Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Update on Merriweather Awards

FROM THE MERRIWEATHER COMMITTEE:



First off: Thank you very much to those of you who support us and have given us the benefit of the doubt during the past few weeks. We did everything in our power to insure that we would have a fair and anonymous contest. We tried to prepare for every contingency but there are always events that catch one completely unaware, that you never foresee. We went through our trial by fire right out of the starting gate and it truly was a never-to-be-forgotten learning experience. Again, we thank all of you who continue to support us as we try to make the Merriweather Award a competition that encourages and rewards excellence in writing.



In answer to several questions forwarded to us by Katrina:




We have discussed the suggestions you have made for making the Merriweathers better. We appreciate your support as we try to make this better for writers, judges, and readers.



The first suggestion was to get an assistant for Katrina (the gatekeeper). This has been taken care of and the assistant gatekeeper has introduced herself. We are currently in the process of dividing the duties between them. The additional gatekeeper was also installed to make sure that anyone who has a question for the M-Comm gets a faster response.



Additionally, not only will the gatekeepers see and total the scores, all the members of the M-Comm will double-check scores. No scores will be released and no winners will be announced until all the scores have gone through the double-checking process.



We were asked to update the website. This has been done.



The M-Comm has instituted much tighter rules for submissions and these rules have been posted to the updated website. Effective with the next submission, all stories must come from either the Archive or a Message Board. Writers will submit the link to their stories to the gatekeepers. Additionally, any author who uses and submits an older story under an old pseudonym must notify the gatekeepers of their current message board nickname. If the gatekeepers cannot verify the author, the story will be disqualified.



A new policy that the M-Comm implemented was to request that the gatekeepers double-check the entries against the Archive and Message Boards to verify the legitimacy of the author to the story submitted. Any story that is sent as an attachment to an e-mail will be disqualified for not being in compliance with the rules. This is to avoid any further problems with the authenticity of stories and/or authors and to protect all those who enter a story in good faith.



It also goes without saying that all stories must be completed prior to submission. No story that is still under construction (e.g., the story is only up to Part 10 of 20 when the submission cycle begins) will be allowed to enter.



The sample scoresheets remain on the website but the total points for each category have been deleted. The M-Comm will create a new scoresheet for each category. New points will be assigned to the categories for each new competition.



The M-Comm will not release scoresheets prior to the close of the competition. This is a policy used in other writing contests and we are simply following an established practice. Once the scores have been released, the scoresheet in its entirety will be released for those people who wish to see on what criteria they were judged.




Our next category is Episode Rewrites. This is in honor of the long-awaited, much-anticipated release of the DVDs. Stories can be up to 60,000 words in length. Submissions will begin April 30 and run through May 14. No scores will be released prior to June 30 in order to allow the judges plenty of time to thoughtfully read and critique each story.



Again, thank you for your support as we continue to move forward with making the Merriweathers better.



Sincerely,



The Merriweather Committee (all)

Thank you for the update, M-Comm, and good luck for the second round.

I do have a question, though, and it relates to this:

I was puzzled by this when Cindy suggested it in the other thread. If you're only accepting previously-published stories, and not allowing anyone to write anything new for the competition, then how is it possible to guarantee anonymity for writers? All a judge has to do is Google to find out who wrote the story, always assuming they don't remember it anyway.

Of course, I'm by no means suggesting the judges would do that, but it just seems to me that there isn't really any way to guarantee anonymity to the authors, so why not simply send the stories to the judges with author names attached?


Wendy

In critiquing the stories, I'm guessing the objective is to learn from your mistakes and to improve your writing style. But if only old stories are allowed to be submitted, what's the point? I would think you would encourage people to write ESPECIALLY FOR the Merriweathers, so an author's current work would be judged.

It seems this requirement turns the Merriweathers into a judgment of who used to be the best writer, not who is the best writer now.

The Merriweather Committee would like to take this opportunity to reply to concerns expressed in Roger's and Wendy's posts. We hope this clears up questions that they have posed:

Wendy wanted to know:

If you're only accepting previously-published stories, and not allowing anyone to write anything new for the competition...

Roger commented:

I would think you would encourage people to write ESPECIALLY FOR the Merriweathers, so an author's current work would be judged.

The rule states: All stories must come from either the Archive or a Message Board. Writers will submit the link to their stories to the gatekeepers. To clarify this rule: it doesn't matter when you wrote it, it just needs to be linked to either a message board or to the Archive. For Merriweather purposes, "current work" will be classified as anything written within the past year to the present.

Later in the year, we will have a submission cycle for original works.

Wendy also stated:

All a judge has to do is Google to find out who wrote the story, always assuming they don't remember it anyway. Of course, I'm by no means suggesting the judges would do that...

We are happy to state that the judges we chose for the first round of stories observed the honor system and didn't Google. Judges e-mailed Katrina after the scoring was completed to ask who wrote the stories.

And:

...but it just seems to me that there isn't really any way to guarantee anonymity to the authors, so why not simply send the stories to the judges with author names attached?

We discovered that the judges liked the anonymity and want to continue it. They didn't remember who wrote what and for some of the judges, all the material was new. Since this system worked, we're going to stay with it.

Roger said:

In critiquing the stories, I'm guessing the objective is to learn from your mistakes and to improve your writing style.

This is exactly the reason the Merriweathers were created. Thank you, Roger. It was created to give anonymous feedback on strengths and weaknesses, therefore encouraging stronger writing with positive feedback.

He also stated:

It seems this requirement turns the Merriweathers into a judgment of who used to be the best writer, not who is the best writer now.
The Merriweather was never intended for that purpose. It was also created to give writers a "second bite of the apple" with a favorite story. If they wrote a story a year ago that they loved but didn't receive much feedback on it, then this competition would give them feedback. Perhaps they felt it should have been nominated for a Kerth (or even was nominated and won); if they loved it and believed it was good, they have the opportunity to submit it for another chance at winning an award.

Sincerely,

The Merriweather Committee

Well, I admit that I'm still a bit puzzled about the anonymity issue. The judges and M-Comm members wish to remain anonymous. Fine.

But why are they denying the same to the authors submitting stories?

You state that:

I think continuing the anonymity between author and judge is wonderful. But if you make it a "rule" that the story has to be posted to either one of the mbs or the Archive, you are threatening that anonymity. Just because none of the judges recognized anything (or remembered who the authors were) in this cycle, doesn't mean that it will continue.

As I stated in the other thread, if I had been a judge, I definitely would have recognized Paul's "The Envelope", Jenni's and Meredith's stories. I remembered both the stories *and* the authors. I admit that I have a very good memory for the stories that I've read, but I know I'm not the only one. Threads crop up on both boards all the time with someone asking "do you know this fic"?, and answers usually crop up immediately. I'm not the only one answering, so there are others who have a good memory for fics as well.

If the judges like the anonymity, I'm curious why you are instituting a rule that endangers that.

Kathy

Hmm, I picked up on this, too, and read the responses.

If a category came up that I liked, could I write something new, submit it to the Archive (or Message Boards), and then turn around right away and submit it to the Merriweathers? What do you think, M-Comm?

JD

M-Comm will no doubt answer this one for themselves, of course, but as I understand the rule the answer to your question would be no, Jen.

There is a turnaround time on the Archive between submitting a story and it appearing on the Archive website - to take account of the time needed to pass it by a GE and have it edited, and sometimes upload considerations (stories are generally uploaded on a first come, first served basis, but occasionally I'll have to skip a few stories - if the first five on the list are all by the same author, say - to ensure a mix of stories in that week's upload).

Merriweather judges would therefore not be able to see your story on the Archive when you submit it to them. I think. <g>

Of course, they could get around that, I guess, by mailing me to confirm that the story has been submitted and is going through the upload process. That wouldn't be difficult.

I don't think there would be a problem if you had posted the story on the mbs - again, if I understand correctly the answer given by M-Comm in their earlier post.

LabRat

As I recall, however, they said that they would consider stories posted to the message boards, not just those on the Archive. So from that, I would think that if someone wanted to write a new story for the Merriweathers, they could write it up and quickly post it to the MBs, then send the link to the MCom Gatekeepers before the submission deadline. Personally, I can't usually write that fast (though I did surprise myself when the Charity Fanzine project came up back in ... 1999?) but if someone can, more power to them!

I guess there would be nothing stopping an author from posting a story to the MB/Archive under a new pen name, though ... other than the fact that the MCom has stated they don't want those type of submissions, of course.

Kathy

What are the requirements for a story to be called an Episode Rewrite? Does it have to treat the entire episode plot or just a scene?

Thank you,
AnnaBtG.

I was just wondering if there is going to be an episode rewrite category this month. No one from the committee has posted anything recently, and I went to the web page and the link to submit a story to the gate keeper was broken.

After last time when my story wasn't judged, I am not sure if I am going to submit a story, but I want to know if this is actually going to happen before I spend time trying to find a story of mine that qualifies for the category.

- Laura

Laura:
The link from the site didn't work for me when I submitted my vignette either. If you click on the envelope in the first post you do get an e-mail address you can use. I would send your required information to that address and see what happens. You should get a return acknowledgement from someone. I don't have anything to submit in this category, so I haven't tried recently, but it worked for the vignette.
regards
Artemis

I was just saying that if the Merriweather committee wants people to submit stories for this month's contest, they haven't done a good job publicizing it. If they want stories submitted, wouldn't it make sense for them to remind authors that the we are now allowed to submit stories and also tell us exactly where we should submit them? I think that would be the professional way to run a contest.

- Laura

Yes, I certainly agree with you.

Artemis

Hey All -

The M-Comm offers apologies for not getting back to you earlier, but **gasp** Real Life reared its ugly head and took away our time to get things rolling.

Real Life and being "adult" really has its downsides at times! :-p

Look for the announcement concerning the opening of nominations in a moment here!

Thanks for your patience, everyone, and again - our apologies for the delay!

Sincerely,

THe Merrieweather Committe