point about the titles-defeating-the-purpose thing, but is a single category going to ruin the whole awards? While it is a good point that it doesn't require reading (to vote), the title is nevertheless important to getting people to read you fic. Someone (well maybe picky people like me . . .) would be more likely to read something with an interesting titlle than something with a dull title. Despite the fact that it does encourage "judging a book by its cover," can anyone tell me they've never been draw into first reading a fic by its title?

Also, I can see where you're coming from with saying first person isn't represented enough to warrant an award; but last year there were two categories that only had a single nomination (non-poke chaptered & one-shot). While it's understandable that non-poke may be less "popular" (I can't think of a better word at 6AM) on a poke-forum, should we take it out because it's too small? (The answer's no, BTW.) I can think off the top of my head of three fics that've used first person in a way that complements the story nicely.

Also, would it be a good idea to include awards for shipping fics this year? I mean, there's an entire other forum, and I'm not sure if they're getting as much love over there as the fic forums here do. (I never did understand why there wasn't so much as a link to the shipping fics forum attached to this one. I keep forgetting it even exists.)

Now for something for me to agree with; although I've no interest in shipping fics, I do feel that they should be represented at the awards too. Just to clarify, do you mean have shipping fics allowed to be nominated for existing awards, or have extra awards specifically for shipping fics like best nude scene?

 

[JX Valentine]

Hmm . . . I see your point about the titles-defeating-the-purpose thing, but is a single category going to ruin the whole awards?

No, but the point of each category should be to encourage people to pick up someone else's fic. I mean, having an award based solely on the title of a work is a lot like having an Oscar category for the title of a movie. Titles aren't that great of an indicator of the author's overall skill -- as noted by the fact that there's some works with crappy titles that are actually pretty good fics overall. (Likewise, there's some fics that have awesome titles but are really just mediocre.)

can anyone tell me they've never been draw into first reading a fic by its title?

*raises hand* In all seriousness, too. Usually, I pop open new threads to peek at their first chapters. FFNet makes it easier by letting me choose fics based on summary and characters. Serebii adds in the ability to view the first few lines of what the author has to say to help me determine whether or not I should take it seriously.

Very rarely am I actually drawn into a work by its title, and on the occasion that I am, it's usually because it's an outright terrible title that looks like it'll lead to a whole bunch of lulz. So... yeah, I'm usually not drawn in by a title, and if I am, it's not a compliment.

While it's understandable that non-poke may be less "popular" (I can't think of a better word at 6AM) on a poke-forum, should we take it out because it's too small? (The answer's no, BTW.)

The point is that those are hosted in separate forums because they're technically separate super-genres. As in, they need to be placed in a separate category because fics in other fandoms can't be compared to fics in this fandom for fairness. After all, the logic is that not everyone knows, for example, Doctor Who or My Little Pony, so fics in those universes are always at a disadvantage if placed in the same category as a bunch of Pokémon fics because more people on a Pokémon board are familiar with that universe. Use of first-person is covered by writing style already, and if we have a first-person category, we'd have to give categories to third-person and so forth to make it balanced, not to mention first-person fics don't have that inherent disadvantage (meaning it won't matter if you threw a first-person fic in the same category as a third-person one). So, why not just let it be covered by the blanket category of "best writing style"?

I'm not sure if that all made sense, but what it boils down to is this. Non-Pokémon fics and a category for first-person POV are two different cases. Non-Pokémon can't be judged alongside Pokémon fics because of the inherent disadvantages they face, being put on a Pokémon board. First-person POV is simply a writing style (not a genre, use of canon, and so forth), and it's rather odd to single out first-person POV instead of add categories for all points of view. Unfortunately, if we did the latter (add categories for all points of view), we'd be adding unnecessary categories because, put simply, all of that is covered by Best Writing Style.

In short, I wholeheartedly agree with Diddy. If we're having trouble filling categories (like Non-Pokémon fic), we shouldn't be adding too many more that may or may not get nominations but instead figuring out how to deal with categories that are underpopulated. We have an entire forum full of potential nominees for non-Pokémon fics; we don't have an entire listing of every first-person fic written in the past year (and in any case, three potential nominees < an entire forum full of potentials).

Just to clarify, do you mean have shipping fics allowed to be nominated for existing awards, or have extra awards specifically for shipping fics like best nude scene?

Both. Naturally, it's perfectly acceptable and possible to nominate a character from a shipping fic for any of the character awards. Moreover, it might be fair to add in a Best Shipping Fic (maybe Best Pokémon Shipping and Best Non-Pokémon Shipping) to the Other Fic Awards category -- if not a shipping category to the Genre list. Of course, if it's best to keep the number of new categories at a minimum, then yeah, we should make it absolutely clear one way or another that shipping fics are fair game.

 

[MHugs]

Shipping fic awards sound like a great idea.

Also seconding moonlightning's Most Original Concept category.

 

[Breezy]

Most Original Concept

This award is intended to reward writers who strayed away from the generic Pokemon story and introduced an original twist to the canon. This is very vague so I'm sure lots of things will get nominated. I'm just spouting ideas here, feel free to shoot me down if I'm saying something stupid.

Yeaaah, this kind of sounds like you combined the "Most original overall" award and "Best expansion of canon" award. Like BnB said, how is this any different from the already "most original overall" category?

The shipping fiction section used to have awards for themselves, but I'm not sure if they're still running it yearly. Either way, it might help to bring attention to that section if there were a few categories for it.

Edit: Oh, and more author-based awards might be fun, though I'm not sure what else to add besides the four we have. Same goes for reviewer awards.

 

[The Great Butler]

I remember the Shipping Awards that used to be done. That said, I don't know either if they're still done, so I'll poke around and try to find out.

If we do expand into shipping, I'd like to get a clear picture of what exactly you guys want. Should new awards be added to cover shipping? Should shipping fics be allowed into existing categories? I can think of good cases for both, so let's hear what you guys think.

 

[MHugs]

New categories for Best Story, Most _____ Scene, Best Expansion, and things like that; allowed into the existing Best _____ Character, Most Improved Author, and so on.

All category-specific awards should have a shipping analog (all the ones that make sense--not every Best _____ Fic need one, for example). All others should just include shipping fics.

Of course, this may only be necessary if said Shipping Awards don't still take place.

 

[bigtukker]

Wouldn't shipbased fics be really biased. I mean as an Advanced/Pearl/Negaishipper, I wouldn't really nominate a PokéShipper fic, and perhaps vice versa.

 

[JX Valentine]

Wouldn't shipbased fics be really biased. I mean as an Advanced/Pearl/Negaishipper, I wouldn't really nominate a PokéShipper fic, and perhaps vice versa.

This is a good point to consider, although I'm wondering if it's fair to say fic awards in general are rather biased. I mean, there's people out there who won't read anything with canon characters in it at all, and there's people out there who are more likely to love a fic solely because it's a journey fic. And so on and so forth. So, while I'm sure shipping fics are slightly more biased with the entire concept of shipping wars and whatnot, I'd say you're probably going to have bias all over the place either way.

Not to mention I feel rather bad about how we're having the huge to-do, and it looks like the last time they had their own awards was almost two years ago. I've always felt a little awkward about that fic forum because it always seemed like there's this huge divide between us and them (although maybe that's just me), so it'd be nice to have something to unify us as a whole pack of writers, you know?

 

[PetuniaBubbles]

I see that there are "Best Genre" categories, but what about Sci-fi, Fantasy, etc. for original/non-Pokemon fics? There aren't that many original/non-Pokemon fics out there that fall into the many different categories, but it's still worth considering.

 

[Dragonfree]

Is there actually significant enough overlap in the people who go to the shipping fic forum and the people who go to the main fanfic forum to make joint awards work? I'm not saying there necessarily isn't, but I know I wouldn't touch the shipping fic forum with a ten-foot pole, and judging from the prevalence of people here who say they're actively turned off by canon characters in fics, I get the feeling I'm not alone.

Point is, if the shipping fic forum is largely frequented by different people than the main fanfic forum, it's likely the awards would just have the shippers voting for the shipping fics and the non-shippers voting for the non-shipping fics, which really wouldn't help anyone. (Of course we'd like everyone to read all the fics before voting, but unfortunately adding a bunch of fics people in this forum have probably never even heard of is very unlikely to lead to them reading and liking them enough to vote for them.) Shipping fics should probably have separate awards, in my opinion, unless the forums are frequented by pretty much the same people.

 

[Gelatino95]

anything that had a post this year (January 1, 2011 - December 31, 2011)

Did I read that right? Anything posted this year is eligible? I guess that means I better start on a pokemon fic, since my non-pokemon fic is pretty much a failure...

 

[CuriousHeartless]

Hah, yeah Gelatino. I can tell you this much, neither Unova Chronicles nor Tamer's Wars will get nominated (or possibly reviewed in Tamer's Wars' case) so I'm not winning an award. Maybe next year. Anyways, I don't touch the shipping section as a whole, let alone the shippingfics section, and it seems like a lot of poeple who aren't big on shipping avoid it alltogether, so maybe it should be totally avoided, but if people really want it it should be seperated from normal fics. Can't wait to vote, I had a good time voting last year and it turned me onto Ysavvryl's awesome fic Loopholes.

 

[PetuniaBubbles]

Hah, yeah Gelatino. I can tell you this much, neither Unova Chronicles nor Tamer's Wars will get nominated (or possibly reviewed in Tamer's Wars' case) so I'm not winning an award. Maybe next year. Anyways, I don't touch the shipping section as a whole, let alone the shippingfics section, and it seems like a lot of poeple who aren't big on shipping avoid it alltogether, so maybe it should be totally avoided, but if people really want it it should be seperated from normal fics. Can't wait to vote, I had a good time voting last year and it turned me onto Ysavvryl's awesome fic Loopholes.

I know how you feel. xD Getting close to 30 chapters of my fic and I've only gotten two posts that aren't mine. (Not reviews)

But yeah, like you said... most people who don't like shipping tend to avoid it altogether. People who read shipping don't overlap as much with people who read other things. I think it would be best to put them in separate categories than mash them together as shipping readers will vote for shippings and such.