Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related 25th Annual Kerth Awards 2023: Nomination Time Starts Now!

(Well, technically in 13 mins from now… the form will be live then.)

Hey, FoLCs!!

Did the middle of March sneak up on anyone else??

It’s time to officially open the nomination for this year’s Kerth Awards!! And gosh, I feel like there’s a lot of info that will be in this post (and people have accused me of rambling — I accuse myself all the time), so I’m going to give a quick version with all the pertinent details and then I’ll ramble on about more details and questions we anticipate you might have!

WHEN: Nomination period runs from Sunday, March 12th 0:00 UTC to Sunday, March 26th 23:59 UTC.


WHERE: Here is the official nomination form.

Handy links:

Here are all the 2023 categories along with their descriptions.

Here are ALL the eligible stories, complete with links to both the gfic and nfanfic when applicable.

Currently, all the eligible fanart is linked to within this post and/or within the FoLC Productions section of the boards (2022 posted content only!).


Important Rules/Guidelines:

• 
  Be sure to include the title of the fic and the author, as titles can be the same or similar. We recommend just copying and pasting it from the eligibles list to save yourself time and effort (and to avoid typos).
• You do NOT need to fill out every category to submit a ballot, but you should try and be sure that your ballot is complete for all the categories you do want to nominate in before submitting your form.
• This is an open submission form, meaning that you write in the box rather than choose from a list. We recommend trying to nominate no more than 5 stories per category.
• Please remember that nominating and voting can only be done by FoLCs. Family, friends, and work colleagues cannot nominate or vote.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a new or old FoLC or somewhere in between, WE NEED YOUR PARTICIPATION!!

And gosh, look how much I rambled already for the short version! So long that I need to come back and do the long version later tonight. So stay tuned for an update to this post in which I’ll cover all the questions you might have, like…

“How do I know what fits in what category?”
“I’m overwhelmed! Where do I start?”
“I’m new here and…I’m lost. Please help!”
… and much, much more!

We have two weeks for nominations, so finish up as much of your reading as you can!

Have a question? Ask it here! Or you can PM any of the K-Com members or reach out on Discord too! You can also send an email to us here: Kcom@kerthawards.com

We’re excited to hear from you!

The Kerth Committee
(Sara, Michael, Annie, and lovetvfan)

Other 2023 Kerth posts…
Kerth Announcement Post / Index
Eligible stories list
Official Kickoff Post (Schedule and Categories)
Eligible Fanart and Opt-In Opportunity


Activities
25th Annual Kerth Awards 2023: Activity—Writer’s Year in Review
25th Annual Kerth Awards 2023: Activity—Reader’s Year in Review

FoLCs, we had some server troubles with the nominations setup during the past couple of hours and if you posted your nominations during that time, you got a blank page in response and no e-mail confirmation. If you experienced this, please re-submit your nominations. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you all for your support!

Michael

Hey, FoLCs!!

I know some of you have questions, so I’m going to address some potential ones here, but please throw them at me, all the questions you can think of! In no particular order… I present to you a Q&A with myself.

How do I know what fits into what category?

Obviously, there are some categories that will be obvious—the length ones, of course! And we’ll soon have up an official list of what counts as a “challenge response” (because those are objectively definable). But what about the rest? How do I know what’s a “Best Revelation”? Okay, okay…so that’s an easier one—is there a revelation (Lois or someone else finding out that Clark is Superman)? then, yeah, it can go in that category! Best Elseworlds or AU? Does it deviate significantly from the show before the pilot? Does it address an alternate universe? Some of these can be a little trickier, but if you think it goes there and you really loved it—nominate it! Best Waffy? Did it give you those Warm And Fuzzy Feelings—which people also now call fluff!—? Jot it down for Best Waffy!

We of the committee did our best (and took from definitions of years’ past!) to make the category definitions as clear as possible. Our best advice with this is to not stress about it or overthink it. The nomination process itself will self-sort stuff like this.


I’m overwhelmed! Where do I start?

Take a deep breath—it’ll be okay! Especially if this is your first Kerths, it can definitely feel overwhelming. Here are a few suggestions…

• Go in order down the list of categories—I know my brain likes things orderly, so that’s probably how I’ll approach it. Just check things off as you go! And better still—it’s handily starting with the really short stories, so that can make it feel a bit like you’re making progress faster.
• Take a page from Toomi’s book and print out a list of allll the stories and you can highlight and/or make notes on stories that you’ve read and know you want to nominate. Then start reading more and making notes as you go.
• Make a list of all the stories you already know you want to nominate and for which category/ies. That way, if it’s down to crunch time and you haven’t read as much as you wanted to get read, you at least have your favorites ready to submit.

I’m new here and…I’m lost. Please help!

First off—welcome! We’re so glad you’re here and wanting to participate! FoLCs are a friendly and helpful bunch, so you can ask questions lots of places and get answers. Ask here on this thread or start a new one. Still lurking? No worries—PM a K-Com member and ask us privately. Email the K-Com here: to us here: Kcom@kerthawards.com Or join us on discord and PM or ask in a main channel.

That’s all the questions I can think of for the moment, but I’m happy to answer more! Specific or general—lemme have ‘em!


Sara and the K-Comm

More Q&A!!


Can I nominate more than one per category?

Please do!!! We hope that you can think of FIVE (5) for each category! List each story on its own line within the form field, like so:

Title of Story by Awesome FoLC
Title of Different Story by Super FoLC
Yet Another Story by Fabulous FoLC
Story Story: About Superman by SuperDuperFoLC
Clever Story Title by Clever FoLC

*We recommend copying and pasting the title and author straight from the eligible stories list to make things easier on yourself and avoid typos.


I’m not sure what to do for Best Supporting/Original Character—how do I list that?

Please list the specific character’s name that you think was awesome and well-written, then list the title and the author of the story from which they came. What if you want to nominate 5 different characters from ONE story? Awesome! Just list each one on a separate line! (Gosh, there sure were a lot of awesome Hendersons in my pretend world!)

Henderson, Title of Story by Awesome FoLC
Mayson Drake, Title of Story by Awesome FoLC
Detective Original Character, Title of Story by Awesome FoLC
Henderson, Title of Different Story by Super FoLC
Henderson, Yet Another Story by Fabulous FoLC


Shoot! I hit submit and I wasn’t done! What do I do?
Ack! I submitted my nominations the other day, but then I thought of more! What do I do?
I made a mistake on my form! What do I do?

Have no fear! It’ll be okay! While we do encourage you to have your nominations as complete as possible before submitting them the first time, the system DOES allow for you to submit again. But here’s the very important caveat: Only the most recent form submission will count and the earlier one(s) will be discarded! So if you submit nominations with only the first two categories filled out…then submit another form with the rest of the categories filled out… we will ONLY count the second, most recent submission. Ack! What does that mean? It just means that IF you plan to re-submit your form, it MUST have ALL your nominations on this most recent form—so you can just copy and paste from your last confirmation email for the ones you’d already submitted, and then fill out the rest.



More questions? Lemme know!!

Sara and the K-Comm!

Addendum: you get a mail with your submission, so you already have a record of what you submitted sitting in your inbox.

Michael

How do I know what counts as a challenge story?


We made a list for you! Stories eligible for Best Challenge Response.

Gosh, I was finding it a challenge to sort everything by size for those size categories… but then I remembered we have a spreadsheet thanks to Michael with all the of the relevant information on it…and you can sort by size! That should make the size categories a little easier, yeah??

This is a Google Spreadsheet of the eligible stories that you can sort at will by size or author or whatever. Please make a copy for yourself and use that to play around.

Sara

Oh my… don’t mind me talking to myself in this thread! But I just finished this little (it’s really long) helper/organizer sheet for myself in Google Docs…and gosh, feels wrong not to share this too after spending time on it!

2023 Kerth Nomination Organizer

On the lefthand side, there is a clickable table of contents/outline by category. Within each section is the ENTIRE list of eligible stories pasted…with the exception of the size categories (which I pared down to the relevant stories for each section) and the challenge response section (which I just pasted in the post I made the other day with the challenge stories).

My plan of attack was to delete stories from each section, narrowing things down until I had a list of 5 for each section! This is how my brain works. If it’s how yours works too—I hope this helps you!

I’m really excited about this year’s Kerths (can you tell? ), and I want to make it as easy as possible for everyone who wants to get nominations in to get them in!

Sara

Thank you for the list, Sara. It looks to be extremely helpful.

Thanks, Sara, for the Kerth Nomination Organizer! I used it to compile my nominations. It was very helpful and I appreciate your taking the time to make it.

This list was incredibly useful! Thank you for putting it together.

So… this fanart thing is a new category and I don’t know what to do to nominate! Help?”

There’s bound to be some kinks we need to work out as we introduce this new category—and it seems like explaining HOW to nominate fanart was one of the things we needed to do better! Oops!

This year, we only have three artists who have created fanart. Each of them has created several different pieces of fanart, and it’s those pieces we want to nominate and then vote on rather than the artists themselves.

So for nominations, just as we would do for stories, we want to nominate each piece of art—whether a video or banner or icon!


Now if you’ve already submitted your nominations and want to add to them or correct them, remember that there’s the option to re-submit them. If you do, PLEASE be sure to make them full and complete by taking your confirmation email from the first submission and copying and pasting what you’d already nominated. YOUR NEW SUBMISSION WILL REPLACE YOUR PREVIOUS ONE, so it needs to be complete! Don’t worry—we’ll work with you if you make a mistake! We’re just trying to make sure our automated process works efficiently and fairly.

Terry, Toomi, and Songbird! I’m so happy you’ve found the thing helpful! I’ll definitely make sure I do something again like this next year… it’s not necessarily an “official” thing—but maybe next year it will be.


Sunday the 26th is creeping up on me!! Is it sneaking up on anyone else?? Let’s get those nominations in!!

If you have ANY questions, please continue to ask them here, on Discord, or in PM, and I’ll be happy to answer them!

Sara

Its March 23rd already!?

Where have I been?

Will finish reading as much of these great stories as possible before the deadline. Whew!

***Another update on the fanart category!***

Thank you for being patient with us as we work out the kinks on this new category! As explained above, you should nominate the individual pieces of fanart rather than the artist themselves. I’ve edited the eligibles posts for fanart to make this clearer and easier—the banners now show up IN that post so they’re easy to see and have the name right there if they didn’t before. And the videos each have their own link, complete with the song title and artist so those are easier to see as well. I’ve also updated the nomination organizer with these easier video links and the banners right there in the organizer to look at! I’ve added a note in there also, that says to nominate 5-6.

Please continue to let me/us know if there are any questions or concerns!! Especially if you’re wanting to re-submit your nomination forms to adjust for the fanart category!

Thanks!

Sara and the K-Comm

I hate to be that person but...my stories, Bad Reputation and Borrowed Happiness are listed as Best Comedy when they are not, in fact, comedies. Both are serious stories. (My muse has a sick sense of humor, but even she didn't laugh at Jimmy's girlfriend being turned into a road pancake. LOL!)

Gotta carve out time to vote...RL has kept me on my toes lately.

I'm sure Sara will jump in here when she can, but I believe as she said, this is just an organizer. She merely copied and pasted the **entire** list of stories into every category, except for the ones in the length categories, which objectively fit into certain categories based on word count.

The intention was to give everyone a tool they could use to narrow down their selections for each category. So she deliberately did not remove any stories from any of the other categories.

Hope this helps!

I'm finishing up my own nominations now (ack, how is it already March 23?!?), and I found the organizer to be very useful!

-Bek

Ah, didn't realize that. I've been beyond exhausted with work and my brain just did not translate that all the stories were listed.

Right?? And now it’s the 25th! I’ve got to scramble to finish my own—I’ve read all the things, but I’m having so much trouble narrowing things down!!


Bek, thanks so much for addressing Deadly Chakram’s concern! I’ve been trying to pop in and out while on vacation—and now that I’m home, trying to play RL and fandom catchup!

Only about a day left…

Sara