Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic The Nuns' Retirement Fund - Comments

Too, what my results have made me think about is the different approaches I can see that judges might take in assigning point values.

One approach, I'm guessing, is to compare the story submitted with the entire spectrum of writing. A judge would read my story and ask him/herself the appropriate questions and assign rankings using all written works as his/her baseline. So, for example, my dialogue would be compared with every writer out there, from Shakespeare to Tom Clancy. In such a case, I can very well see how my story would receive very low scores, overall poor-ratings and the like. The bar has been set very high, indeed, and I would guess the majority of writers would fall well below average.

What is discouraging about this, however, is that very few of us will ever reach the levels of the great writers, thus we are doomed to always receive failing rankings. There is not much encouragement to enter any contest at all if the hope of showing well is completely non-existent. I already know that I'm no Shakespeare and don't need a contest to tell me that.

The other approach, I would imagine, is judging a story by comparing it to other stories within the scope of the very specific genre only. So my story would be compared against only other LnC fanfic stories. In such a case, low scores like mine would indicate a failure to provide a story that amply fits into the genre.

Problem here is that unless we are shown examples of stories that receive even average rankings (because after this showing, I'll be lucky to ever reach "average"), we have no idea of what constitutes outstanding. Yes, we've been told who the winners are. But did those winners have scores much closer to the 600 point maximum than I did? How am I to know what story would receive a 600 pt. award - something I would aspire to - if I don't know the scores of the winning stories? There is no bar for me to reach for, per se.

I would be interested to know under which method the Merriweather judges operate. If my work is being compared to Shakespeare, I have a lot to live up to.

Lynn

Lynn, I really enjoyed this story. I personally thought it fit well into S.1 continuity as far as characterization goes. I liked the little moments where Lois feels a twinge of dismay or regret at perceiving that she'd hurt Clark's feelings, but she wasn't going to apologize. I thought that was quite typical. Like Labby, I loved the reference to courage and invulnerability, and I too immediately thought of the scene in JSN where he dove back into the fray without his powers.

Now, as to the score sheet... Let me add my voice to thank you for posting your results. It made for very interesting reading as I've tried to fathom what the judges did or didn't like - and for the most part I've come up empty...

First, responding to Wendy's comment:

I haven't gone back and reviewed the rules since they were first posted, but I believe that the judges were supposed to be judging each story without knowing the author's identity. This was one reason why we were concerned about allowing previously "published" stories to be entered, since a judge might recognize it as being written by Author X and then possibly being influenced based on his/her relationship with Author X. Since Lynn submitted a brand-new story, no one would know whether she was a new author or not...

Characterization seems to be the big bugaboo here. Again. Well, as I keep repeating myself, since viewing characterization is highly subjective, you can certainly have stories where 10 people say "this is the best S.1 Lois I've ever seen" and another 10 people say "no way, I thought Lois was written completely OOC". And no single side is right. Each person is just judging the Lois in this story based on the Lois that they have in their heads from their own interpretations of the L&C episodes.

I found it curious that 2 of the judges gave you a 0 in that category, Lynn. There doesn't seem to be an allowance for that. Since the descriptor for 1 point was "Poor quality; Needs lots of work" (harsh words, those, but then again the judges are there to critique the stories, not put a bright happy face on it), are they saying that the characterizations in your story are below that?

And although I'm glad to see that a judge commented specifically that he/she liked your characterizations of L&C (since I liked them too ), this didn't seem to be reflected in the scoring from any of the judges. Even the highest rank in that category was low compared to the maximum - if that judge felt that it was indeed "very good" characterization, why wasn't his/her score higher?

I remember when the original discussion about the Awards came up, Sheila mentioned that someone had panned an entry she had made to a writing contest/competition. She then wrote to the judge through the gatekeeper, seeking clarification on how to improve it, and the judge shed her anonymity and corresponded with Sheila on what she had felt were the weak points. I'm not saying that would happen here (probably not), but it might be worth a try if you're curious.

And as to this comment well, if that's almost all that was written, that disturbs me. If the judge didn't like the story, that's fine. But I would think he/she, as a judge, has the responsibility to tell you specifically what he/she didn't like - and why - outside of the bare numbers for each topic of consideration. I assume that he/she did, otherwise a statement like that is just too "vague".

Lynn, I'd like to thank you again for sharing both your story (which I enjoyed very much) and your score sheet with us. And since you did not perform well in the judges' views, I think it took real courage for you to put your scores out there in the open, since you are not invulnerable...

Kathy

Kathy - I assume my story was given to the judges with my name removed and therefore I was anonymous. There was a number at the top of my scorecard, so I'm guessing that's how I was known.

As for feedback, I found the questions asked on the scorecard to be very promising for providing some extensive feedback. I did receive a nice mix of positive as well as negative commentary, but nothing that I feel would help me write a better story, per se, in that it lacked specificity. Some of what the judges said makes very good sense since I did feel that the brevity of the story left some areas vague (such as at the end with the money or when Lois "almost" kissed Clark). This stuff I plan to fix before sending to archive by adding back some of the stuff I cut to make word-count.

Here are my comments (since I've already bared my soul) verbatim. Since my e-mail added breaks that might not be accurate, I might have broken the remarks in wrong places but I don't think it construes the meaning at all:

What did you especially like or dislike about the hero/heroine or both?

“I did not care for Lois’ characterization at all. She was too bitchy and uptight. Clark came across as wimpy and uptight.”

"Lois is TOO pushy and Clark is TOO wimpy. Their normal character has been exaggerated."

"This is very good characterization of both Lois and Clark. I particularly like the way the author shows that Lois is pushy instead of telling the reader so."

What are two areas you felt were well done?

“The plot was well laid out and the setting immediately established. There was no confusion about what was going on and where it was all taking place."

"Great dialogue!"

"This is a great original idea. A small slice of the day told with a lot of humor that proves a great story can be free of villains or excessive cuddling. The author could have spared a short sentence to show the kid’s reactions so the reader is not wondering about this all through the story. Is the unspoken question at the end intentional? (Did Lois give the kid the $20 or the $1?)"

"The very active descriptions of Lois’ driving and of the water fight are successful at setting the scene without boring exposé of what the surrounding environment looks like. The author demonstrates a very good use of voice for “showing” the setting instead of “telling“ the setting."

What are two areas you felt needed work? Tell why and make suggestions.

“Characterization was the only problem I had with this vignette."

"The whole piece just doesn’t make sense and was not appealing at all to me. My favorite fanfic genre is the vignette, but this was too vague."

"The author very effectively shows the action with the senses instead of telling the story. The constant use of active voice keeps the story crisp and fun to read."

"While sentence fragments are fine in dialogue to mimic speech patterns, there are fragments in the introspection that need to be fixed. The author also has a strange punctuation error (period used instead of a comma in the middle of a sentence) that shows up several times and is very distracting – Punctuation:"

{Sidebar here - I think this last remark was in reference to the conversion of my elipses into periods which *would* look very strange in the middle of a sentence.}

What, if anything, seemed clichéd to you? (Plot,characterization, dialogue, etc.)

"Nothing."

“Overall I liked the setting and plot of this vignette."

"I did not care for the characterization but everything else was superior."

Anything else?

"There is great dialogue to show the byplay between Lois and Clark. The fragmented sentences are acceptable since this accurately depicts speech pattern. Lois’ dismissive style is clearly confirmed by her choice of words. The author effectively manages the use (or absence) of quote tags."

"Remember to keep your characters likeable."

"The writer’s dialogue and pacing are great."

"This was a fun vignette to read."

What I liked best about this entry.

"Great opening hook."

***

Okay, you know what? After reading through this commentary very carefully, I'm wondering if I haven't made some sort of misinterpretation error as to the way things are scored. Because the feedback offers some very nice comments that are not reflected at all in the scores as they are presented (example: word "superior" being used but not reflected in any way by more than one highest ranking score). If that is the case, perhaps some clarification by the M-Comm will help me understand the scoring system better.

I was both pleased and disappointed by the comments in that I wish the negative ones had been a bit more specific.

Lynn

Okay, I'm breathing a bit easier. Over in the Merriweather Scores and Comments thread, we've received explanation that the total possible points awarded is actual half of what was posted on the Merriweather website. So instead of a total of 600 total possible points, the actual total possible points is only 300.

Huge difference in the interpretation of my scores with that new bit of information. I was glad to hear that because something just wasn't jiving right, and now I understand why.

Lynn

Cute vignette

Jose