AetherX
make plove not warble
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This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who reads our weekly newsletters, but just around the corner is
THE WRITERS WORKSHOP SUMMER AWARDS 2018!
Hosted this time by me! Most of you know how this all works, but we’ve got a few new faces around here, so I’m going to lay it out real quick.
Every summer and winter, we come together as a community to hold a contest to celebrate the diversity and quality of works here in the Writers Workshop. First will come a nomination period, where authors can nominate their own works and that of their peers in a variety of different categories covering both stories and characters. Once all the nominations are in, a group of judges will read the stories and decide on winners. You can also nominate each other for the user-voted prizes of Best Newcomer, Best Reviewer, and Best Written Word Contributor.
Winners receive banners and a coveted spot in our Hall of Fame. Everyone who gets nominated will receive reviews from the judges who read their work.
For those of you returning, prepare yourselves for some changes to the categories that you’re used to. We’ve come up with these modifications to address some of the issues we’ve seen in the past.
tl;dr Patch notes:
- Removed story categories: Best Drama, Best Poetry/Short Prose.
- Removed character categories: Best Supporting, Best Pokémon.
- Added story categories: Best Speculative, Best Character-Driven.
- Added character categories: Best Deuteragonist, Best Character Interaction.
- The continued existence of Best Character and Best Story is uncertain.
- General category description tweaks all around.
STORIES
BEST JOURNEY FIC:
Awarded to a captivating Pokémon story that tells a tale of adventure and discovery as characters travel across a region. Nominees can include…
- Traditional “journey fics” based around a badge quest, contests, catching ‘em all, etc.
- Stories that don’t follow the traditional model, but are about traveling around a region for one reason or another.
BEST SPECULATIVE FIC:
Awarded to a fascinating Pokémon story which takes fantastical and/or futuristic elements to a whole new level. Nominees can include…
Awarded to a fascinating Pokémon story which takes fantastical and/or futuristic elements to a whole new level. Nominees can include…
- Sci-fi/Fantasy stories.
- Horror stories.
- Utopian and dystopian stories.
- Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories.
- Stories revolving around myths, legends, fairy tales, or folktales.
- Stories featuring zombies, vampires, or other non-Pokémon fictional creatures.
- Stories featuring the supernatural and paranormal.
- Stories featuring superheroes among the primary characters.
BEST CHARACTER-DRIVEN FIC:
Awarded to a compelling Pokémon story in which plots/genres covered in other categories are pushed aside in favor of focusing on the character cast. Nominees can include…
- Stories in which characters are the main driving force in moving the plot forward. In other words, the plot does not move forward of its own accord and dictate a character’s actions as a result.
- Stories in which character development, psychological themes, and/or high emotional stakes take precedence over plot.
- Stories featuring characters struggling mostly with internal rather than external conflicts.
- Slice-of-life stories.
- Romance, friendship, and hurt/comfort stories.
BEST EXPANSION FIC:
Awarded to an engrossing Pokémon story which builds upon fanon ideas and/or established canon characters and/or concepts. Nominees can include...
- Stories exploring the Pokémon manga, game, and/or anime canons.
- Stories featuring manga, game, and/or anime canon characters as protagonists, antagonists, and/or deuteragonists.
- Stories exploring myths established in canon, such as the creation and life of legendary/mythical Pokémon.
- Stories with a heavy focus on canon teams or organizations (ie., Team Rocket, Silph Co.), even if most or all of the characters belonging to said teams or organizations are original characters.
- Shipping fics between one or more canon characters.
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon fics.
- Stories with a heavy Pokémon worldbuilding focus.
- Spin-off one-shots or stories of an author’s main work. This does not include full sequels or prequels.
BEST CROSSOVER/NON-POKÉMON FIC:
Awarded to a riveting piece of work which takes a step back from the Pokémon world and brings a different, unique type of tale to the Workshop. Nominees can include…
- Stories about any other fandom that is not Pokémon.
- Crossover stories between the Pokémon fandom and any other fandom.
- Crossover stories between any fandoms that aren’t Pokémon.
- Original fiction stories.
- Original non-fiction works of any kind, such as essays, biographies, memoirs, and more.
BEST ALTERNATE FIC:
Awarded to a unique story that tackles experimental story structures and/or cannot be classified in any of the other major categories. Nominees can include, but are not limited to…
- Crackfics, comedy stories, and parodies.
- Metafiction.
- Crime or Mystery stories.
- Pretty much everything else.
Characters
BEST PROTAGONIST:
Awarded to a well-crafted lead character who commands the story. Almost every story will have a protagonist; some stories will have multiple protagonists. Nominees can include…
- The character that is either the lead or one of the leads of a story. Usually, they appear in a large portion of the story.
- Characters who make key decisions in the story and are shown experiencing the consequences of said decisions in full. Their decisions also affect the rest of the character cast.
- Characters who are the main driving force of a story’s plot, even in a plot-driven story.
- Viewpoint lead characters or non-viewpoint lead characters.
- Lead characters of any personality or background; a protagonist does not necessarily equal “the good guy” who always does what is right or kind.
BEST DEUTERAGONIST:
Awarded to a well-written character who livens up a story’s character cast and demand the audience’s attention almost as much as the protagonist does. Nominees can include…
- Supporting/sidekick characters.
- Important characters who appear more than or just as often as the lead character(s), but are not the driving force of the story.
- Characters who exhibits both protagonistic and antagonistic traits at times (ie., rivals).
- Characters who are important in a story with no clear lead character.
BEST ANTAGONIST:
Awarded to an engaging character who works against other characters and the goals of the plot. Nominees can include…
Awarded to an engaging character who works against other characters and the goals of the plot. Nominees can include…
- Characters whose main role in the story is to provide obstacles for anyone on the character cast to overcome, usually the protagonist.
- Opposite characters of any personality or background; an antagonist does not necessarily equal “the bad guy” who always does what is wrong or malicious.
BEST CHARACTER INTERACTION:
Awarded to an intriguing pair of characters whose synergy resonates greatly with the audience. Nominees can include…
- Any combination of two characters: protagonists, deuteragonists, antagonists, Pokémon characters, other fictional creature characters, human characters, minor characters, and more.
- Organizations can count as one character (ie., the protagonist and Team Rocket can be nominated together). Characters belonging to that organization won’t be judged on an individual basis, but rather on the function of the organization itself.
USER-VOTED
BEST NEWCOMER
Awarded to a first-time Workshop writer who has quickly made their mark as a writer to watch.
Awarded to a first-time Workshop writer who has quickly made their mark as a writer to watch.
- This user must have posted their first piece of work in the Workshop since the previous Awards. Does not apply to users who frequent the Written Word but have not published any work.
BEST REVIEWER
Awarded to a Workshop user who has written one or a series of helpful, insightful and thoughtful reviews that aids the development of their peers as writers.
- This user must have written a review in the period of time since the previous Awards.
BEST WRITTEN WORD CONTRIBUTOR
Awarded to a Written Word user who has contributed one or more insightful, interesting, intelligent or humorous thoughts to discussions about writing, fan fiction and literature, or has otherwise been a supportive and helpful member of the community.
- This user must have posted in a thread in the Written Word since the previous Awards.
You probably have some questions about the changes we’ve made, so I’ve preemptively answered what I could:
Best Drama Fic started as an attempt to rebrand Best Dark Fic. Dark fics are a fairly well defined genre of fanfiction usually marked by gratuitous violence and death and depressing themes. A few years ago we realized that we as a community had kind of grown out of that. When we write edginess now, we do it because the story demands it, not because seeing someone get stabbed to death in a Pokémon fic is shocking. Best Drama was an attempt to cover all the dramatic, emotional, and atmospheric fics that matured out of the Dark fic genre.
Unfortunately, we’ve begun to realize that Best Drama is a little too broad. Pretty much every fic that has a serious tone could be considered Drama. We decided to replace it with the Speculative Fiction and Character-Driven categories, which we feel will better place stories amongst peers they can be appropriately compared to.
Unfortunately, we’ve begun to realize that Best Drama is a little too broad. Pretty much every fic that has a serious tone could be considered Drama. We decided to replace it with the Speculative Fiction and Character-Driven categories, which we feel will better place stories amongst peers they can be appropriately compared to.
In short: lack of entries. We often ditched this category entirely due to no nominations. Poetry compilation threads come and go in popularity. Our first fix for this issue was to add Short Prose to the category, but even then it often went without any nominations. Short stories and one-shots have historically fared very well against longer stories, so they will fit just fine in the other categories.
At this point, we don’t plan on accepting poetry in the awards. If you write poetry and want to nominate it, we might stick it in Alternate, but it would be a bit awkward to judge. Feel free to PM me if you are in that position and we can talk. We are considering having a standalone poetry contest at some other time if there is interest in one.
At this point, we don’t plan on accepting poetry in the awards. If you write poetry and want to nominate it, we might stick it in Alternate, but it would be a bit awkward to judge. Feel free to PM me if you are in that position and we can talk. We are considering having a standalone poetry contest at some other time if there is interest in one.
The word “Supporting” as well as the definition of the category caused some confusion on which kinds of characters should have been nominated here. We’ve replaced this category with Best Deuteragonist, which is functionally the same thing but with a better definition. Also, it's just a funny word. "Eat my deuteragonist." See?
Best Pokémon was originally introduced as a way to recognize standard Pokémon “characters” that were fun and well written. It ended up being “Best Talking Pokémon” which sort of ran counter to the whole point of the thing. If a Pokémon can talk, then there’s little to no reason not to put it in another category. If your protagonist is a Pokémon, whether or not it’s a PMD story, then they should be entered in Best Protagonist.
We ultimately decided that choosing whether a certain Pokémon should go here or somewhere else was too fiddly, so we’re axing the category. A variant of it may return in the future if we can find an elegant solution to these issues. All Pokémon characters can now go in whatever other category fits them best.
We ultimately decided that choosing whether a certain Pokémon should go here or somewhere else was too fiddly, so we’re axing the category. A variant of it may return in the future if we can find an elegant solution to these issues. All Pokémon characters can now go in whatever other category fits them best.
Best Character is chosen by deciding between which of the character award winners is… the best. As such, it has almost always been a controversial category when it comes to judging. It usually ends up being the Best Protagonist winner, which does make sense. Protagonists see the most screen time, they tend to be deeper than other characters, and their character arcs tend to be more prominent and tied in to the plot. But we don’t need a roundtable discussion from a variety of judges to tell us that Frodo Baggins is a more memorable character than Glorfindel.
It’s hard, if not impossible to reconcile all the different roles that each character winner plays in their story. Not to mention, in order to comment helpfully in the discussion to choose the Best Character, a judge has to read all of the fics eligible, which is often an unmanageable task.
These issues or similar ones also apply to Best Story. The top two prizes take a significant amount of extra time and effort to choose, and often result in feelings of disappointment more often than celebration. I hesitate to say they're gone for certain, but we'll see how judging goes this time around.
It’s hard, if not impossible to reconcile all the different roles that each character winner plays in their story. Not to mention, in order to comment helpfully in the discussion to choose the Best Character, a judge has to read all of the fics eligible, which is often an unmanageable task.
These issues or similar ones also apply to Best Story. The top two prizes take a significant amount of extra time and effort to choose, and often result in feelings of disappointment more often than celebration. I hesitate to say they're gone for certain, but we'll see how judging goes this time around.
In general, we try to discourage swapping categories between awards, but given the redefining we’ve done here, we will allow it this time. Start thinking now about where your story or character fits best, regardless of where they were placed before. There is some overlap between categories, and there always has been. Pick the one that you think describes your work most accurately, and where you think it will be a fair comparison to other stories in that category. I will be glad to work with you on this.
In future seasons if you decide to switch categories, you will have to provide a suitable explanation to the host of that awards season as to why and how your story or character has changed enough to be in a different category.
Keep in mind that the Hall of Fame will be out of date for a little while as we make the transition to these new categories.
In future seasons if you decide to switch categories, you will have to provide a suitable explanation to the host of that awards season as to why and how your story or character has changed enough to be in a different category.
Keep in mind that the Hall of Fame will be out of date for a little while as we make the transition to these new categories.
Here’s the thing, though: these changes are not set in stone. I’m posting them here in order to get your feedback. If there are any kind of alterations you think should be made to category definitions or if there’s some other kind of feedback you’d like to share, I’m all ears. If we decide that sizable edits need to be made, we might push back the awards start date a bit, but that’s okay!
If you’re interested in being a judge, shoot me a PM! Being a judge does not disqualify your work from being entered.
Nominations open next Friday, June 22nd, so we’ve all got a little under a week to read up on possible nominations and update our stories. Keep an eye out for the nomination thread. Let’s get cracking!
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