Hey guys,
I have been discussing with some dedicated MEFA participants (THANK
YOU!) how to improve on the form authors completed when their story
was nominated. We have come up with quite a few improvements that I
think will make this section of the year easier next year on everyone.
But I need your input. There are several areas of the form that I need
to know how many settings, characters, and so on they would like to be
able to select.
So... sit back, pour yourself a nice glass of Dorwinion, and think
back to the form you completed when your story was nominated last
year. Or, if yours was not, imagine that your story has been and you
have to fill out a form for it to compete.
The poll questions can be found at
http://www.mefawards.net/nom_form_polls.html
The first question deals with characters. This year, every author
selected up to four major and up to four minor characters or groups of
characters. Next year we will do things a bit differently. There will
be one list of characters for categorizers to use to put your story
into a subcategory, and a second list for the benefit of your loyal
readers. These lists will probably overlap - if you mark Boromir and
Faramir on your list for the categorizers but would still like them to
be displayed to the readers, you will need to mark Boromir and Faramir
on the list for readers as well. This question deals with that list
for readers. How many characters would you like to be able to display
to the readers? You can choose anything from 5-10.
Authors could also select where their story was set. The second poll
asks you how many settings you would like to be able to select.
The third question asks about time period and canonical events. On the
2006 form authors were able to select from one of several time periods
that were more narrow than what you could select as a main category.
For example you could select "the War of Wrath" as a potential
sub-category, which would be more narrow than the main category time
period of "First Age & Prior". We also had a separate question where
you could select a canonical event like the fall of Gondolin. For 2007
we are considering combining these into one question. Please vote
whether you like these as separate questions or would prefer them
combined into one.
And finally, the last question asks how many events and time periods
you would like to be set if we keep the questions in the third poll
separate.
Please take a few minutes to answer these questions. They will help
give us a better picture of what participants actually want in these
forms, so we can make better decisions. If you have questions please
feel free to ask them here.
I'm going to let these polls run through midnight Saturday night, GMT.
Marta