First Annual Men of Middle Earth Awards

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the inaugural year of the Men of Middle Earth Awards, where we celebrate the beautiful variety of the LOTR slash fandom. The awards are meant to recognize the best of each pairing in RPS and FPS for drabbles, ficlets, and short and long fiction. The FPS awards program will launch later in the year.




graphic courtesy of galor5

Eligibility requirements

What do we mean by the "Men of Middle Earth"? We're referring to "men" as in "all men are created equal." Anything goes here and crossovers are more than welcome. As long as half the pairing is from LOTR the fic is eligible for nomination.

All stories completed between July 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007 are eligible for nomination. Multi-chapter fics must have been started no earlier than January 1, 2006 in order to be nominated. Stories may be posted at any archive (Rugbytackle, VOLA, OEAM, Mirrormere, etc.) not just in LiveJournal.

Now writers and readers can post a list of stories (their own, favorite fics by other authors, or both) they'd like people to consider when making nominations. Leave a comment here with a link to the rec list in your journal. (Ideally the list will be divided by pairing and word count, but it's not required). Nominations will not only be limited to these stories, but hopefully this will be a great place for people to check out when they start thinking about nominations.

Nomination process

Nominations will be open from June 1 - July 31, 2007. You may nominate as many stories and pairings as you like. However, one person cannot nominate the same story more than once. Multiple nominations from one person for the same story will be disallowed in order to ensure that all fics have a level playing field in the nomination process.

Authors may nominate their own stories. However, when the final ballots are being put together those nominations may not count toward the final tally if there's a need to break a tie.

Please note: moderators cannot be nominated or vote for winners.

Nominations are made by the size of the story; the divisions are:

Drabbles (100 words)
Ficlets (101 - 1000 words)
Short Fiction (1001 - 8,000 words)
Long Fiction (8,001 and up)

As soon as a pairing has five distinct nominations in a specific size, that pairing becomes its own category within that length of fic division. Any pairing that does not receive at least five nominations in a particular size will be placed in a General Fellowship group, and the five fics with the most nominations in each size will become part of the final voting in this general category.

For example, 22 Karl/Viggo stories are nominated: three drabbles, ten ficlets, five short fiction and four long fiction. The Karl/Viggo pairing would become a distinct category for ficlets and short fiction, but the drabbles and long fiction nominations would be placed in the General Fellowship group with all other fics that did not receive five nominations. This general category will be divided by size and the top five in each size will move on to the final voting regardless of pairing. Therefore, if any of the Karl/Viggo drabbles are in the top five of general drabble nominations, they will be part of the final voting. Likewise, the same applies for the long fiction.

A similar approach will be applied for threesomes. However, when nominating a story with multiple pairings please select the primary pair in your nomination. The story will be grouped with other fics of that pairing. If, however, all the pairs in the fic have equal billing and no one stands out as the "star," please include all pairs in your nomination and the decision of which pair should be used will be left up to the author.

Nomination addendum: Because there can be significant differences between a 10,000 word fic and one 50K and longer, a Novel length category will be added if we receive enough nominations in a pairing to warrant this addition. For example, if we receive 18 MonaBoyd nominations in the Long Fiction category and five of them are longer than 50,000 words, a MonaBoyd Novel length category will be added for these stories.

Voting

In an effort to reduce the possibility of ballot stuffing, only members of this community will be able to vote. However, if you do not have a LiveJournal account and do not wish to create one, please e-mail to the moderator. E-mail balloting will be allowed but only from addresses previously "authorized" to submit votes. The polls will be open from August 10 through September 10.

Award Selection

The story that receives the most votes in each category will be selected as the winner. Each pairing has the potential to win four awards (one for each fic size division).

All nominees will receive an icon in recognition of this achievement. The winners will be announced by September 23 and will receive both a banner and icon.

Special Category: Classic Fiction

This category is designed to honor some of the incredible stories that we've enjoyed over the years. All fic completed before July 2006 are eligible to be nominated. As with the general voting, nominations will be made by the size of the story (please see divisions above). However, specific pairings will be honored throughout the year.

Nominations will open for the first entries into the MOME Hall of Fame on October 1. Further announcements and specific timetables will be posted later this summer.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please leave a comment here. A FAQ will be created based on this post and updated as additional questions are posted and answered.

Comments

[doylebaby.livejournal.com]

What a lovely idea to honour great stories and fine authors!
And I'm especially pleased with the Classic Fiction category.

Joining now!

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you like the idea of the classic fic category; it's a favorite of mine, too. I thought about including it along with the rest of the awards, but I think that would increase everybody's reading load beyond manageable levels. Hopefully people won't burn out when it's time to start nominating fics for that category.

[mooms.livejournal.com]

I think this a great idea and am joining right away !

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you're going to be part of this. I think it should be a lot of fun.

[govi20.livejournal.com]

It's a wonderful idea, and I hope it will be a tremendous succes ! Just hope it will also give the non- Orlando writers a bigger chance,the slashy awards being all a lost case to those writers, just by the numbers standing very little chance. I think that's really a shame, not diminishing the quality of those Orloando writers of course.

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

Even if I don't get a large number of people who want to participate, I hope that we'll get a ton of different pairings. That will make all of this worthwhile for me. Thanks for joining so quickly and for all of your help in getting this started.

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

Looks like a great project - best of luck! :)

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm not sure how many people will want to join but it I think it'll be fun.

[vamp-ress.livejournal.com]

Sounds fun! I'm already pondering whose fics I could nominate:)

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

I know. Every time I think about nominating stories I go a bit crazy with my bookmarks and memories. I'm so glad you've checked us out and I hope you enjoy yourself.

[lady-razzle.livejournal.com]

Oh, phooey. This looks cute. *g*

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm so happy that you're here. This is going to be a lot of fun.

[stormatdusk.livejournal.com]

*bounces*

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

I have to say this has started out better than I expected. Thanks for all of your help.

[kitty-trio.livejournal.com]

Great idea hon!!! And very well thought out *hugs*

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm so glad that you're here. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of work but I'm looking forward to reading so many great fics.

[weotolkien.livejournal.com]

Congrats! This is such a great idea and I'm looking forward to seeing some of the rare pairings writers get the recognition they deserve :)

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

It seems like it's off to a good start, and I owe a lot of that to all of the help I got ahead of time. Thanks so much, Vi, for your advice and encouragement.

[arieltachna.livejournal.com]

I'm a Vigorli writer, but I'm pretty much an equal opportunity reader so I'm looking forward to the reading list that comes out of this!

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

I think being an "equal opportunity reader" is definitely the way to be. I love reading all the different pairings. I'm so glad that you're here!

[helena-s-renn.livejournal.com]

i'm in! i like what this has evolved into since we last discussed. you know i make sarcastic comments at inopportune times sometimes, right? right?

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

*g* As do we all, as do we all. I'm so happy that you're here and that you like what this has turned into. I'm a sappy romantic pollyanna at heart and I really wanted to include everyone. I could live to regret that decision but for now I'm pretty pleased.

[tati.livejournal.com]

sounds cool! :) i'll take a closer look when i don't have to dash to work LOL

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

I hope you like what you see when you come back. Have a great day (night?) at work.

[galor5.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to see so many people joining in on the fun! It should great fun for all of us. :)

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

It seems like a good start, doesn't it? I'm pretty pleased so far.

[alassenya]

Excellent! We haven't had an award for a while. *runs away to review the gigabytes of fic in the hard drive*

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you're joining us. I think it's going to be a blast to read all the fics.

[daydreambeleevr.livejournal.com]

cool beans! I'm also looking forward to learning about some fic I may have missed the first time around.

Kerry =)

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

That really is the best part of these things. Tons of fics to read and new authors to discover. I hope you enjoy yourself.

[lozateazer.livejournal.com]

I'm in!!

How do we do fics that're co-authored?

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

There are no restrictions as far as the number of authors. If something was co-authored and it was written within the date restrictions and is publicly accessible for reading it is still eligible. I would just need the contact info for at least one of the authors so I can get their permission to be included if the story ends up in the top five nominations for its category.

I'm so glad you'll be participating!

[rifleman-s.livejournal.com]

Wow - a lot of thinking and a lot of hard work to come . . . but it will be worth it!!!

It's a great idea and I look forward to hearing more.

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad that you like this idea. I was a bit concerned that people wouldn't take to it so I've been thrilled with the response so far. I'll be posting more info soon.

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

I predict this is is going to expand into some considerable hugeness, with potentially four awards per pairing times four categories. [boggle] And since only one half of the pairing has to be a Rings person, that expands the potentials even further. Major props for taking this one, seriously. :)

Angie

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

The number of pairings is most definitely the wildcard here. If a lot of people want to participate it could grow exponentially. The potential downside is that a lot of the pairings may not meet the five nomination requirement and there will be a ton of different pairs in the general category. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it'll be a challenge for people who will be voting.

I'm really glad that you're here, though. I'm so excited to see so many familiar names joining the comm.

[estelstheone.livejournal.com]

I am SO looking forward to this. I have a question, though. I have an in-progress LOTR story that was begun in November 2005 (18 chapters, over 60,000 words so far) and so obviously, it would not be eligible at this point (not to say that anyone would even nominate it) but when I finally do complete it, would it ever qualify as a *classic* story or at any other level? One more question: does non-con qualify in the slash category? I'm confused about that. Either way, I'm so glad to see the men of Middle-earth have their own awards. Those elves get entirely too much attention... :>)

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I haven't fully fleshed out everything around the classic fiction category. But right now I'm inclined to say that the date would change as the years went by. So that next year fics that were completed before July 2007 would qualify. I'd like to think of it as a kind of Hall of Fame, where the best stories are inducted every year and it wouldn't be fair for new fics if they'd never qualify for that additional honor. Although, now that I'm "saying" all this, it makes me think that I need to push the date back a bit further to start. Anyway, the short answer is that yes, your story would be eligible in the classic fic category.

As for non-con and slash: I'm so not an expert on what is considered the definitive definition of slash, but I think that it must be considered slash. It seems like a specific plot or story line to a slash story, and not all slash pairings are happy pairings. Those stories aren't excluded here in any event.

And actually, the elves and hobbits and everyone else are included. Men has a more real world definition, the actors involved in the films, as opposed to the race of men. But I hope everyone will get an equal amount of attention here which is what my overall goal is.

[mesnica.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a wonderful idea, and I especially like how with the way you're dividing the categories, no story can 'sweep' this award, but each and all story is equal.

The only 'flaw' imo I can see is that you're starting Long Fics at 8k+ already. There are a lot of stories that surely will fall into that category and there's a huge difference between a 12k story and a 80k story. Maybe it would be worth considering that if a pairing crystallized out to have a huge input of nomination in that category (Long Fic) to divide them further into Long Fic and Novel-length fic? Just a suggestion of course :)

Lovely idea anyway and I'm sure it'll work out great! *hugs*

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

That's actually a really good idea. willowwing had suggested I make the cut-off 10,000 but I had such a hard time getting my head around that many words. But that still wouldn't address your point of trying to compare a 10,000 word fic and one that's 60,000 words. I like your solution; do you mind if I borrow it as an addendum?

I'm really glad that you want to participate. The hardest part for me is in not being able to nominate fics that I love but I'm sitting on my hands!

[pixiereader.livejournal.com]

Sounds a really good idea, especially the MOME hall of fame. Lots more reading ahead I think, and writing of course.

Jean

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

I'm so happy that you want to participate. It should be a lot of fun and I'm glad that people seem to like the idea.

[jhobbit.livejournal.com]

One question I didn't see here: Can an author nominate their own story? I know that sounds egotistical, but it's not meant to be, more if you've written something you'd like to see showcased is kinda where I'm coming from. :)

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

That's funny; I had this conversation with myself walking to work this morning. I haven't run this by what I consider my informal advisory group, but what I came up with is that yes, an author can nominate their own stories. However, when the final ballots are being put together those nominations may not count toward the final tally if there's the need to break a tie.

So for example, if there are two fics and each receives 12 nominations but one of the nominations for Story A comes from the author, then it wouldn't count in the total if these two fics were both competing for the final spot on the ballot.

I clearly have to work on the wording and I'd like others to confirm whether they think that's fair, but that's the direction I'm going. Does that make sense to you and does it seem like a fair compromise?

[slashfairy.livejournal.com]

this looks wonderful.

because i am a complete newb and really only have a few stories here and there, and then the little au, would it count? when school's out i'll be writing more, but til then, that's all there is.

no matter if it doesn't. it's not really written for this purpose, anyway; more because it insists on being written.

i can't wait to read what people have. so many good authors.

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

I know that the Little AU is sort of one continuous story, but personally I see each post (and sometimes a series of posts) as one story. Like the whole series where Orlando has left and is fighting to come home and Karl and Viggo eventually go to London to bring him back: that to me could be a whole story in and of itself. Or even the way you break them down by sub-title. To me any of those would be eligible as distinct stories for nomination.

I'm so glad that you're going to be participating. I'm thrilled that so many people are here.

[http://users.livejournal.com/saura_/]

I really enjoy the idea that awards are going to be given to writers of every possible paring!

Count me in!

ps: I'm part of the Domlijah-fandom (that's the most absent from all the awards always, unfortunately) Is it ok to post this there?

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm so glad that you're here. I'd love to promote this to the domlijah group. I sent an e-mail to enora for permission to post the announcement on domlijah and domorli but it came back as undeliverable. Is there someone else who maintains that community that I can contact? I know that some groups don't like these kinds of announcements posted and I didn't want to post without first getting permission from the moderators.

Me again!

[willys-digs.livejournal.com]

I mentioned before that you are welcome to post this on my new community. As well, I was wondering if you would be interested in letting me do something like this: http://community.livejournal.com/lotr_spotlight/21858.html

in conjuction with your community. We could help promote each other.

Here is a list of replies I recieved: http://community.livejournal.com/lotr_spotlight/tag/mini-spotlight+%233

Take a peek, if you're interested, let me know. In the meantime I will check to make sure you have membered up at my community, andif you haven't, I will "invite" you!

Jo

Re: Me again!

[willys-digs.livejournal.com]

Ok, I see you are there already. I will check my status with yours, and then we will be set. My email is reggid1 at rogers dot com. Let me know if I can be of any other assistance.

Jo