grumpy cat Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 (edited) this is the place where you can suggest categories for our upcoming annual site writing awards - the golden ink awards aka the inkys some potential discussion ideas: which of the previous categories you loved and would like to see again (considering current eligibility - you all know what you've been reading in the past year... 😛 ) which ones maybe didn't really work for whatever reason (too few eligible stories/people, too similar to other categories, too difficult to judge or badly explained criteria...stuff like that - whatever comes to mind) whether some categories should be combined or not combined which new categories you would like to see any other suggestions re: the awards, be it categories, the nomination or voting process, etc a note: eligible stories must be posted on our archive and be updated since january 1, 2021 (for multichapter stories and story/drabble/poem collections that means new chapters/stories/drabbles/poems added since january 1, 2021, not just edited) - we're in discussions about pushing back this date and we'll let you know if it changes -- past categories: member-specific best reviewer (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) most versatile author (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) best niche author (2020) best writing style (2021) fandom-specific best harry potter marauder (2017) best harry potter next-gen (2017) best harry potter rebuilding (2017) best non-harry potter fandom (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) best original fiction (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021) genre-specific best angst (2017, 2018, 2020, 2021) best angst/drama (2019) best dark/horror (2018) best humor (2018, 2019, 2020) best romance (2017, 2018, 2020, 2021) best short-form romance (2019) best long-form romance (2019) best dark (2021) funniest story (2021) best crime/mystery (2021) best action/adventure (2021) theme-specific best description (2017, 2020, 2021) best dialogue (2017, 2019, 2020, 2021) best family/friendship (2018) best family (2019, 2020) best friendship (2019, 2020) best lgbtqia+ (2017) best depiction of a mental illness/disability (2017, 2018) most original story (2019) most creative story (2020, 2021) best quote (2021) best plot twist (2021) story type/length-specific best novel (2017) best one-shot (2017, 2020) best poem/drabble (2019) best drabble (2020, 2021) best podfic (2020) best poem (2020, 2021) best long-form story (2021) character-specific best lgbtqia+ character (2018) best major harry potter character (2017, 2018) best minor harry potter character (2017, 2018, 2019) best/most original character (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021) best cast/ensemble (2021) pairing-specific best rare pair (2018) please post your suggestions/comments by january 17. a follow-up poll to choose from the categories suggested and the number of categories will be posted after this one closes. Edited January 9, 2022 by grumpy snowcat 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crimson quill Posted January 10, 2022 Share Posted January 10, 2022 I'm going to pitch 'best universe/series' as a category because I think lots of people put a lot of effort and work into creating these inwined stories which shows a really good writing skill set, I feel like there would be loads of different authors that would be eligible for the award too. I'll probably be back with more thoughts soon but wanted to get this suggestion down before I forget 😂 6 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostinthelightss Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 honestly, i really liked the categories from last year! i know there's no good way to do it, but i would love a sad romance and a happy romance, because those types of stories are so different to me, but then again they are also both romance and i have no good ideas on how to do that, especially because sad could just go into angst as well, so like maybe best fluff? idk because even then im like torn because idk if that distinction is even important maybe instead of best plot twist, it could be like "story that had me on the edge of my seat"? there are stories that are super AGHHH to me but never really have a plot twist, but have that sort of energy you know? idk if my words are wording, but i hope that made sense one other idea could be best supporting character? for those stories where the main characters best friend is absolutely amazing? (im not even sold on this myself, just trying to get some creativity flowing and maybe others can bounce off this and have better ideas) 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grumpy cat Posted January 11, 2022 Author Share Posted January 11, 2022 (edited) i was looking at the previous year's suggestion thread and a couple of people mentioned best chemistry which i kinda like? i mean i also don't want the awards to be really romance-heavy so i can see how if we have best romance - which is always a popular category - it would maybe be too much which is what was my hesitation about it last year my personal favourites were: original fiction description angst dark funniest story most original character most creative story ones i liked as an idea but...: best quote - when it came to it, i found it was a little hard to both pick a quote and then vote/judge best plot twist - i feel similar as with best quote best dialogue - idk why i find this one super hard to judge/might just be me because it's difficult to remember actual dialogue if i'm not actively thinking about it 😅 maybes: worldbuilding - is it too similar to series - i feel like they're different enough? i can think of like maybe a couple of stories that would fit so not completely sure whether there's a big pool but i'm also not thinking strongly about it lol smut - i know some people were reluctant about it last year but idk idk most addictive - @maraudertimes i feel like this one might be what you're talking about 'edge of my seat'? best series/universe - last year i was also kinda...what would be eligible and how to judge it about this one even though i like it in theory 😂 edit: lo, i also see what you mean about sad vs angsty romance and argh yeahhh that's a mood but again i'm coming back to romance heavy categories..........but like if most people want those categories it's uhh democracy? 😂 Edited January 11, 2022 by grumpy cat 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostinthelightss Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 4 minutes ago, grumpy cat said: most addictive - @maraudertimes i feel like this one might be what you're talking about 'edge of my seat'? it's like you're reading my mind - this is a lot better words than i did! but yeah, most addictive/exciting/etc. idk i just like that because a story with a plot twist could fall under that but also other stories that dont have a plot twist but are just so cliff hangery and AGH also yeah, i totally get the whole not wanting to make it romance heavy, which is where im torn! do i want all the romance categories? yes i do. do i also not want to overwhelm everything with romance? yeah, i want other categories to get their fair shot! it's a difficult line to kind of handle but i wouldn't mind smut... like at all 🔥 best quote i also agree was super difficult for me, i wouldnt mind finding a better alternative 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crimson quill Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 (edited) so I'm just going to go for it with some general thoughts: I was pretty happy with the categories last year and thought they represented a good mix of areas to include lots of different styles/authors. these are just some personal thoughts of mine in mind for this year: best poem - so I'll admit I'm not the best judge of this category but I did notice this category had 5 finalists which is good number/response but 3 of the poems from the same author (even though amazing work!) suggests a very small range of authors that are writing for this category. we didn't have this issue with any other categories. I don't know how much many that have written this year but I would put this up for discussion based on this category seems to be specialist category for quite a small handful of authors. best oc -this maybe be a personal opinion of mine (idk how shared it is with others) but i would much prefer that this category was only for completely original characters even with super minor characters, authors have something to go on (eg. who their family members are) so i don't think it's the same skill set at all. i would prefer to see another category for minor character or whatever but i can see why they were put together i suppose. best crime/mystery - this was a fun category last year and I was pleased that it was included but I'm maybe doubting it's inclusion for this year because I don't think a lot of been written in this last year under this particular tag. I think it is likely that we'll see some of same stories nominated this year as last as most entries are wips. best writing style - I do this category or something similar but the wording seems so vague and i really struggled how to nominate on this one. i'm not sure that i quite knew what i was looking for. best friendship/family/platonic relationship - i kinda missed this category but i assume it was ditched in a move towards genres rather than themes. best quote - i like the idea of this one but it was a bit overwhelming to pick just one and felt didn't know where to start as such? @maraudertimes team romance!! all the romance plz 😂 like your best supporting character idea tooo. @grumpy cat most addictive would open up the category of 'best plot twist' while similar idea going, would be in favour of that. +1 Edited January 11, 2022 by Crimson Quill 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grumpy cat Posted January 11, 2022 Author Share Posted January 11, 2022 14 minutes ago, Crimson Quill said: best oc -this maybe be a personal opinion of mine (idk how shared it is with others) but i would much prefer that this category was only for completely original characters even with super minor characters, authors have something to go on (eg. who their family members are) so i don't think it's the same skill set at all. i would prefer to see another category for minor character or whatever but i can see why they were put together i suppose. i can definitely understand this sentiment, it's really valid imo now trying to remember more than like 4 stories i've read with actual ocs .......... 😂 it feels like most what i've been personally reading in the past year were either minor chars or regular canon chars 😅 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RonsGirlFriday Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 1 hour ago, grumpy cat said: best quote - when it came to it, i found it was a little hard to both pick a quote and then vote/judge best plot twist - i feel similar as with best quote best dialogue - idk why i find this one super hard to judge/might just be me because it's difficult to remember actual dialogue if i'm not actively thinking about it 😅 I see what you're saying and I feel similarly. Interestingly when you contrast these with the categories you listed that are good to keep -- those other categories are based on just the story itself, falling into one of these categories like genre or whatever. Whereas these three categories are assessing very specific aspects of the stories. I mean, of these three I'm most cool with best dialogue because that sort of... happens throughout the whole story, idk how to explain it. But I did find best quote very awkward to nominate and vote on, because how do you compare them? 1 hour ago, grumpy cat said: worldbuilding - is it too similar to series - i feel like they're different enough? i can think of like maybe a couple of stories that would fit so not completely sure whether there's a big pool but i'm also not thinking strongly about it lol smut - i know some people were reluctant about it last year but idk idk most addictive - @maraudertimes i feel like this one might be what you're talking about 'edge of my seat'? best series/universe - last year i was also kinda...what would be eligible and how to judge it about this one even though i like it in theory 😂 I would think that if someone has their works listed/associated under a named series on their AP, that's what would be eligible? A series could be a work and its sequels or it could be a body of works focusing on one character, however that author has decided to create their series. I like that category a lot because it's sort of recognizing a body of work created by someone focusing on a character, a world, an overarching story, whatever. I don't think worldbuilding is duplicative of series, because you can have great worldbuilding in a one-shot, and on the other hand you can have a series that doesn't necessarily involve much worldbuilding because it's very character-focused or whatever. Re: Best Poem and Best Crime/Mystery -- I wouldn't necessarily count these out just because the number of potential entries is smaller and fewer people write them. I think it's nice for them to have recognition too, and not really their fault that other members choose not to write those, you know? 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grumpy cat Posted January 11, 2022 Author Share Posted January 11, 2022 5 minutes ago, RonsGirlFriday said: I would think that if someone has their works listed/associated under a named series on their AP, that's what would be eligible? A series could be a work and its sequels or it could be a body of works focusing on one character, however that author has decided to create their series i meant like, inside the series is it all stories needing to be updated after a set date or just one etc? 😅 7 minutes ago, RonsGirlFriday said: Re: Best Poem and Best Crime/Mystery -- I wouldn't necessarily count these out just because the number of potential entries is smaller and fewer people write them. I think it's nice for them to have recognition too, and not really their fault that other members choose not to write those, you know? iirc last year i actually did a check on the number of individual poems on the archives that were eligible and it was more than 100, but the pool of authors was smol. i haven't had a chance to do that for this year tho. and i think @maraudertimes did a similar check for genre-specific categories 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostinthelightss Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 4 minutes ago, grumpy cat said: and i think @maraudertimes did a similar check for genre-specific categories i did a very cursory check and there are arnd 30 stories for crime/mystery that would be eligible, which is half of what were eligible last year - and of those, only ~10-15 are new stories if there's interest, i can try and round up similar data for this year that i did last year+ though! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RonsGirlFriday Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 13 minutes ago, grumpy cat said: i meant like, inside the series is it all stories needing to be updated after a set date or just one etc? 😅 Oooh ok. I would think just at least one of the stories needs to have been posted/updated after the eligibility date? Because that means the author is still working on the series. I think it's just like with a multi-chapter fic, you could have someone who added only one chapter in 2021 to a fic they posted in a previous year, and that fic is still eligible for current awards. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grumpy cat Posted January 11, 2022 Author Share Posted January 11, 2022 (edited) 20 minutes ago, maraudertimes said: if there's interest, i can try and round up similar data for this year that i did last year+ though! yes pls, i am curious and it's useful info 👀 /would be useful to compare to last year as well 17 minutes ago, RonsGirlFriday said: I think it's just like with a multi-chapter fic, you could have someone who added only one chapter in 2021 to a fic they posted in a previous year, and that fic is still eligible for current awards. yeah this makes sense Edited January 11, 2022 by grumpy cat 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostinthelightss Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 okay i've gone through and tried to get new numbers, i've put last years numbers in parentheses for comparison Action/Adventure - 44 (93) Angst - 146 (235) AU - 61 (117) Crime/Mystery - 34 (55) - 18 of these are also tagged action/adventure Dark - 49 (77) Drama - 241 (231) Fluff - 99 (200) Humor - 84 (159) Hurt/Comfort - 58 (91) Romance - 191 (285) Smut - 49 (72) note that i included all stories updated in jan 2021+ i think a problem is just that with the world opening up, there isn't as much writing happening, so take the drop in numbers with a grain of salt. i do think based on these it's worth debating crime/mystery as a category, especially as over half of them are also tagged action/adventure, and the other half are tagged something else that could be a category like dark or angst i think. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueSlytherin Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 So there's a lot above and I can't focus enough to quote it, but here's my thoughts: I love the idea of best chemistry and I think you can offset the over-romance feel by also having the best friendship/duo/platonic relationship as a category. I know some of my favorite pairings are not even romantic ships, just the best friends causing mayhem or the rivals always bickering 😆. Maybe even a best rivalry category 🤔 Love the idea of best happy vs. sad romance, maybe it could open up a little bit if it was best happy ending and best tragedy instead? So it doesn't have to be narrowed into romantic endings, but still captures that idea. Love the idea of best world-building. It's definitely a skill that not every story does well, even canon based stories can fall flat without good world-building. Love the idea of most addictive story. I agree that Best Writing Style is a hard thing to wrap my head around and try to nominate. And, without the other 2020 member categories it's also the only category specific to the author rather than the author's work. I suppose you could pair it with a story though, say you really liked the writing style of a particular story because it had a unique voice or perspective or vibe or like...I can't fucking word anymore. Random addition that is maybe a terrible idea but I'll through out there anyways: Best Antagonist. A great story doesn't just need a hero, but a tension filled complication and writing quality villains can be tough. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RonsGirlFriday Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 (edited) 8 minutes ago, RogueSlytherin said: I love the idea of best chemistry and I think you can offset the over-romance feel by also having the best friendship/duo/platonic relationship as a category. I know some of my favorite pairings are not even romantic ships, just the best friends causing mayhem or the rivals always bickering 😆. Maybe even a best rivalry category 🤔 Ooh yes. 8 minutes ago, RogueSlytherin said: I agree that Best Writing Style is a hard thing to wrap my head around and try to nominate. And, without the other 2020 member categories it's also the only category specific to the author rather than the author's work. I suppose you could pair it with a story though, say you really liked the writing style of a particular story because it had a unique voice or perspective or vibe or like...I can't fucking word anymore. Double yes 8 minutes ago, RogueSlytherin said: Random addition that is maybe a terrible idea but I'll through out there anyways: Best Antagonist. A great story doesn't just need a hero, but a tension filled complication and writing quality villains can be tough. TRIPLE YES Also just throwing it out there re: happy vs sad romance -- it kind of requires the fic to be completed, no? So like, romance WIP's may not get nommed? And "romance" is like... a dynamic? So even though a romance that ends happily and one that doesn't are difficult to compare, they still share a lot of things. Like within every genre category you're going to get things that feel like apples to oranges. Crime/Mystery could be a lighthearted heist or a dark murder mystery, but they'd both fall under that category and we don't subdivide it into "cozy mystery" and "Martin Scorsese could have written this." Edited January 12, 2022 by RonsGirlFriday 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oregonian Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 Quote 4 hours ago, Crimson Quill said: best poem - so I'll admit I'm not the best judge of this category but I did notice this category had 5 finalists which is good number/response but 3 of the poems from the same author (even though amazing work!) suggests a very small range of authors that are writing for this category. we didn't have this issue with any other categories. I don't know how much many that have written this year but I would put this up for discussion based on this category seems to be specialist category for quite a small handful of authors. I checked out the poetry production for 2021 and found ten authors making fourteen postings, but some of those postings were poetry collections containing as many as seven poems, so it looks as if there would be a sufficiently broad range of authors, styles, and topics. (Remember The Granola Bar At the Bottom of Your Purse Would Like a Word by @RonsGirlFriday?) I agree with Melanie when she said: Quote 3 hours ago, RonsGirlFriday said: Re: Best Poem and Best Crime/Mystery -- I wouldn't necessarily count these out just because the number of potential entries is smaller and fewer people write them. I think it's nice for them to have recognition too, and not really their fault that other members choose not to write those, you know? Poetry is a specific skill requiring a specific type of effort, and the outstanding products deserve to be recognized. I doubt that our awards list should be top-heavy with lots of categories of romance prose. Writing crime and mystery also requires a specific skill (which I don't have). We seem to be getting a number of historical stories which, although they often (almost always) involves some romance, require some heavy effort in research to achieve verisimilitude and might deserve recognition for their historical aspect as well as the plot line. However, I don't think we have enough of these to make a separate category. I just admire them very much. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oregonian Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 Sorry. I didn't format that post correctly, so you have to hit the Expand buttons to see the whole thing.🙁 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inmyownlittlecorner Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 19 minutes ago, Oregonian said: Poetry is a specific skill requiring a specific type of effort, and the outstanding products deserve to be recognized. I doubt that our awards list should be top-heavy with lots of categories of romance prose. Writing crime and mystery also requires a specific skill (which I don't have). This is an excellent point ❤️ 1 hour ago, RonsGirlFriday said: And "romance" is like... a dynamic? So even though a romance that ends happily and one that doesn't are difficult to compare, they still share a lot of things. Like within every genre category you're going to get things that feel like apples to oranges. Crime/Mystery could be a lighthearted heist or a dark murder mystery, but they'd both fall under that category and we don't subdivide it into "cozy mystery" and "Martin Scorsese could have written this." More good points ❤️ iirc, at one point, we had Best Short Form Romance and Best Long Form Romance. I wonder if that might be worth revisiting? Since we do have a lot of romance in the archives, I think it's fine to have more than one category for romance, I'm just wondering if this might be a better way to go? Since it takes a different set of skills to write a good short form vs long form story, especially a romance where you have to sell the relationship to the reader 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oregonian Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 You're quite right, @inmyownlittlecorner, when you say that it's a different skill set to write a short romance than a long one, especially if the romance is starting from scratch. Romance is complicated, but with the word limitation of a short story, not every aspect of the romance can be fully developed; much needs to be suggested, implied, so that at the end the reader has a good impression of how this tale will continue on after 'The End.' 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grumpy cat Posted January 12, 2022 Author Share Posted January 12, 2022 (edited) 5 hours ago, Oregonian said: We seem to be getting a number of historical stories which, although they often (almost always) involves some romance, require some heavy effort in research to achieve verisimilitude and might deserve recognition for their historical aspect as well as the plot line. However, I don't think we have enough of these to make a separate category. I just admire them very much. i think these might fit well with world building if we have it as a category? just a thought. all other points you all are making are excellent -- i'm happy we've got a conversation going so some thoughts about other stuff mentioned: lo looked up the genre stats, and commented about how some of the crime/mystery ones are also tagged with action/adventure -- which got me thinking that maybe we could open up places for those stories, but not necessarily define them just by a genre? kinda like how i mentioned i liked funniest story from last year and that category didn't need to be tagged as 'humor' on the archives. so idk, just throwing it out there because then melanie also mentioned differences in romance and mentioned cozy mystery vs scorsese...i haven't thought of what the categories of that type (not necessarily just for crime/mystery/action/adventure -- they're the ones i'm just using as an example right now) would be called and all that but maybe someone else thinks of something 😅 we dropped the best family/friendship last year because it wasn't one of the categories anyone mentioned as wanting it so we tried to offset that with best cast/ensemble -- it can always go back into running when we put up the poll for potential categories if enough people want it, though one of the concerns was it being too broad? re series: last year we also debated that one of the potential issues with this is that people use series on the archives in really different ways -- some use it to just group the same type of story together, not necessarily about the same characters/world/etc and so it might require a lot of caveats for nominations using myself as an example: i have a series called the mess that you wanted that includes all sorts of stories about messy relationships i wrote but they're not all about the same characters, they don't feature super interesting world building even though they do belong in a same hp universe and the only stories properly updated are a drabble collection with more unrelated drabbles to the other stories and a story that once again focuses on a different character entirely from all the other ones 😅 or dark as midnight sun has only one eligible story and so 90% of the series was actually created in 2020 which, again, idk how we feel about that another example from my own ap is the queen of disaster series that just groups together my original fiction and poetry but they're standalone and don't build on each other in the same way as what i think the spirit of this category would be obviously, there are other series on the archives that aren't mine (i used my author's page as an example because browsing the series on the archive is difficult and you can't see what's been updated when at first glance) that would definitely fit in with the spirit of the award but just the concern was about a category with too many caveats in the nomination process being cumbersome another concern was if the series was created in say, 2020 or 2019, and then just one chapter added in 2021, would that be fair for an award we give out in 2022? i know we touched on this a little, but i guess a series is not exactly the same as a multichapter story 😅 i just revisited old threads to remind myself of why some stuff wasn't a go last year so throwing it out there for brainstorming purposes, sorry if this seems overwhelming -- i only thought more heads are better than one/two. so this is not to say we shouldn't have it as a category best antagonist is something i love but honestly having trouble thinking of stories that would fit (and are we counting canon antagonists in this as well? or just original ones?) best short-form/best long-form romance was then decided it made awards way too romance-heavy 😅 but yeah, i mean it's definitely one of the options edit: i also think best drabble was a nice category last year? we did have plenty of options because of the drabble challenge so idk how we stand this year with it - i looked and counted something like 30 eligible (afaik) drabbles with like 6 authors (not everything marked as a drabble fits with the 300 word limit and some of the things were just edited in 2021) Edited January 12, 2022 by grumpy cat 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PinsandKneazles Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 Is there a limit on number of categories? "Best quote" tends to be a difficult one for me, as quotes are contextual and this category usually requires a significant amount of reading to find and understand each quote before choosing. Genre specific categories always seem to work pretty well. In terms of length, how about a 'best short story' (subject to eligible material, obvs), because there's poetry, drabbles, one-shots...and then nothing between these and novel-length? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grumpy cat Posted January 12, 2022 Author Share Posted January 12, 2022 Just now, PinsandKneazles said: Is there a limit on number of categories? we usually put that up to a vote to see what number members would like -- you can see last year's poll +here 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crimson quill Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 if we're truly interested in 'best universe/series' then we would have to come up with clear definition for what we believe in means: universe/series for me (personal opinion only here obviously) would mean any group of stories that were tagged together under a title and at least one of those stories has been updated in last year (personally I don't have any issue with stories around previous years being used as part of judging what they want to nominate as the universe is still going therefore it's a live of bodywork.). I guess an issue we may find this that in the coming years (if we decide to keep) then we have the same nominations years after year?? I generally think that mostly people are aware of it and tend not to do that too much. @grumpy cat you mentioned as an example that you have a series which is linked by a common theme that doesn't really include worldbuilding, so my thoughts would be that it counts as universe but it would be up to people who were going to nominate if they thought it was what they wanted to nominate. like we all don't have the same ideas about what's funny but the tag was taken away to give people more freedom. it would be the same. I guess the conversation is more about if previous works from other years count if not then 'best worldbuilding' is a similar better award to go with instead. I mentioned friends/family and i think that's totally fair point that 'best cast' kinda fills that space but i guess i didn't view it like that at the time and maybe that's on me personally. @PinsandKneazles we had the category called 'best alternative format' at the POGs one year which might fit with including drabbles, poems, story telling through letters/reports etc.) might may be an option for combing some categories. it would be more general admittedly (but best romance is very general too) but not everything is going to make everyone happy i guess?? worth more thought perhaps? 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueSlytherin Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 3 hours ago, grumpy cat said: best antagonist is something i love but honestly having trouble thinking of stories that would fit (and are we counting canon antagonists in this as well? or just original ones?) Interesting thought here. Maybe it's even broader of a category. So not limited to antagonist, which suggests a villain or more specifically a person, but somehow captures the idea of well written conflict, which means the enemy could be man (or group/organization), nature, self, society, technology, or something supernatural. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostinthelightss Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, RogueSlytherin said: Interesting thought here. Maybe it's even broader of a category. So not limited to antagonist, which suggests a villain or more specifically a person, but somehow captures the idea of well written conflict, which means the enemy could be man (or group/organization), nature, self, society, technology, or something supernatural. best adversary? that would be similar to best rivalry but more open ended. crime/mystery and action/adventure could be put into a category like most thrilling/riveting/exciting? definition being those stories that have you waiting on the edge of your seat, dying for more, someone else word this better so that it's very clear this isn't just most addicting i looked into drabble and poetry numbers because there's valid points but i wanted to see something. drabble has 7 eligible authors and ~28 eligible drabbles. poetry has 10 eligible authors and ~42 eligible poems (+ like a bunch of kris's i didn't bother counting whoops - there were 12). while i understand that writing something small is difficult and has impact, that same skill can be applied to both formats. if i group them together, there are now only 13 eligible authors because 4 authors have contributed to both - and those four authors are the ones who have the most stories in these categories (which makes sense). last year there was justification in that there was a lot of choice, and a variety of authors penned microfiction, but idk i think for this year, at least, we should combine them, because otherwise we risk having two categories that are almost identical in who get nominated/wins with almost no variation, not simply because someone is good at it, but because there really aren't that many options. also ngl, if poetry and drabbles get their own category, i will hardcore be pushing for smut, as it has more eligible authors than the microfiction combined, and more eligible stories than either separate (again, without kris's big poetry collection), and i would argue there is also talent in writing erotic fiction. i just don't want to see us perpetuate the idea that smut is 'lower-class' fiction than other stories. (numbers if you're interested - 15 eligible authors and ~45 eligible stories) short-form vs long-form romance idk if im exactly here for, because i would rather see a type of romance than just how long a story is. like slowburn vs raging fire - very similar in concept to a short-form vs long-form, but doesn't imply the length of a story. (though i do like the idea of a long-form story to highlight the works that people have been working on foreverrrrrrr and are just so cool). best alternative format was difficult for me last year because it was just so similar to creative story? i wouldn't mind kicking that tbh... p.s. if there's a category you really want, would highly suggest looking up the numbers on the archives to make your case. that's one of the biggest factors for me - are there enough stories to warrant this category and are there enough authors that it's not so niche only a handful of those participating will even qualify. (this is also to say that i probably won't do the lookup again because i'm working on ~*other things*~ unless i'm asked very nicely, or y'all promise to put smut on the board for consideration ) *edited w kris's poetry collection number because she's a gem and got that for me* Edited January 12, 2022 by maraudertimes 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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