I have to agree with several of you in saying that I think it's not right to nominate a story you haven't read. I also think that you should nominate really good stories you have read, even if you haven't read everything. Personally, I think people should try to read at least half the stories in a particular area, or skim the first few paragraphs to see if the writing seems to be intriguing enough to continue, if they have time limitations. But then, I'm a speedreader--noticed you said you read fast too, Wendy (wonder how fast we both go? lol)--and so when I discovered several days into it that nominations were open, I didn't think anything of my proclamation to read all 200 fics by the next week. Hehe, I was in for it! The reading took awhile, and I had to sit and summarize and rate each one so I knew exactly how I felt it should stand.
Now, I was able to shorten my reading process by throwing out the worst. There were a few (thankfully I don't even remember which) that I knew immediately would never be nominated; their writing was simply not good enough. But on my rating scale, they were all 1s, and I even summarized the 2s onward (mostly because I wanted to read 'em anyways). If I had had less time, I would have probably thrown out all the 2s and 2-3s and only rated and summarized the really good fics, though that would have been harder to do. For me, the higher the rating, the more difficult to distinguish at a glance. I rated some stories 1s for poor writing--overly simplistic, etc. (the type a child would write) Distinguishing the 1s was an easy process--the lack of quality showed up within a few paragraphs, and I quickly turned from the fic to more important reading. The 2s were that because though they had decent writing, it was nothing special; the plotlines weren't the greatest. In other words, they were decent reading but not award-worthy. They were harder to distinguish from the 3s than the 1s were from the 2s, because the main difference between them and the 3s were the plotlines, a little passage here and there that was touching, etc., though the writing quality factored in some. I would have had to skim the whole thing (or do a first/middle/last skim), or else read the first dozen paragraphs intensely, to be able to decide quickly on those, and that's not easy. 3s and 4s were even harder--the 4s were the ones that left me breathless when I finished--in other words, I had to read the whole thing anyways. And I nominated quite a few 3-4s, stories with really good writing and plotlines, that didn't call to me emotionally the way the 4s did (but that didn't make them less well-written, I thought). So anyways, though it is possible to skim the beginning and know which ones to read or not, those who toss out more than I did must have more clear-cut guidelines, lol. But then, maybe I just question myself a lot. (The idea of keeping track of a list of stories you WON'T nominate is an interesting idea--wouldn't it be more helpful to keep track of the ones you'd consider nominating? To each his or her own, I guess, lol.)
Also, I think that if someone doesn't have much time, maybe focusing on a certain size category would be better--lol, like all the super-shorts and shorts. Or maybe ONLY long ones, and trying to get through 'em all (there were a good 20-some, I think, don't have my file open right now to check). But then it doesn't take care of categories like Best Original/Supporting Character and Best Elseworlds/AU (though it would help with the Comedy, Drama, WAFFy, and short vs. long episode adaptation or revelation fics). I don't know, lol, I'm glad I had the time for all of it!
(Uh-oh, this is definitely not postcard size . . . *looks worried* I have to admit it--I ramble--you should hear me in person!)
