Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Merriweather Awards

I think Sheila has solved the problem for me. I think my main concern - the reason I felt it important to know who the judges are - is because I'm finding it hard to understand how a judge can unbiasly (unbiasedly? is that a word?) judge a story that already has some history behind it. It just seems an almost impossible task to maintain a mutual anonymity, where the writer is anonymous to the judge and vice versa, if the story being submitted is one that has been in the archives or has been posted in the MBs or has even, perhaps, won a Kerth. Kind of like William Shakespeare entering "Romeo and Juliet" in a writing contest and expecting all of the judges to have never heard of it before. Not that I'm comparing anything in this fandom to Shakespeare, LOL! Just that some stories are well known enough that it would be impossible to keep the writer anonymous.

Sheila's idea makes sense, though. If a writer submits a new story, one that has never been posted, then the writer truly can maintain anonymity and be assured that the judges are evaluating his or her story fairly, without any prior prejudices. It would remove a lot of my doubt about the judges if I truly knew that the judges had no idea who I was and that they were judging my story 100% on its merits, not on how they might feel about me personally or what they've thought about my previous stories. And I would highly value any constructive criticism as well, knowing that it was given honestly and fairly.

Good idea, Sheila!

Lynn

Was it ever answered as to why only stories after 2001 are elegible?

Makes me more curious about this restriction of anything prior to 2001. Makes me feel excluded, since the majority of stories that I've written were prior to 2001. I may not submit anything anyway, but I'm sure there are others that might feel excluded as well.

Another point...

Reading this thread has done nothing but upset me, so I may not return... even to find the answer to my question. What I see:

A FoLC has a new and exciting idea, which, I'd have no problem with, if not for the slights towards others. I don't see the need for "my toy is better because" type behavior, but that's what I see... and it saddens me that some people are being rude and condescending towards others whom are simply trying to understand the whole contest better. I think it'd be naive at this point to say "can't we all just get along?" but, really, can't we at least be civil and courteous?

I can't help but feel that this contest was designed specifically to upset people, but even as I type it, I know that it's a useless and potentially hurtful assumption so I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Just thought it should be known that *my* feelings have been hurt simply by reading people's attitudes towards others.

I have other opinions, which I'm going to keep to myself... for now.

Sara

I think it depends on what you're looking for. This is such a great playground and some of us are here for exactly that- just fun and nothing more serious or "real."

Others are looking to hone their craft and to stretch fanfic writing into other directions.

(Btw, *love* that you're writing a book, Sheila. I would buy it!)

Therefore it makes sense that different awards would eventually be the result.

I confess that I fall somewhere in between writing for the pure joy of it and sometimes wondering if I should try for more than being the local playwright to a hugely untalented cast of college students whose pronunciation makes me weep.

But I digress. For those who are looking for a grade on their writing outside of reader responses, the Merriweathers are for you. For those who aren't, then not so much.

I do wish for less secrecy. That seems to be a sticking point and I think a list of judges- and nothing that tells specifically who will judge what category- would be great gesture. A show of good faith that would go a long way towards getting the ball rolling.

And I'd love to see a schedule of what categories will be judged each month.

Lastly, Sara raises a good point about feeling excluded because most of her work was before 2001. Why not throw it open to any story a writer would like to have critiqued no matter the date?

Thus concludes my two cents, honeys.

CC

OK, I *know* that I should keep quiet here, but I just can't. If one of the mods chooses to delete this post because I am straying OT into the Kerths, I'll understand.

AnnN writes: As you may remember from the rather heated debate on the fic list last year, and the concern of verification of the results, I offered to serve as an independent vote tabulator. This fact was publicized. Erin and I independently, with no collusion, arrived at the same results.

Obviously a second vote-counter is insufficient verification for you. Is it just not enough people, or is it that you don't trust me any more than Erin? How many would you like? Three? Four? Twenty? I know that you want all the numbers released publicly, but that isn't happening. And even if it were, I suspect that you might question that, and demand that all of the ballots be mailed to you, so that you could count them yourself.

Kathy

This has been a really interesting discussion, but I think we might have reached a familiar stalemate here. In the end, the Merriweather Committee will run their awards in their own way; they're the ones putting the work into it, so they get to set the rules. Questions and concerns have been aired, and it's up to the M-Com to decide how/if to respond.

On the flip side, individual authors can decide if they'd like to participate in the Merriweathers, the Kerths, both, or neither. This is *not* a competition between the Kerths and Merriweathers; that would be comparing apples to oranges -- tempting, perhaps, but ultimately fruitless.

I personally think it's great to have such a different approach for the Merriweathers (variety being the spice of life and all that), and wish them well.

PJ

Sheila, for the record, this is *not* the same thing as the original proposal for the Merriweathers, which was intended to be specifically for new authors. In the topic on the other mbs, Zoomway emphasizes this point. The Merriweathers are a reasonable enough name for any FoLC award, since the Kerths are already taken!

Marilyn, a quick question for you: I didn't google for info but could I ask how you knew it was your friend's entry? Doesn't the gatekeeper remove the author's name and title from the story before the judges get them? I ask about this because the gatekeeper concept seriously intrigues me. We had a teacher who used to assign numbers to us so she could judge our essays without prejudging them by their authors; I always thought she must have recognized our handwriting and that it was moot, but computers don't have such distinctive fonts available! But I agree with Sheila that the Merriweathers should be approached as a chance to have your work objectively judged, and your experience, Marilyn, seems to negate that.

I'd started to write something else and decided it would be wiser not to do so. :rolleyes: I will merely say, instead, that Sheila's suggestion that the Merriweathers consider only new fics sounds like a wonderful idea to me. It will solve any nagging doubts regarding the difficulty to judges in reading stories that they might identify, since FoLCdom has sadly been partly polarized and some might feel anxious at not knowing who's involved. It will also allow the Merriweather Committee to preserve the anonymity that they seem to feel is so important, without any implications of unfair play.

Of course, Sheila and Lynn and I aren't part of the M-Com, and it's up to Katrinalee to make that decision. It's been two days since her last post here, and we don't even know if she's revisited this thread at all. I hope she does come back and clarify some of the questions that have been asked here.

Argh. Wrote one last thing and decided to delete that too. Self-control is a wonderful thing.

Hazel

Puns R Us. Nice one, Pam!

LabRat (still chuckling)

In a perfect world, this would sound like an ideal situation. Unfortunately, it probably won't work in this instance and would end up being a lose-lose situation for both the author and the various awards offered.

Most authors, when writing a story, are generally eager to get their opus out onto the various boards or to the archive, and have never had any reason to NOT post their stories somewhere. Indeed, one of the qualifications to be eligible for the Kerth awards, which up until this point were the only awards offered, were to have the story posted somewhere. If the Merriwether awards were to be restricted to stories that have never been published anywhere, then they would be limiting themselves to the scraps left on peoples' hard drives, or to stories that could be whipped up in the future. They would also be putting themselves in direct competition with the Kerths - to post a story or not would depend on what set of awards that the author would rather submit to. I think both the Merriweather Committee and the KComm would want to avoid such conflicts.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that complete anonymity of the stories isn't necessarily a must, especially when the entrants are demanding less than complete anonymity of the people judging them. It could be that a judge reads a story and says to themself, "yeah, I think I've read this before." Would that type of casual familiarity color their judging of, say, the characterization of the story? Would it change the physical mechanics of how the story was written? There are stories out there that could be considered very recognizable or unique, but again, how does recognition of the story affect how its put together? If a story is one that the judges have discussed with each other outside the awards, perhaps the judges involved should either disqualify themselves or disqualify the story. Just a thought.

AnnN.

How strict are the word count guidelines? If a vignette strays over the 1,500 word limit, will it be disqualified? Or will it just have points deducted from the total score? Is there some room for movement?

Thanks,

Lynn

Not in the Golden Heart. It's up to the individual author whether he/she wants to put his/her name on the entry. Of the 8 entries I judged, 3 had a name and 5 didn't. And as luck would have it, I am acquainted with one of the women who put her name on her entry. We're not bosom buddies; merely acquainted.

On the issue of judging previously-completed vs. brand-new work, I agree with AnnN; it seems very unlikely to me that someone would write any story longer than a vignette only to hold it in order to send it to the Merriweathers before it goes "public." But I think that can effectively be handled by the individual authors. Since this is a contest that you have to submit things to, authors have total control over what stories, if any, they send in. Those who feel comfortable sending in previously-published stories can do so; those who don't, won't.

This is where, btw, it might come in handy to have a schedule of what categories are going to be handled in which month. If I'm writing a revelation story, and I see they'll be doing revelation stories next month, maybe I'll be motivated to finish it quicker, and possibly even to send it for an award (and anticipated improvements, after getting the critique) before posting it anywhere. Just a thought.

PJ

Pam, that sounds like a reasonable way to use the Merriweathers. Many FoLCs already complete their stories before posting so they don't frustrate or cheat readers who are anxiously waiting for the next part. But with a finished story, the writer could use the two contests to make the best story. The writer could submit it to the Merriweathers to get a solid critique from several judges. After evaluating the comments and making any changes that seem to strengthen the story, the writer could post it so it would be eligible for the Kerths.

As a worst case scenario, it would be like having a reader service provide a free critique before submitting the work for "publication" on the archive. And in the best case, it could mean two awards--a Merriweather (which would be like getting 5 star reviews from all the critics) and a Kerth (which would be like making the NY Times bestseller list)!

Oh, Katrinalee... where are you?

Looks like the anonymnity questions have been pretty well hashed-out (for the record, I doubt anyone was worried about their work being recognized by a casual acquaintance; you may not know this, but a few short years ago, there were some pretty angry people flaming each other over various issues, including how much introspection to use in any given story. Those wounds aren't quite healed yet, so we're cautious to avoid repeating the quarrel.)

Apart from that, though, there were some other questions, too. Maybe you've decided to leave those unaddressed, but it seems more likely to me that they've gotten lost amidst the other discussion. So I took the liberty of going through the thread and listing them here. I figure it might be easier to answer, this way.

1. Why only stories from 2001 onwards?

2. Do stories submitted to the cooking story category need to contain a recipe?

3. What is the deadline for this months' competition? When do we need to get our story titles submitted by?

4. What's a submission cycle? And is there going to be a finalized list of categories so authors know when they should plan on submitting their story? I mean, if story X could be submitted in three or four categories, the author might want to decide which categories s/he has the best chance in and only submit to those.

5. Is each judge expected to read every story in a category? Or, if not, are scores from different judges going to be normalized somehow to allow for different judges' biases?

6. Will the judges change for each category?

7. Are there any GEs on the panel for the current category?

8. Can you apply to be a judge?

9. Will each individual author receive a copy of all the judging sheets, so he/she can review the comments and know where the problems/successes were in the story?

10. How strict are the word count guidelines? If a vignette strays over the 1,500 word limit, will it be disqualified? Or will it just have points deducted from the total score? Is there some room for movement?

I understand these things can take a little thought. Speaking as a K-Com member, I'm quite certain that at least some of those questions were unexpected, but that's the fun of interacting with all these empowered FOLCs. They're ornery little critters!

PJ

Hello again. I am sooo sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you. I am a full time wife, full time mother, full time college student with a part-time job and a computer that has developed a non-nocturnal problem---it refuses to connect to the Internet after dark. I am waiting on my computer guru to help me out, but in the meantime I will try and answer everyone's questions. Here we go.

1. Why only stories from 2001 onwards?

The Merriweather Committee is in the process of
reconsidering this rule and opening it up to all
stories of any year. Since a lot of people have
asked about this, the rule will probably be
changed.
Stay tuned.

2. Do stories submitted to the cooking story
category need to contain a recipe?

No. But if it's a cooking story, there has to
be something in the story that identifies it as
a cooking story.

3. What is the deadline for this months'
competition? When do we need to get our story
titles submitted by?

Entries will be taken from Saturday, January 2,
to midnight Saturday, February 5.

4. What's a submission cycle? And is there
going to be a finalized list of categories so
authors know when they should plan on
submitting their story? I mean, if story X
could be submitted in three or four
categories, the author might want to decide
which categories s/he has the best chance in
and only submit to those.

A submission cycle is how many times that
category appears per year. If Revelation
stories are judged twice a year, the same story
can only appear one time per year in that
category. That way, if an author has 4 or 5
revelation stories but can only submit two
stories in that category, they have another
chance to submit other stories later on.

Yes, there will be a list of categories that
will be offered. It will be posted very soon.


5. Is each judge expected to read every story
in a category? Or, if not, are scores from
different judges going to be normalized
somehow to allow for different judges' biases?


It is expected of each judge to read each
story. There is a panel of several judges in
order to achieve balance and a fair score for
each story. If one judge scores a story very
low, another scores it very high, and the rest
of the judges score it high, then the low score
is a factor but not THE deciding factor in the
overall score.

6. Will the judges change for each category?

It is expected that there will be some
fluctuation of judges.

7. Are there any GEs on the panel for the
current category?

I don't know. I only know their names, not if
they are GEs or not.

8. Can you apply to be a judge?

To my knowledge, no. I will ask the
Merriweather Committee about this if enough
people want to be judges. (A question to
everyone here -- does being a judge sound like
something you'd like to do and why?)

9. Will each individual author receive a copy
of all the judging sheets, so he/she can review
the comments and know where the
problems/successes were
in the story?

Absolutely!


10. How strict are the word count guidelines?
If a vignette strays over the 1,500 word limit,
will it be disqualified? Or will it just have
points deducted from the total score? Is there
some room for movement?

I know this is under discussion and I'll get
back to you on it as soon as possible. The
Merriweather Committee doesn't want to reject
any story if at all possible. They believe
that if the author takes the time to submit
their story, it deserves to be accepted and
judged in a professional mannner.

The Merriweather Committee did ask me to make
this announcement: There will be no
submissions accepted during March out of
deference to the Kerth Awards.

Hope this clears a few things up. I'll be back
to check on things tomorrow.

Hi Katrinalee:
Thanks for getting back. Sorry you've had so much trouble. I think this is a typo:
Since that day is long gone, I assume you mean your original submission date of January 22 (this Saturday).
1,500 words is a very long Vignette (i.e. a piece with no plot).
regards
Artemis

Well, I'd have to disagree with you there. Maybe it's just me, but getting a story (even with no plot whatsoever) down to 1,500 words is proving to be a challenge.

Thanks, Katrina, your answers are very helpful.

Lynn

Thanks, Katrina, for answering our questions.

I agree with Lynn -- 1500 words is a lot shorter than I thought it was! I've gone through all of my stories (nearly 30 of them) and even the ones I consider very short are over 1500 words, and some quite a bit over. I only have two that fell under that size; the one that was almost exactly 1500 is the one I would consider submitting. (The other was 850-ish words, but was more a humorous challenge response than a "real story".)

Oh, and just in case anyone was wondering, at least using my stories as a guide, 1500 words is in the 8-9K range, or what the Kerths call "Super Short".

Kathy

You gals are right. I don't know what I was reading when I went to "properties" on one of my stories. Anyway, 30K is about 3,000 words.
Sorry about that, but now I'll have to revamp my plan.

Artemis

I’ve been reading all these posts with interest and the issue of the judges’ anonymity keeps popping up. I have mixed feelings on this because I’ve now been on both sides of the issue. I honestly believe that my anonymity as a contest judge allowed me to be honest (no less diplomatic, but honest) without fear of embarrassment or recrimination. I don’t believe that anyone on these boards would act in an unbecoming manner, but having the judges’ names known COULD set the stage for some unwanted emails arguing about a score or comments.

Just MHO.

I think I would be more comfortable with the awards if I knew who was on the committee. I don't necessarily need to know who the judges for the specific stories are, but I do want to know who is behind these awards. Right now, it almost seems like the organizers don't want to reveal themselves. That bothers me because I want to know who is controlling the awards. I understand the rationale of why the judges don't want to reveal themselves, but why doesn't the committee?

- Laura