MEFA Reminder and some Coronation Screencaps....
Here’s one more post about the 2006 MEFA’s, the Middle Earth Fanfiction Awards, plus some screencaps (yes, I tweaked them a little for contrast, sharpness, and also colour).
September is the last month to vote -- I think. Searching the MEFA site's FAQ's on voting, it only gives the deadline for 2005, but it was the last day of Semptember. I am assuming it's the same this year.
Register if you haven’t and put your keyboards to use for the stories you love and/or to support your friends in the fanfic community. Unfortunately, you must register even to browse the author list, but it is not difficult. You needn't give your date of birth or the name of your pet.
To make this entry more of a pleasure and less business-like, I have made some screencaps from the RotK Coronation Scene, in which a lot of award-related activities take place (so to speak).
~ Coronoation scene from "The Return of the King", theatrical edition, full screen version:
~*~
I posted it a few months ago, but here is a list of the authors from my f-list whose stories and poems have been nominated this year:
annMarwalk: “Aglarond”; “Benison”; “Elfwine”; “Diplomatic Relations”; “For the Moon to Lead, and the Stars to Follow”; “Heirlooms”; “History Becomes Legend,”; “It’s a Thought”; “A Length of Haradric Silk”; “Lobelia’s List”; “Today”; “Thus Are Legends Born”; “Too Few Words”
Aratlithiel (aka abby_normal): “Scattered Leaves”
Ariel (aka elasg): “Starlight at Eventide”; “Inspirare”; “Passing Regrets”; “The End of All Things”
Cuthalion (aka belegculthalion):“Breath of Winter”; “Hands of Healing”; “Tinúviel, Tinúviel”; “…and hear the song of salt and sea”:
Daffodil Bolger (aka abby_normal): “Counterpoint” (‘Scherzo’):
illyria-pffyffin (aka illyria_novia): “Breeze”; “Divinity”; “Perspectives”; “Sam’s Voice”
Lily (aka Lily_the_hobbit): “The Bond Between Us”; “Changes and Constancy”; “Dear Diary”; “Somewhere to Belong”
mariole: “An Army of Tooks”; “Bad Step”; “Merry’s Present”
mews_1945: “In Frodo’s Hands”; “Frodo Lad: First Yule”
shirebound: “Shelter”; “The Three Towers”; “Whispers of the Dragon”; “Healed”
silvermoonlady: “Heralded By Storms”; “Cierre, Min Heorte” (‘Turn, My Heart’)
white_gull: “Unspeakable”
~*~
These are only a very few of the stories competing. Many more are there, stories by authors whose names you will recognize, along with folk you probably haven't heard of. Some nominated fic is recently-written, but some noms have been around for a while (Bill the Pony's "Cloves and Kisses", for instance, is a fic that was recommended to me more than two years ago, before I had read anything).
Here is the link to the main page of the MEFA awards:
http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2006/
Finding Stories
If you are used to the simplicity of finding stories and authors at archives like WotM (West of the Moon), SoA (Stories of Arda), or OSA (Open Scrolls Archives), finding things at MEFA may be daunting.
After you log in, you must click the button called show filter. It will give you a big list to fiddle with in order to find the story or author of your choice.
Here's some advice I got from an extremely courteous MEFA admin. and fic writer, Marta:
We [offer a lot of choices for finding things, but] through the different filters. (...) I'll walk through it just in case. You can see filters by going to the page showing the nominations and click "Show Filter".
Filters are a little tricky because they remember what you are currently filtering by. Each time you press the "Display Selected Nominations", if you want to clear out what you're currently displaying just click the "Clear All Filters" button.
Otherwise if you're currently filtering for stories involving Frodo and you now select an author, it will only display stories by that author involving Frodo.
You can find an author by selecting their name from the author filter ["Browse Author"]. Then click "Display Selections". This will show all the stories by that author that you haven't specifically told the site to skip.
You can find a particular title by typing part or all of it into the white box beside the "search" button and clicking "search". This will show the stories that have that phrase in the title, author name, or summary that you haven't told the site to skip.
You can see all the stories that chose a certain race as their race (even if they didn't end up in that as their "Main Category") by using the "Genre, Race, Time Choice" filter.
Voting.
When you vote, even if it is a “final” vote, you still can go back and edit your review, which I think is great. If you don’t want to choose “final” for your vote, votes marked “hidden” will be counted in when voting ends, even if you never changed it to “final”. But “draft” votes don’t count.
Note: Voting is scored by the length of the review, not by what you say in it.
Quotes from the fic or other sources don’t count in the score. Quotes should be placed inside brackets [ ].
Each vote (review) is assigned a point value based on its word count:
1-75 characters -----1 point
76-150 characters ----- 2 points
151-300 characters ----- 3 points
301-450 characters ----- 4 points
451-600 characters ----- 5 points
601-750 characters ----- 6 points
751-850 characters ----- 7 points
851-925 characters ----- 8 points
926-1000 characters ----- 9 points
More than 1000 characters ----- 10 points
This means that no matter what you write, in terms of raves or hisses, the score is based on the length of the review.
If you adore a fic but do not elaborate upon it, the story gets a low score. If you hate it and tell why at length, the story gets a high vote.
Personally, I said what I had to say and did not care about the score. Most authors who've been in this before said they valued the feedback most, not the score.
Here are some sample entries which show the word count. After you hit “Preview” on your vote/review, it tells you what the score is, so you can know for sure how many points you've voted.
1 pt. ~ Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
2 pts. ~ Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
3 pts. ~ Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
4 pts. ~ Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Here’s what a maximum score looks like:
10 pts. ~ Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah.
~ Mechtild
September is the last month to vote -- I think. Searching the MEFA site's FAQ's on voting, it only gives the deadline for 2005, but it was the last day of Semptember. I am assuming it's the same this year.
Register if you haven’t and put your keyboards to use for the stories you love and/or to support your friends in the fanfic community. Unfortunately, you must register even to browse the author list, but it is not difficult. You needn't give your date of birth or the name of your pet.
To make this entry more of a pleasure and less business-like, I have made some screencaps from the RotK Coronation Scene, in which a lot of award-related activities take place (so to speak).
~ Coronoation scene from "The Return of the King", theatrical edition, full screen version:
~*~
I posted it a few months ago, but here is a list of the authors from my f-list whose stories and poems have been nominated this year:
annMarwalk: “Aglarond”; “Benison”; “Elfwine”; “Diplomatic Relations”; “For the Moon to Lead, and the Stars to Follow”; “Heirlooms”; “History Becomes Legend,”; “It’s a Thought”; “A Length of Haradric Silk”; “Lobelia’s List”; “Today”; “Thus Are Legends Born”; “Too Few Words”
Aratlithiel (aka abby_normal): “Scattered Leaves”
Ariel (aka elasg): “Starlight at Eventide”; “Inspirare”; “Passing Regrets”; “The End of All Things”
Cuthalion (aka belegculthalion):“Breath of Winter”; “Hands of Healing”; “Tinúviel, Tinúviel”; “…and hear the song of salt and sea”:
Daffodil Bolger (aka abby_normal): “Counterpoint” (‘Scherzo’):
illyria-pffyffin (aka illyria_novia): “Breeze”; “Divinity”; “Perspectives”; “Sam’s Voice”
Lily (aka Lily_the_hobbit): “The Bond Between Us”; “Changes and Constancy”; “Dear Diary”; “Somewhere to Belong”
mariole: “An Army of Tooks”; “Bad Step”; “Merry’s Present”
mews_1945: “In Frodo’s Hands”; “Frodo Lad: First Yule”
shirebound: “Shelter”; “The Three Towers”; “Whispers of the Dragon”; “Healed”
silvermoonlady: “Heralded By Storms”; “Cierre, Min Heorte” (‘Turn, My Heart’)
white_gull: “Unspeakable”
~*~
These are only a very few of the stories competing. Many more are there, stories by authors whose names you will recognize, along with folk you probably haven't heard of. Some nominated fic is recently-written, but some noms have been around for a while (Bill the Pony's "Cloves and Kisses", for instance, is a fic that was recommended to me more than two years ago, before I had read anything).
Here is the link to the main page of the MEFA awards:
http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2006/
Finding Stories
If you are used to the simplicity of finding stories and authors at archives like WotM (West of the Moon), SoA (Stories of Arda), or OSA (Open Scrolls Archives), finding things at MEFA may be daunting.
After you log in, you must click the button called show filter. It will give you a big list to fiddle with in order to find the story or author of your choice.
Here's some advice I got from an extremely courteous MEFA admin. and fic writer, Marta:
We [offer a lot of choices for finding things, but] through the different filters. (...) I'll walk through it just in case. You can see filters by going to the page showing the nominations and click "Show Filter".
Filters are a little tricky because they remember what you are currently filtering by. Each time you press the "Display Selected Nominations", if you want to clear out what you're currently displaying just click the "Clear All Filters" button.
Otherwise if you're currently filtering for stories involving Frodo and you now select an author, it will only display stories by that author involving Frodo.
You can find an author by selecting their name from the author filter ["Browse Author"]. Then click "Display Selections". This will show all the stories by that author that you haven't specifically told the site to skip.
You can find a particular title by typing part or all of it into the white box beside the "search" button and clicking "search". This will show the stories that have that phrase in the title, author name, or summary that you haven't told the site to skip.
You can see all the stories that chose a certain race as their race (even if they didn't end up in that as their "Main Category") by using the "Genre, Race, Time Choice" filter.
Voting.
When you vote, even if it is a “final” vote, you still can go back and edit your review, which I think is great. If you don’t want to choose “final” for your vote, votes marked “hidden” will be counted in when voting ends, even if you never changed it to “final”. But “draft” votes don’t count.
Note: Voting is scored by the length of the review, not by what you say in it.
Quotes from the fic or other sources don’t count in the score. Quotes should be placed inside brackets [ ].
Each vote (review) is assigned a point value based on its word count:
1-75 characters -----1 point
76-150 characters ----- 2 points
151-300 characters ----- 3 points
301-450 characters ----- 4 points
451-600 characters ----- 5 points
601-750 characters ----- 6 points
751-850 characters ----- 7 points
851-925 characters ----- 8 points
926-1000 characters ----- 9 points
More than 1000 characters ----- 10 points
This means that no matter what you write, in terms of raves or hisses, the score is based on the length of the review.
If you adore a fic but do not elaborate upon it, the story gets a low score. If you hate it and tell why at length, the story gets a high vote.
Personally, I said what I had to say and did not care about the score. Most authors who've been in this before said they valued the feedback most, not the score.
Here are some sample entries which show the word count. After you hit “Preview” on your vote/review, it tells you what the score is, so you can know for sure how many points you've voted.
1 pt. ~ Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
2 pts. ~ Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
3 pts. ~ Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
4 pts. ~ Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Here’s what a maximum score looks like:
10 pts. ~ Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah.
~ Mechtild