Yahoo Forum Archive

The categories and awards for 2004 were:

Adventure (Black Gate / Pelennor / Helm's Deep)
Crossover (PotC / Hidalgo / Indiana Jones)
Drama (Turin / Frodo Baggins / Nimrodel & Amroth)
Elves (Lothlorien / Imladris / Grey Havens)
Hobbits (Mayor of Hobbiton / Master of Buckland / Thain of Great
Smials)
Horror (Morgoth Bauglir / Eye of Sauron / Witch-King of Angmar)
Humor (Tom Bombadil / Bilbo Baggins / Barliman Butterbur)
Lord of the Rings (FotR / TTT / RotK)
Men(Faithful / Kings / Stewards)
Mystery (Cuivienen / Pukelmen / Barrow-Wight)
Numenor (Elros / Tar-Palantir / Tar-Miriel)
Orcs (Barad-dur / Minas Morgul / Orthanc)
Rohan (Theoden / Eomer / Eowyn)
Romance (Luthien and Beren / Tuor and Idril / Aragorn and Arwen)
The Hobbit (Shire / Mirkwood / Lonely Mountain)
The Silmarillion (Ainulindale / Valaquenta / Akallabeth)

I think these are good, but I can see room for tweaking. These are my
suggestions for next year, and they are quite possibly the result of a
finals-addled brain. Feel free to reject or offer your own
suggestions.

* Drama - There are too few pictures of Turin and Nimrodel & Amroth. I
would suggest we choose different titles, but I don't have very good
suggestions. Thinking practically, it might help to choose three LotR
characters with a fair amount of drama in their story. Eowyn and
Denethor jump to mind. Oh, please, let me make Denethor banners...

* Elves - Thinking practically, again, we might want to rethink the
Grey Havens. Why not make the third prize award Mirkwood (I have a
suggestion for The Hobbit to avoid that title there, but I'll go into
that in a minute). I suggest this because there are many illustrations
of Mirkwood from the books and I'm sure in fanart, where as I don't
think as many for The Grey Havens.

* Hobbits - The order of the awards always seemed odd to me. Perhaps
I'm the only one bothered by this kind of thing... but the Thain is
the oldest and most prestigious office ("But in that war the North
Kingdom ended; and then the Hobbits took the land for their own, and
they chose from their own chiefs a Thain to hold the authority of the
king that was gone.", Prologue). The Master is also an important
position: "the authority of the Master of the Hall (as the head of the
Brandybuck family was called) was still acknowledged by the farmers
between Stock and Rushey. ", "A Conspiracy Unmasked". And the
mayoralty is of course an office, but a rather unimportant one: "As
mayor almost his only duty was to preside at banquets, given on the
Shire-holidays, which occurred at frequent intervals.", "Prologue". In
light of this, I suggest Thain=first, Master=second, and Mayor=third.
(Sorry for the ramble!)

* Men - I suggest Numenor and Rohan be subsumed under Men as
subcategories. The awards could then be Numenor, Gondor, and Rohan
(or, if you prefer the main Ring War powers, perhaps Gondor, Rohan,
and Harad? Think of the potential for great desert banners!)

* Mystery - I want the Entwives! This is one of the greatest mysteries
in all Tolkien (IMHO), and thanks to the movies we have lots of
pictures of Ents that could be used. I leave it up to you which place
to put it in, but I think this would be a great award. (Added: I
requested Pukel-men below for Drabbles. Maybe substitute Entwives for
that one here?)

Orcs - This category is great, but I would suggest changing the name
to somehow include all pieces about forces of evil, not just orcs. I
know Werecat has a great piece on Tevildo, a servant of Morgoth, that
I wanted to nominate but which did not seem appropriate for this
category. Also, I am proposing a new category below that I would like
Orthanc for. Can we use Moria here instead?

* Romance - For practical reasons (because there's so little art out
there to work with) you might want to consider changing Luthien and
Beren, and Tuor and Idril. Maybe the three major canonical romances in
LotR? (Aragorn and Arwen, Faramir and Eowyn, Sam and Rosie)

* The Hobbit - if you go with my suggestion to use Mirkwood for Elves,
you could change this Mirkwood Award to The Misty Mountains Award or
The Laketown Award.

Now, for my additions. (I know, I know... almost done here.) I would
like to request three additions to the genres:

1. Poetry
* First: "The Road Goes Ever On" Award
* Second: The "Where Now the Rider" Award
* Third: "Eärendil was a Mariner" Award
(The three poems I most associate with hobbits, men, and elves; these
are completely negotiable)

2. Drabbles
* First: The Hobbits Award
* Second: The Dwarves Award
* Third: The Pukel-men Award
(Get it? They're short...)

3. Nonfiction
* First: The Rivendell Award
* Second: The Minas Tirith Award
* Third: The Orthanc Award
(major centres of scholarship at end of TA)

And that's it. Sorry this was so long.

Marta

-----Original Message-----
From: Marta [mailto:MartaL0712@netscape.net]
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 12:28 AM
To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [MEFAwards] PM: Tweaks to Current Categories

>I think these are good, but I can see room for tweaking. These are my

suggestions for next year, and they are quite possibly the result of a
finals-addled brain. Feel free to reject or offer your own suggestions.

I had at least one of my own. Maybe more.

>* Drama - There are too few pictures of Turin and Nimrodel & Amroth. I

would suggest we choose different titles, but I don't have very good
suggestions. Thinking practically, it might help to choose three LotR
characters with a fair amount of drama in their story. Eowyn and Denethor
jump to mind. Oh, please, let me make Denethor banners...

We already have an Eowyn (thus far). I've been thinking Faramir is quite an
angsty guy. However, and I think this is worth nothing, most of the banners
that won, WEREN'T screen captured. So does it really matter that there
aren't pictures?

>* Elves - Thinking practically, again, we might want to rethink the Grey

Havens. Why not make the third prize award Mirkwood (I have a suggestion for
The Hobbit to avoid that title there, but I'll go into that in a minute). I
suggest this because there are many illustrations of Mirkwood from the books
and I'm sure in fanart, where as I don't think as many for The Grey Havens.

The problem with pictures from books is copyright. I've stated on the site
that the MEFAs aren't responsible for getting permission. The artist making
the banner is. If anyone comes to me saying they have a problem with a
banner because of copyright material, I'm going to send them back to whoever
made the banner. Screencaps, then, are not such a problem. But like I
said, most of the banners that won weren't screen captured. Anyway, there
were a lot of screen caps for the Gray Havens and none of Mirkwood. Just
thrown out there for info purposes.

And the problem with Mirkwood besides is that we had very few submissions
for it.

>* Hobbits - The order of the awards always seemed odd to me. Perhaps I'm

the only one bothered by this kind of thing... but the Thain is the oldest
and most prestigious office ("But in that war the North Kingdom ended; and
then the Hobbits took the land for their own, and they chose from their own
chiefs a Thain to hold the authority of the king that was gone.", Prologue).
The Master is also an important
position: "the authority of the Master of the Hall (as the head of the
Brandybuck family was called) was still acknowledged by the farmers between
Stock and Rushey. ", "A Conspiracy Unmasked". And the mayoralty is of course
an office, but a rather unimportant one: "As mayor almost his only duty was
to preside at banquets, given on the Shire-holidays, which occurred at
frequent intervals.", "Prologue". In light of this, I suggest Thain=first,
Master=second, and Mayor=third.
(Sorry for the ramble!)

The order wasn't anything particular. And I doubt most non-Hobbit fans
remember this much about the history. The first place award was Frodo at
first "The Ring-Bearer". Because he is the most prominent of the four
Hobbits in the Fellowship. Merry was next as Master... Because he and Pip
were the other two that had titles, and he was the next oldest. Pip was the
youngest so he came third. The first was later changed to Sam, who did have
a title: Mayor, but also because Frodo was used elsewhere.

>* Men - I suggest Numenor and Rohan be subsumed under Men as subcategories.

The awards could then be Numenor, Gondor, and Rohan (or, if you prefer the
main Ring War powers, perhaps Gondor, Rohan, and Harad? Think of the
potential for great desert banners!)

Subcategories don't get their own banners.

* Mystery - I want the Entwives! This is one of the greatest mysteries in
all Tolkien (IMHO), and thanks to the movies we have lots of pictures of
Ents that could be used. I leave it up to you which place to put it in, but
I think this would be a great award. (Added: I requested Pukel-men below for
Drabbles. Maybe substitute Entwives for that one here?)

Ooh, I want the Dead Marshes!

>Orcs - This category is great, but I would suggest changing the name to

somehow include all pieces about forces of evil, not just orcs. I know
Werecat has a great piece on Tevildo, a servant of Morgoth, that I wanted to
nominate but which did not seem appropriate for this category. Also, I am
proposing a new category below that I would like Orthanc for. Can we use
Moria here instead?

No, I think we're going to go with Villians. That was a suggested change
that just hasn't been brought up Post-Mortem yet. Villains broadens that
out to include all baddies.

>* Romance - For practical reasons (because there's so little art out there

to work with) you might want to consider changing Luthien and Beren, and
Tuor and Idril. Maybe the three major canonical romances in LotR? (Aragorn
and Arwen, Faramir and Eowyn, Sam and Rosie)

Actually, I had picked the three main Elf-Man unions. And the artwork
warning goes out here, too. (Why? Just because it needs to be said
multiple times to avoid lawsuits and such). For screen-cappers those would
be great. We can get pics of them. But that's just for screen-cappers.
But remember we want to not have duplication so using Sam and Rosie here
would mean we shouldn't use him for Hobbits, likewise Faramir and Eowyn for
Drama or Rohan.

>* The Hobbit - if you go with my suggestion to use Mirkwood for Elves, you

could change this Mirkwood Award to The Misty Mountains Award or The
Laketown Award.

Why did I choose Mirkwood and not the Misty Mountains or Laketown even when
Mirkwood is hard to get submissions for? Because I'm a die-hard Legolas
fan! And there's no Legolas Award. There's no Thranduil Award (he's his
daddy, after all). Nothing. Sigh. I just had to have something to represent
my guy in some small way.

Can we find a place for a Legolas Thranduilion Award somewhere?

>Now, for my additions. (I know, I know... almost done here.) I would like

to request three additions to the genres:

>1. Poetry

* First: "The Road Goes Ever On" Award
* Second: The "Where Now the Rider" Award
* Third: "Eärendil was a Mariner" Award (The three poems I most
associate with hobbits, men, and elves; these are completely negotiable)

I'd put that one to a vote. It sounds good, but is it workable. Just might
be.

>2. Drabbles

* First: The Hobbits Award
* Second: The Dwarves Award
* Third: The Pukel-men Award
(Get it? They're short...)

I don't know about pulling the Drabbles out as their own category. They're
so short anyway. Vote on that one, too?

>3. Nonfiction

* First: The Rivendell Award
* Second: The Minas Tirith Award
* Third: The Orthanc Award
(major centres of scholarship at end of TA)

The only problem is that I don't think it would be viable. Especially if we
raise the limit from 5 to 7 or 8.

>And that's it. Sorry this was so long.

No problem. Do remember to separate these out and put them in the database.
I WILL get confused if having to rely on my memory and my humungous inbox.

We WILL have some category and award titles polls out eventually. But I
want to wait on those until we sort out some more stuff, like how many
stories makes a category viable, etc.

--Ainaechoiriel
MEFA Admin and Founder

"This evil cannot be concealed by the power of the Elves," Elrond said, "for
it is Windows-compatible, and freeware at that." --H.F.

http://gabrielle.sytes.net/mefa The Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards
Blog: http://www.ainaechoiriel.blogspot.com

>* Hobbits - The order of the awards always seemed odd to me. Perhaps I'm

the only one bothered by this kind of thing...

I too was confused at the order here. I am a hobbit person, and to me the order of the awards was illogical. To my mind it should be 1st - Thain, 2nd - Master, and 3rd - Mayor.

Marigold

--
Marigold's Red Book
http://marigoldsredbook.crickhollow.net/

Marigold's Recommendations Page
http://www.geocities.com/marigoldsrecommendations/

Marigold's Live Journal
http://www.livejournal.com/users/marigoldg/

Tales of The Red Book
http://www.livejournal.com/users/talesofredbook/

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for awhile. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.

Sam, in Mordor, RoTK

Hi Ainae,

<snip>

>> * Drama - There are too few pictures of Turin and Nimrodel &

Amroth. I

>> would suggest we choose different titles, but I don't have very

good

>> suggestions. Thinking practically, it might help to choose three

LotR

>> characters with a fair amount of drama in their story. Eowyn and

Denethor

>>jump to mind. Oh, please, let me make Denethor banners...

> We already have an Eowyn (thus far).

Right, but under the current scheme she's a Rohan award. I'm
suggesting making Rohan a subcategory of Men, so there would be no
need for an Eowyn Award. If we go with my suggestion for Romance, then
she's used there (unless you'd be willing to allow both a
Faramir&Eowyn Award, and an Eowyn Award? The titles aren't identical,
which I think would be the main source of confusion).

> I've been thinking Faramir is quite an
> angsty guy.

He is also out if we use Faramir&Eowyn for Romance/Second. Other
possibilities that spring to mind are Theoden, Boromir, and Gollum
(all of which strike me as pretty dramatic characters). Of course, if
we keep Rohan separately Theoden's out. I'm open to suggestions.

> However, and I think this is worth nothing, most of the banners
> that won, WEREN'T screen captured. So does it really matter that

there

> aren't pictures?

I tried to go look at the banners ... is this true of the categories
where it was possible to use screencaps as well?

I don't know how much it matters. I am not a huge fan of the Silm, and
I don't want to knock it, but personally I would identify more with
characters whose stories I was more familiar with.

>> * Elves

<snip>

> The problem with pictures from books is copyright.

Good point; I hadn't thought of that.

<snip>

>> Hobbits

<snip>

>> In light of this, I suggest Thain=first,
>> Master=second, and Mayor=third.

> The order wasn't anything particular. And I doubt most non-Hobbit

fans

> remember this much about the history.

Hey, I'm not a huge hobbit fan. I write mostly Men. ;-) But I am
pedantic and enjoy researching the halflings.

You may be right. But given it's the hobbit authors who will most
likely be entering this category, and the hobbit readers who will be
seeing the banners, shouldn't their opinion be important in this
category?

> The first place award was Frodo at
> first "The Ring-Bearer". Because he is the most prominent of the

four

> Hobbits in the Fellowship. Merry was next as Master... Because he

and Pip

> were the other two that had titles, and he was the next oldest. Pip

was the

> youngest so he came third. The first was later changed to Sam, who

did have

> a title: Mayor, but also because Frodo was used elsewhere.

I understand what you're saying, and I agree with your reasoning for
why they were in that order this year. But if nothing was meant by the
order could we redo it for next year? I don't think the titles are
necessarily tied to Sam, Merry, and Pippin, though many of the banners
did feature them.

>> * Men - I suggest Numenor and Rohan be subsumed under Men as
>> subcategories.
>> The awards could then be Numenor, Gondor, and Rohan

<snip>

> Subcategories don't get their own banners.

Right. I'm not suggesting that they do here. Sorry if I'm not being
clear.

As it stands right now most of the races have their own category -
Elves, Hobbits, Orcs (or Villains). But Men are split among three
categories: Men, Numenor, Rohan. I suggest making Numenor and Rohan
subcategories under Men, just like Gondor was for this year. Then the
awards for *all* of men could be The Numenor Award = first, The Gondor
Award = second, The Rohan Award = third.

> * Mystery - I want the Entwives! This is one of the greatest

mysteries in

> all Tolkien (IMHO), and thanks to the movies we have lots of

pictures of

> Ents that could be used.

<snip>

> Ooh, I want the Dead Marshes!

Ooh, that would be good, too. You know, there's nothing to say we
can't have *both* Entwives and Dead Marshes... *g* Personally I'm most
in favor of Entwives - Dead Marshes - Barrow-wights, but I'd also
accept Cuivienen instead of Barrow-wights (see my aforementioned Third
Age bias over Silm... I'm not saying Ring War is best, just that
that's where my thinking lies.)

> Orcs - This category is great, but I would suggest changing the name

to

> somehow include all pieces about forces of evil, not just orcs.

<snip>

> No, I think we're going to go with Villians.

Sorry, I'm not clear what you're disagreeing with. I agree with the
name Villains. Or were you disagreeing with my suggestion of Moria
over Orthanc?

>> * Romance

<snip>

>>Maybe the three major canonical romances in LotR? (Aragorn
>>and Arwen, Faramir and Eowyn, Sam and Rosie)

> Actually, I had picked the three main Elf-Man unions.

Which makes sense in its own way. I'm just suggesting that the pairs
I've suggested might be more familiar to more people. I know about
Beren and Luthien (though I don't have as strong of a connection to
them as I do to F/E, A/A, and S/R). Tuor and Idril I had heard of but
really barely knew who they were.

<snip>

> For screen-cappers those would
> be great. We can get pics of them. But that's just for screen-

cappers.

True. But I'd guess there's at least as much fanart out there of
Faramir and Eowyn as of Tuor and Idril, or even Beren and Luthien (of
course people would still have to get permission, or create their own)
.

> But remember we want to not have duplication so using Sam and Rosie

here

> would mean we shouldn't use him for Hobbits,

Right. As it is right now, we aren't. We're using Mayor of Hobbiton -
which could include pictures of Sam, but also of Frodo or Will
Whitfoot (I think there's some fanart of him?), or just of Hobbiton in
general.

> likewise Faramir and Eowyn for
> Drama or Rohan.

Agreed. I've made alternate suggestions above.

>> The Hobbit

<snip>

> Why did I choose Mirkwood and not the Misty Mountains or Laketown

even when

> Mirkwood is hard to get submissions for? Because I'm a die-hard

Legolas

> fan! And there's no Legolas award. There's no Thranduil Award

(he's his

> daddy, after all). Nothing.

I *do* understand. (Notice my shameless begging for a Denethor award
above...) But I think people will associate Legolas with Mirkwood more
under Elves than under TH. Legolas never appears (by name) in TH.

> Can we find a place for a Legolas Thranduilion Award somewhere?

I was actually going to suggest that we consider having a movieverse
award. Movieverse stories would not be *restricted* to this category,
but there are some fabulous stories that make good use of the changes
in the movies, or explain some troubling parts of the movies, or just
make good use of movie imagery. If you're interested in this, I
suggest the three following awards:

1. The Legolas Award
2. The Haldir Award
3. The Figwit Award

>> Now, for my additions.

<snip>

>> 1. Poetry

> I'd put that one to a vote. It sounds good, but is it workable.

Just might

> be.

I think it would be. There's a lot of poetry about, and I think it
takes a very specific skill to write a poem; they should be allowed to
compete together as a genre.

>> 2. Drabbles

> I don't know about pulling the Drabbles out as their own category.

They're

> so short anyway. Vote on that one, too?

As a drabble writer, it takes a *very* unique skill to write a
drabble. We've discussed how different a skill is required to write,
say, humour and drama. Well, for me, there's an even bigger difference
in how I write my drabbles and longer pieces, from how I write humour
and drama (or any other two genres that are closer to the same length)
. There are lots of them out there, and they generated a lot of
comments this time around. I would really like to see them compete
against each other instead of being so spread out.

>> 3. Nonfiction

> The only problem is that I don't think it would be viable.

Especially if we

> raise the limit from 5 to 7 or 8.

You leave it to me to find these research articles. One of my greatest
joys is finding a new Tolkien article (I *told* you I'm a research
article). I can think of eight articles that I would have nominated,
without even thinking for very long. But because this is the Middle-
earth Fan*FICTION* Awards I assumed that nonfiction was ineligible.

>> And that's it. Sorry this was so long.

> No problem. Do remember to separate these out and put them in the

database.

I understand. I'll break this up, but probably tomorrow.

Marta

--- Marta <MartaL0712@netscape.net> wrote:

> * Men - I suggest Numenor and Rohan be subsumed

under > Men as

> subcategories.

I think this is a good idea as well because the
decision that these had catogories seemed very
arbitary.

> Orcs - This category is great, but I would suggest
> changing the name
> to somehow include all pieces about forces of evil,
> not just orcs.

Could this be done in a way that it focuses on those
characters whio are percieved as evil, without
requiring them to be actually evil?


Aditional catoriries

> 1. Poetry

This would make sense and ease the problems with
trying to get poetry subcatogories viable.

> 2. Drabbles

In the same way I think this is a good idea.



My other comment on catogories would be that it seemed
very confusing to have the three different types of
overall catogory and it seemed that some of them were
so large amnd others so small that the awards were not
actually equal in merit.

Nerwen





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> My other comment on categories would be that it seemed
> very confusing to have the three different types of
> overall catogory and it seemed that some of them were
> so large amnd others so small that the awards were not
> actually equal in merit.
>
> Nerwen

I had the same feeling.

I personally would take only either the time-line
or the race as main category
and make all other things subcategory
or sub-subcategories.

For example, I did not understand why
"Father and sons" by Dwim is
categorized as a drama
while "In his brother's shadow"
by Celandine Brandybuck
is categorized as "Men".
OK, second categorization was mine ;-)
and I did it as I understood the manual.

Why is the darker story by Dwim more a drama
than the lighter story by Cel?
Both render the Gondorian brothers "Mir".

Why is a story about men categorized
as adventure and not as men?
I had my difficulties the whole time
with this many tiered categorization.

Why is a story categorized as Horror
while it is about Elves, time First Age?
I would find it easier if the whole
categorization were only one tree
and not many trees.
So this story would have been
in case of time as first category:
First Age, Elves, Drama, Horror.
I can understand why Ainaechoiriel
introduced the category Horror,
because in the one-tree categorization
First Age, Elves, Horror would
possibly not become viable.
But subsuming Horror into Drama
would solve this problem.

Though I can understand the various
tiers of categorization,
and Ainaechoiriel proposed to let
the authors decide,
I have still problems with such a
variation in categorization.

So, my proposed tree would be:
a) Poetry, Drabble, short story, novel
b) First Age,
Second Age,
Third Age I (Pre-War, includes Hobbit),
Third Age II (War of the Ring - LoTR),
Forth Age
Multi-age
c) Elves (Noldor, Sindar, Avari, else),
Men (Numenor, Gondor, Rohan, else) , Hobbits, Dwarves,
Orks and other creatures, Multi-race
d) drama, love, humour, essay
e) adventure, romance, sex, horror, mystery, crossover, society, philosophy,
techniques

I would put the story type first because this is
for me the largest difference concerning writing skills.

Then comes the time or the races.
I personally prefer time, because many stories
involve various races, while multi-age is seldom.

Depending on the number of nominated stories
Elves and Men should be subdivided
as to achieve that the various sections in the end
contain within limits an evenly distributed
number of fics.

My proposal should be seen only as a draft.
Feel free to tear it asunder, to reassemble, or to add ;-)

Best wishes Elanor

--- elanor of aquitania <elanor@codacode.net> wrote:

> So, my proposed tree would be:
> a) Poetry, Drabble, short story, novel
> b) First Age,
> Second Age,
> Third Age I (Pre-War, includes Hobbit),
> Third Age II (War of the Ring - LoTR),
> Forth Age
> Multi-age
> c) Elves (Noldor, Sindar, Avari, else),
> Men (Numenor, Gondor, Rohan, else) , Hobbits,
> Dwarves,
> Orks and other creatures, Multi-race
> d) drama, love, humour, essay
> e) adventure, romance, sex, horror, mystery,
> crossover, society, philosophy,
> techniques

I really like this idea, but a few nitpicks. The
first being where would the line between short story
and novel go?
The second is that many stories do cross over the line
between the 3rd and 4th ages. However this need not
be a problem, but I think it needs thinking about. I
think your level d) is confusing, I'm not quite sure
what the purpose of it is. As I see it e) could just
as well lead directly on from c), but I may be missing
something. :)
The real advantage of this is that it is very clear
exactly where a story should go and has fewer overall
catogories and a more comprehensive scheme.
Like I said, I really like this, just think that it
needs a bit more thinking through. :)

Nerwen



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> > d) drama, love, humour, essay
> > e) adventure, romance, sex, horror, mystery,
> > crossover, society, philosophy,
> > techniques
>
> I really like this idea, but a few nitpicks. The
> first being where would the line between short story
> and novel go?

Hi Nerwen,

yes, this a point of discussion.
I think one should define a certain number of characters
to draw the line.
Any suggestions ?

Lets count "Father and sons" by Dwim which is 294656
or "Messages" by Shakes which 566655 characters
without spaces.
"Messages" is for me definitely a novel
and "Father and sons" I would count also as a novel
but this might be arguable.

Thus I would set the line at 250000 characters.
Others might prefer another number.

> The second is that many stories do cross over the line
> between the 3rd and 4th ages. However this need not
> be a problem, but I think it needs thinking about.

That would be Multi-age either or the author should decide,
which age is more important for the story.

> I think your level d) is confusing, I'm not quite sure
> what the purpose of it is. As I see it e) could just
> as well lead directly on from c), but I may be missing
> something. :)

Hmm, I simply thought of perhaps non-viable categories
as drabble - third age I - orcs - drama - horror
which would be subsumed into drama.
And if therein are not enough drabbles nominated
then one level higher
drabble - third age I - orcs
and so on.


But if there are many nominations then
another subcategory (as for Men or Elves) might be useful:
short story - Forth Age - Men - Rohan - humour - romance
(into this I would count Tanaqui's "A Knight's service")
or
short story - Forth Age - Men - Rohan - love - sex
(into this I would count Tanaqui's "Later" and
"Influence of Kindred Desires")

As it was "A Knight's service/ Later" was nominated as one
and thus I would account both together
into the latter category.

I personally would prefer if each segment has
about 5-15 fics (rule IV B says
5 stories by two authors make the category viable).
To achieve an homogeneous distribution I would
even prefer a limit of 10 fics per segment.

Best wishes Elanor

No to probably all of it.

Why? Because this is part of my vision. Sort of a dream and to change it
so drastically would make it not my dream, not my vision anymore. Part of
the fun was the award names. The more main categoreis, the more award
names. The reason for having three different ways of categorizing stories
was so that there was more of a spread, more award names and a CHOICE for
where to put a story because many stories can fit more than one category.

And since authors will categorize their own stories next year, all of
Elanor's why did this story go there and this story go here questions are
nullified. The answer this year is because the nominators and then the
categorizing staff did the best we could based on the three suggestions for
categories. Next year the answer will be because that's where the author
wanted it and the categorizing staff could best place it based on the
author's three suggestions for categories.

Part of this may seem frivilous, but can you at least wait until I give up
being the admin of this before you completely overhaul it?

On categories this will be my law: The more main categories the better so
long as they are viable. Men/Gondor, for example, this year had 27 stories.
Gondor should probably be its own category so long as it has ample stories
again. Maybe 15 could be our lower bound. If Rohan can put together enough
stories to reach our (democratically set) lower bound, then it should be a
main category, too.

As for overall categories, I think the less the better as we get into
problem areas with those. I'm willing to put up a poll to see if Poetry
should be it's own main category. That could make sense as it is, in some
respects, its own genre. Drabbles are not a genre. They are, yes, a
different kind of story, with their own skillsets needed to write them. But
they are stories. Poems are not stories, per se. So I don't see main
categories for drabbles or vignettes. Sub-categoreis, yes. Main, no.
Novel and short story have the same problem. They are not genres. They are
possible subcategories, but we do run into the where-do-we-draw-the-line
problem.

I will not limit categories to just time or genre. Let the authors choose
how they want them to be categorized. This fandom does work well for
dividing along Men stories, Elves, stories, and Hobbits stories. Some
people only read Hobbits stories. Some only read Elves stories. Regardless
of time or genre, or time or genre only being a secondary consideration. I,
for example, mainly read Legolas and Faramir. So I look for Elves stories,
non-romances, and I look for Faramir stories (not Men, just Faramir),
non-romances.

Maybe we need to turn ourselves around to look at the What Worked? side of
the Post Mortem for a little while.

--Ainaechoiriel
MEFA Admin and Founder

"This evil cannot be concealed by the power of the Elves," Elrond said, "for
it is Windows-compatible, and freeware at that." --H.F.

http://gabrielle.sytes.net/mefa The Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards
Blog: http://www.ainaechoiriel.blogspot.com



-----Original Message-----
From: elanor of aquitania [mailto:elanor@codacode.net]
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 6:57 AM
To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
Subject: AW: [MEFAwards] PM: Tweaks to Current Categories

> My other comment on categories would be that it seemed very confusing
> to have the three different types of overall catogory and it seemed
> that some of them were so large amnd others so small that the awards
> were not actually equal in merit.
>
> Nerwen

I had the same feeling.

I personally would take only either the time-line or the race as main
category and make all other things subcategory or sub-subcategories.

For example, I did not understand why
"Father and sons" by Dwim is
categorized as a drama
while "In his brother's shadow"
by Celandine Brandybuck
is categorized as "Men".
OK, second categorization was mine ;-)
and I did it as I understood the manual.

Why is the darker story by Dwim more a drama than the lighter story by Cel?
Both render the Gondorian brothers "Mir".

Why is a story about men categorized
as adventure and not as men?
I had my difficulties the whole time
with this many tiered categorization.

Why is a story categorized as Horror
while it is about Elves, time First Age?
I would find it easier if the whole
categorization were only one tree
and not many trees.
So this story would have been
in case of time as first category:
First Age, Elves, Drama, Horror.
I can understand why Ainaechoiriel
introduced the category Horror,
because in the one-tree categorization
First Age, Elves, Horror would
possibly not become viable.
But subsuming Horror into Drama
would solve this problem.

Though I can understand the various
tiers of categorization,
and Ainaechoiriel proposed to let
the authors decide,
I have still problems with such a
variation in categorization.

So, my proposed tree would be:
a) Poetry, Drabble, short story, novel
b) First Age,
Second Age,
Third Age I (Pre-War, includes Hobbit),
Third Age II (War of the Ring - LoTR),
Forth Age
Multi-age
c) Elves (Noldor, Sindar, Avari, else),
Men (Numenor, Gondor, Rohan, else) , Hobbits, Dwarves,
Orks and other creatures, Multi-race
d) drama, love, humour, essay
e) adventure, romance, sex, horror, mystery, crossover, society, philosophy,
techniques

I would put the story type first because this is for me the largest
difference concerning writing skills.

Then comes the time or the races.
I personally prefer time, because many stories involve various races, while
multi-age is seldom.

Depending on the number of nominated stories Elves and Men should be
subdivided as to achieve that the various sections in the end contain within
limits an evenly distributed number of fics.

My proposal should be seen only as a draft.
Feel free to tear it asunder, to reassemble, or to add ;-)

Best wishes Elanor




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This was not meant to be a jumping down Elanor's throat so much as a general
plea. Suggestions for making it better, not a complete overhaul. If you
(general you) really don't like the way the awards are done beyond the
comment-based-ness, go make your rules and run your own. There is plenty of
space out here in the internet. Which is what I proved when I was
disappointed with another award program. I made my own.

As I have said before, I will be dictatorial on some things, and democratic
on some things. I will protect the main structure of these awards. Yes, no
one has suggested going off the comment-based concept, but still some really
big changes have been suggested and, quite frankly, it either hurts or gets
stuck in my craw.

Let me give you a little history:

I got fed up with that other awards program and decided that I would make my
own. But what would I call them? How would I set them apart? Yes, they'd
be comment-based, borrow heavily from ASC, but what name would they have?
What would make the Awards themselves special? When I couldn't come up with
a great name that I liked (the "Mathoms" for example was a suggested name
back when the Mitrils were first discussed). I finally hit on the idea of
putting the special name on the awards themselves. Not the overall program,
but the awards titles. I brainstormed with shadow975 because she was on IM
and available at the time. We came up with some likely categories (all the
2004 categories except Orcs and Mystery) and three appropriate awards titles
for each. That was the fun part. Some of those titles changed, but the fun
didn't.

So, the heart of the awards is the comment-based program, but the fun part,
the gimick, if you wish, is the awards titles. I'd rather have Rohan,
Gondor, Numenor, Arnor and whatever, than have 27 subcategories under Men.
Subcategories use the same titles. The banner contest even made it more
fun. Sure, we could have just called them the Middle Earth Fanfiction
Awards and passed out the first place Men/Gondor MEFA. But I liked it
better handing out the Kings of Gondor and Arnor Award for 1st place in
Men/Gondor. And if we have 27 Gondor stories again, than I'll love handing
out the Elessar Telcontar Award for 1st Place Gondor story next year.

And if we ever finish our surprise, you'll see why again it's more fun to
have different awards titles. All those subcategories lead to a lot of
repetition.

Okay, so now we know what I won't change in regards to categoies:
3 main topics/ways of categorzing (Races/Places, Genre, Time/books)
No overalls
(That's all I can remember right now)

So what am I willing to change?
The exact categories within those three main topics (adding Gondor, Poetry,
and Villians, for example, removing Rohan or Orcs if need be)
Author awards....not sure how yet.
The Awards titles thenselves (I generally prefer longer titles over one word
titles)
Some categories are optional (such as the places) and will not be final if
not viable)
New optional categories can be added (based on the number of nominations.
Gondor would have been a candidate this year.)
Other suggestions that don't run into the things I won't change.

Does that help the discussion?

And remember "fairness" of any category relies on YOU, the nominating
members of the group. If you don't think it's fair that Numenor only has 8
stories while Gondor has 27, go out and find some good* Numenor stories and
nominate them.

*Don't nominate less-than-good stories just to fill a category.

--Ainaechoiriel
MEFA Admin and Founder

"This evil cannot be concealed by the power of the Elves," Elrond said, "for
it is Windows-compatible, and freeware at that." --H.F.

http://gabrielle.sytes.net/mefa The Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards
Blog: http://www.ainaechoiriel.blogspot.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Ainaechoiriel [mailto:mefaadmin@earthlink.net]
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 11:54 AM
To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [MEFAwards] PM: Tweaks to Current Categories


No to probably all of it.

Why? Because this is part of my vision. Sort of a dream and to change it
so drastically would make it not my dream, not my vision anymore. Part of
the fun was the award names. The more main categoreis, the more award
names. The reason for having three different ways of categorizing stories
was so that there was more of a spread, more award names and a CHOICE for
where to put a story because many stories can fit more than one category.

And since authors will categorize their own stories next year, all of
Elanor's why did this story go there and this story go here questions are
nullified. The answer this year is because the nominators and then the
categorizing staff did the best we could based on the three suggestions for
categories. Next year the answer will be because that's where the author
wanted it and the categorizing staff could best place it based on the
author's three suggestions for categories.

Part of this may seem frivilous, but can you at least wait until I give up
being the admin of this before you completely overhaul it?

On categories this will be my law: The more main categories the better so
long as they are viable. Men/Gondor, for example, this year had 27 stories.
Gondor should probably be its own category so long as it has ample stories
again. Maybe 15 could be our lower bound. If Rohan can put together enough
stories to reach our (democratically set) lower bound, then it should be a
main category, too.

As for overall categories, I think the less the better as we get into
problem areas with those. I'm willing to put up a poll to see if Poetry
should be it's own main category. That could make sense as it is, in some
respects, its own genre. Drabbles are not a genre. They are, yes, a
different kind of story, with their own skillsets needed to write them. But
they are stories. Poems are not stories, per se. So I don't see main
categories for drabbles or vignettes. Sub-categoreis, yes. Main, no.
Novel and short story have the same problem. They are not genres. They are
possible subcategories, but we do run into the where-do-we-draw-the-line
problem.

I will not limit categories to just time or genre. Let the authors choose
how they want them to be categorized. This fandom does work well for
dividing along Men stories, Elves, stories, and Hobbits stories. Some
people only read Hobbits stories. Some only read Elves stories. Regardless
of time or genre, or time or genre only being a secondary consideration. I,
for example, mainly read Legolas and Faramir. So I look for Elves stories,
non-romances, and I look for Faramir stories (not Men, just Faramir),
non-romances.

Maybe we need to turn ourselves around to look at the What Worked? side of
the Post Mortem for a little while.

--Ainaechoiriel
MEFA Admin and Founder

"This evil cannot be concealed by the power of the Elves," Elrond said, "for
it is Windows-compatible, and freeware at that." --H.F.

http://gabrielle.sytes.net/mefa The Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards
Blog: http://www.ainaechoiriel.blogspot.com



-----Original Message-----
From: elanor of aquitania [mailto:elanor@codacode.net]
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 6:57 AM
To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
Subject: AW: [MEFAwards] PM: Tweaks to Current Categories

> My other comment on categories would be that it seemed very confusing
> to have the three different types of overall catogory and it seemed
> that some of them were so large amnd others so small that the awards
> were not actually equal in merit.
>
> Nerwen

I had the same feeling.

I personally would take only either the time-line or the race as main
category and make all other things subcategory or sub-subcategories.

For example, I did not understand why
"Father and sons" by Dwim is
categorized as a drama
while "In his brother's shadow"
by Celandine Brandybuck
is categorized as "Men".
OK, second categorization was mine ;-)
and I did it as I understood the manual.

Why is the darker story by Dwim more a drama than the lighter story by Cel?
Both render the Gondorian brothers "Mir".

Why is a story about men categorized
as adventure and not as men?
I had my difficulties the whole time
with this many tiered categorization.

Why is a story categorized as Horror
while it is about Elves, time First Age?
I would find it easier if the whole
categorization were only one tree
and not many trees.
So this story would have been
in case of time as first category:
First Age, Elves, Drama, Horror.
I can understand why Ainaechoiriel
introduced the category Horror,
because in the one-tree categorization
First Age, Elves, Horror would
possibly not become viable.
But subsuming Horror into Drama
would solve this problem.

Though I can understand the various
tiers of categorization,
and Ainaechoiriel proposed to let
the authors decide,
I have still problems with such a
variation in categorization.

So, my proposed tree would be:
a) Poetry, Drabble, short story, novel
b) First Age,
Second Age,
Third Age I (Pre-War, includes Hobbit),
Third Age II (War of the Ring - LoTR),
Forth Age
Multi-age
c) Elves (Noldor, Sindar, Avari, else),
Men (Numenor, Gondor, Rohan, else) , Hobbits, Dwarves,
Orks and other creatures, Multi-race
d) drama, love, humour, essay
e) adventure, romance, sex, horror, mystery, crossover, society, philosophy,
techniques

I would put the story type first because this is for me the largest
difference concerning writing skills.

Then comes the time or the races.
I personally prefer time, because many stories involve various races, while
multi-age is seldom.

Depending on the number of nominated stories Elves and Men should be
subdivided as to achieve that the various sections in the end contain within
limits an evenly distributed number of fics.

My proposal should be seen only as a draft.
Feel free to tear it asunder, to reassemble, or to add ;-)

Best wishes Elanor




------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
$4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/Q7_YsB/neXJAA/yQLSAA/wx3olB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->


Yahoo! Groups Links













Yahoo! Groups Links