The 2008 Golden Pen Awards: Suggestion Topic!

[Gavin Luper]

~ The 2008 Golden Pen Awards! ~

Welcome, ladies, gentlemen and writers, to the biggest and boldest event on the Fanfiction community's calendar - the 2008 Golden Pen Awards!

As of this year, the Golden Pens will be held at the close of the calendar year, to reflect their status as the most prestigious awards in all of Fanfic. These awards celebrate the very finest creative works that our writing community has to offer, from prose to poetry and everything in between.

Most of you will know what we use the suggestion topic for, but for those who don't, I'll explain. Here, we offer you all the chance to have your say on which categories ought to be included in the Golden Pens.

So, do you think it's time we deleted an old category that's outlived its usefulness? Or maybe there's a new category you'd like to propose? This is the place to do it! Post your suggestions and thoughts below!

After a week, this year's hosts (myself, Gavin Luper, and my good friend mr_pikachu), will debate the merit of the proposed changes to the ballot. The changes will show up when we post the Nominations Thread shortly after.

Below is a list of all the categories from the last Golden Pens, in 2007. To assist in the decision-making process, I've included the new categories that we introduced in the two Silver Pencil Awards since then; these are marked with asterisks and bolded.

Happy suggesting, guys!

The deadline for suggestions is Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 11:59:59 p.m. Central Standard Time.


2007 Golden Pen Awards

General Fic Awards

Best Fiction Overall
Best Pokemon Fic
Best Yu-gi-oh Fic
Best Nonfiction/Alternate Fandom Fic
Best Dark Fic
Best Trainer Fic
Best Fantasy Fic
Best Comedy Fic
Best Action
Most Original Concept
Best Description
Best Writing Style
Best Plot
Most Improved Fic
Best Short Story
Best Poem
Best Promising New Fic/Best New Fic*
Best Single Location
Best Overall Setting
Best Potential Screenplay*
Best E-zine Article*

Fic Moments

Best Plot Twist
Best Battle Scene
Most Suspenseful Moment
Most Emotional Moment
Best Romantic Moment
Best Comedic Moment
Best Depicted Death
Best Chapter
Best Quote
Best Moment*
Best Introduction*

Characters

Best Character in a Leading Role
Best Character in a Supporting Role
Best Villain
Funniest Character
Most Original Character
Best Romantic Relationship
Best Un-Romantic Relationship
Best Original Cast
Best New Pokemon
Best Created Card
Most Original Deck
Best Character Development*
Best Friendship*
Best Rivalry*
Most Disturbing Character*

Member Awards

Best New Writer
Most Dedicated Writer
Most Improved Writer
Best Writer
Most Dedicated Reader
Best Reviewer
Best Newcomer to the Boards
Most Rounded Member
Best Reader*

[PancaKe]

I will comment and write my thoughts in gold next to the subjects I think need to change. etc.

General Fic Awards

Best Fiction Overall ~ Shouldn't this come at the end of the General awards/all awards??
Best Pokemon Fic / Best Yu-gi-oh Fic ~ Don't you think, with the lack of fanfics actually on the page , you could make this category "Best FanFic?"
Best Nonfiction/Alternate Fandom Fic ~ which then would make this Best NonFanfic? I dont know.
Best Dark Fic
Best Trainer Fic
Best Fantasy Fic
Best Comedy Fic
Best Action Could you maybe put like, best fic that represents its genre? Or something. I just think you've got way to many awards here. What classifies as a dark fic? Are there really that many trainer fics left?
Most Original Concept
Best Description
Best Writing Style
Best Plot
Most Improved Fic
Best Short Story
Best Poem
Best Promising New Fic/Best New Fic* ~ You should just call this best new fic. Most promising... isn't that like the same thing?
Best Single Location
Best Overall Setting
Best Potential Screenplay*
Best E-zine Article* I think that should come under an "other achievements award" but I dont know.

Fic Moments

Best Plot Twist
Best Battle Scene
Most Suspenseful Moment
Most Emotional Moment
Best Romantic Moment
Best Comedic Moment
Best Depicted Death
Best Chapter
Best Quote
Best Moment* How is this different from all the other moments?
Best Introduction*

Characters

Best Character in a Leading Role
Best Character in a Supporting Role
Best Villain
Funniest Character
Most Original Character
Best Romantic Relationship
Best Un-Romantic Relationship
Best Original Cast
Best New Pokemon
Best Created Card
Most Original Deck ~ I'm a little usure with all the yugioh awards. It just seems like there isn't much competition for them. But I don't know how the forum has changed since I was writing.
Best Character Development*
Best Friendship* How is this different from un-romantic relationship
Best Rivalry* Best rival/villan?
Most Disturbing Character*

Member Awards

Best New Writer Do we really have that many new writers?
Most Dedicated Writer
Most Improved Writer
Best Writer
Most Dedicated Reader
Best Reviewer
Best Newcomer to the Boards Do we really have that many new people coming?
Most Rounded Member What is rounded member?
Best Reader* How is best and most dedicated any different?


Sorry yeah just my thoughts!

[classy_cat18]

Didn't we omit Best Un-romantic Relationship in favor of Best Friendship and Best Rivalry?

[mr_pikachu]

Didn't we omit Best Un-romantic Relationship in favor of Best Friendship and Best Rivalry?

Based on my suggestion (I believe), we did. We also decided that it, um, kinda sucked. ^_^;;

[classy_cat18]

We also decided that it, um, kinda sucked. ^_^;;

...We did?

[mistysakura]

I will comment and write my thoughts in gold next to the subjects I think need to change. etc.

General Fic Awards

Best Fiction Overall ~ Shouldn't this come at the end of the General awards/all awards??
Best Pokemon Fic / Best Yu-gi-oh Fic ~ Don't you think, with the lack of fanfics actually on the page , you could make this category "Best FanFic?"
Best Nonfiction/Alternate Fandom Fic ~ which then would make this Best NonFanfic? I dont know.
Best Dark Fic
Best Trainer Fic
Best Fantasy Fic
Best Comedy Fic
Best Action Could you maybe put like, best fic that represents its genre? Or something. I just think you've got way to many awards here. What classifies as a dark fic? Are there really that many trainer fics left?
Most Original Concept
Best Description
Best Writing Style
Best Plot
Most Improved Fic
Best Short Story
Best Poem
Best Promising New Fic/Best New Fic* ~ You should just call this best new fic. Most promising... isn't that like the same thing?
Best Single Location
Best Overall Setting
Best Potential Screenplay*
Best E-zine Article* I think that should come under an "other achievements award" but I dont know.

Fic Moments

Best Plot Twist
Best Battle Scene
Most Suspenseful Moment
Most Emotional Moment
Best Romantic Moment
Best Comedic Moment
Best Depicted Death
Best Chapter
Best Quote
Best Moment* How is this different from all the other moments?
Best Introduction*

Characters

Best Character in a Leading Role
Best Character in a Supporting Role
Best Villain
Funniest Character
Most Original Character
Best Romantic Relationship
Best Un-Romantic Relationship
Best Original Cast
Best New Pokemon
Best Created Card
Most Original Deck ~ I'm a little usure with all the yugioh awards. It just seems like there isn't much competition for them. But I don't know how the forum has changed since I was writing.
Best Character Development*
Best Friendship* How is this different from un-romantic relationship
Best Rivalry* Best rival/villan?
Most Disturbing Character*

Member Awards

Best New Writer Do we really have that many new writers?
Most Dedicated Writer
Most Improved Writer
Best Writer
Most Dedicated Reader
Best Reviewer
Best Newcomer to the Boards Do we really have that many new people coming?
Most Rounded Member What is rounded member?
Best Reader* How is best and most dedicated any different?


Sorry yeah just my thoughts!

Best Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh! fic: sounds awesome.
Best nonfiction/alternate fandom fic: Also sounds awesome. That category really needs a name change anyway, since most fics that are nominated for that category are neither nonfiction nor alternate fandom, but original fiction.
The Yu-Gi-Oh! Awards: There was a huge demand for them a couple of years ago. People kept pestering us to put them in. But no one ever nominates fics for them. *shrug*
New people: Although we don't have that many new people coming, it's still nice to acknowledge them, methinks.
Most Rounded Member: Y'know, members who are round We mean best all-rounder.
Best Reader: I beg to differ; a prolific reader does not mecessarily make a good reader. But in this case it's just because we had a name change between the GPs and the SPs, so we've got a few duplicate awards lying around the place.

Oh, and Best Friendship/Rivalry does kinda suck, as we found out when we tried to nominate father-son and brother-sister relationships. Bring back Best Unromantic Relationship!

I suggest that we merge Best Description into Best Writing Style because it seems weird to single out one aspect of writing style.

[PancaKe]

There just seems like so many awards and so few fics these days. I mean, I know I haven't been as regular as I once was - but there only seems to be a very few amount of active fics

I demand we all write more! *shakes fist at everyone*

[Gavin Luper]

I suggest that we merge Best Description into Best Writing Style because it seems weird to single out one aspect of writing style.

Yeah, I see your point. We could just as easily have Best Dialogue (in fact, did we, once?) or something that is just one part of a bigger whole. I suppose Writing Style could act as a catch-all category.

At the same time, though, the two categories aren't synonymous, and they're celebrating different things. Best Description is simply singling out the piece of description that ficcers thought was the best, that had the most effective selection of details, adjectives, similes, etc.

Best Writing Style celebrates the whole aesthetic of a piece - the narrator's tone of voice, the dialogue, the choice of points of view, perspectives, the edits made, the very selection of words.

So they feel sort of distinct enough for me to be separate awards in their own right. A given author, or fic, might employ brilliant description, but the writing style overall might not be too crash hot. Conversely, someone might have a brilliant brand of writing that doesn't utilise much description at all...

I feel like keeping them separate. Maybe we even could trial Best Dialogue if there was support for it? Or Best Narrative Voice or something? It could be worth a go - or not, if we don't want 8000 categories. I'm just suggesting.

[classy_cat18]

Good idea! I demand you help lighten my load! *dumps homework on you*

[PancaKe]

Lol Shonta. Yes I plan to write more.

But there just seems to be an insane amount of awards for fics that aren't existant... Does that make sense? It's not like there are two pages of stories like there once was. Maybe one day in the future, yes. But not now.

[Gavin Luper]

With all the duplicate awards, I just decided to throw in everything from the last three award seasons and let the discussions flow on which categories are needed and which aren't.

So far, I agree with most of what's been said. Though I'd like to keep Best E-zine Article. It seems like a nice way to reward all the journos out there.

I'm definitely for bringing back Best Unromantic.

Tara: I feel the same way. I think the ratio of awards to fics is disproportionate. With some minor exceptions, the categories have more or less remained unchanged for years now. It might be time for us to really cull it down to what's necessary.

Also, I like your idea of having Best Fiction Overall (and maybe Best Writer) as the last awards announced (in effect). Makes it seem more awardsy. What does everyone else reckon?

[Lady Vulpix]

Can't we have a best original fiction award, please? I think there are enough fics that qualify.

Last time QoT was nominated for best nonfiction/alternate fandom (a category which it clearly didn't fit) because there wasn't one for original fiction.

[Gavin Luper]

That's a fair point, Gabi.

Tara's suggestion of combining Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! fics into a single "Best Fanfic" award could amend that problem. Then we wouldn't have the awkwardness of "Best Nonfiction/Alternate Fandom Fic", which is wordy, and we could replace it with, as you say, "Best Original Fiction", which sounds like a much nicer award to win.

[mistysakura]

Mm, I agree that description and writing style really aren't the same thing. However, to me, it makes the inclusion of Best Description even more perverse. I suppose Best Description doesn't necessarily mean Most Detailed Description, but to me the award seems to glorify detailed description. It's assuming that "good" description is always a good thing, when sometimes the best thing you can have is no description at all. Fanfic readers always say "You have to describe things! What does everything look like?", but I've come to realise that it's not always appropriate. Furthermore, it seems that when people think of writing style, they automatically think "description", diminishing the value of things like tone and narrative voice. So I think that if we're going to have Best Description, we also have Best Everything Else That Fits Under "Writing Style", like you said, or we don't have Best Description at all.

Excuse the rant, I don't think anyone else cares about this. Just some food for thought; in terms of actual awards planning, we can probably discard this opinion

[Shadow Wolf]

OK, so I only have one new nomination, but I need to know if there are many fics done, since if there are not much...then this category would be "worthless"

-Best Ending

[Lune the Guardian]

I actually agree with mistysakura, I know I for one am definitely guilty of sometimes including detailed descriptions at the wrong times. Detailed descriptions do not solve everything, sure they can be pretty or cool or whatever but sometimes they don't contribute to the story, or worse, they take away from the story. I think Best Description should be totally eliminated as a category, because Writing Style depends on a combination of things to make it work.

[PancaKe]

I think you really need to cull a whole heap of awards. There's what, maybe five to ten active fics? When the awards were big, and it was an honor to recieve more than one award - there were like thirty fics being nominated. I remember when there was a choice of 5 trainer fics to win best trainer. Goodness.

And so I think:

1. Cull a lot of awards.
2. I really like the suggestion of best ending. But - I get the feeling it'll be a contest between three fics to see who wins the most awards. You know?

[mr_pikachu]

But - I get the feeling it'll be a contest between three fics to see who wins the most awards. You know?

I think you'd be surprised, actually. Take a quick look through some of the past awards. Considering that Gavin's still the only ficcer to ever win the Awards Award twice... it's always an intense competition.

[PancaKe]

I just mean by that, there isn't that much competiton or that many fics competing this year, thus more fics winning more awards. I wasn't talking about the awards awards.

[Gavin Luper]

I think you'd be surprised, actually. Take a quick look through some of the past awards. Considering that Gavin's still the only ficcer to ever win the Awards Award twice... it's always an intense competition.

How did you know that and yet I didn't? Gnarly.

With regards to the Best Ending category, that came up in the discussions for the last Silver Pencils, I think, along with Best Intro. We kept Best Intro because ALL fics are eligible for it, but there are very few completed fics around the place, so it seems like it will be highly ineffectual as an award. I like the idea of it, mind, and it would theoretically make sense to complement Best Intro, but the reality is that in the last 12 months there's been just one completed fiction moved to the Archive - that's really not grounds for a category. If anyone can put forward a decent argument to include Best Ending, I'd of course consider it, but as it stands I think it'd be a waste of time.

RE: "Best Description", even if description doesn't necessarily equate to "good", I don't think that makes the category any less valid. The award would still be given to the piece of the description that was indeed effective and well-executed. There's no reason that award couldn't go to the LEAST detailed description, as long as it was effective and exemplary.

I do agree that a vast overhaul of the awards might be in order, though, and if we do have to cull a lot of awards, this might well be one of them, if popular opinion is anything to go by. But I still think it's a valid award in it's own right, whether we merge it with something else or not.

[Goodnight Seadra]

Yeah, I would also say to get rid a lot of the awards as it seems this reason there's not too many active ones this time around. Also, sorry if some of the suggestions I say are repeating what the others say. It's been a while since I came back here (due to suddenly being sick and busy) and I was skimming as I actually need to take care a couple of things...^^;

Best Dark Fic
Best Trainer Fic
Best Fantasy Fic
Best Comedy Fic
Best Action

Probably take out those genre catagories. Seems there's not too many fics that are, say, are Trainer or Fantasy Fics. Then again, hadn't been active too much here, so I might be wrong. ^^;

Best Single Location
Best Overall Setting
Aren't Setting and Location the same thing? Perphaps just Best Overall Setting?

Best Description
Gavin, I agree this award can be dealt with how effective the description is, but I think this should be rid of too. Best Writing Style can also go under how effective the description is used.

Best Moment*
I too think maybe Best Moment should be rid off since we have the other Moment awards.

Best New Pokemon
Best Created Card
Most Original Deck
Perphaps get rid of those as there seems not too many fics with New Pokemon and also not many Yu-gi-oh fics with created cards.

Best Friendship*
Best Rivalry*
Most Disturbing Character*
Perphaps get rid of those as Best Friendship and Best Rivalry can go under Best Romantic/Unromantic Relationship catergories (that and also perphaps Unromantic can go on an array of subjects like father/son, sister/brother, friends, etc. ). Also, Most Disturbing Character can go under Most Original Character.

Best Reader*
That can be rid off since it might go under Most Dedicated Reader, basically.

[classy_cat18]

Okay, this is my opinion on what the list should be:

General Fic Awards

Best Fiction Overall
Best Pokemon Fic
Best Nonfiction/Alternate Fandom Fic (everything that isn't Pokemon)
Best Action (in general, doesn't have to be an action genre)
Best Comedy (in general, doesn't have to be a comedy genre)
Best Writing Style (Description and Character Development can fit under here)
Best Plot
Best Short Story/Poem
Best New Fic (depends on the number of new fics that were introduced)
Best Setting (overall or specific)
Best E-zine Article (since we have one every month)

Fic Moments

Best Plot Twist
Best Battle Scene
Best Moment (Best Introduction can fit here)
Best Depicted Death
Best Chapter
Best Quote

Characters

Best Character in a Leading Role (Funniest and Most Original can fit in here as well as Supporting)
Best Character in a Supporting Role
Best Villain
Best Romantic Relationship
Best Un-Romantic Relationship
Best Cast

Member Awards

Best New Writer
Most Dedicated Writer
Best Writer
Best Reader/Reviewer
Best Newcomer to the Boards
Most Rounded Member

I guess we got such a long awards list because at one time we had a lot of activity. More awards gave people a better chance to win an award. It was cool how the previous Silver Pencils and Golden Pens were spread more widely. We could bring back the long list the next time.

[mr_pikachu]

Just to clarify, the real reason we had such a long list was because Gavin was dedicated enough to collect all the recent Golden Pens and Silver Pencils into his post. The whole idea was that we'd narrow it down to the best awards. Many of the ones Gavin gave have never been part of the GPs in the first place, and others were categories with which we experimented... and decided to remove in later Fanfic Awards. So don't get the false impression that the categories listed were feasible in the past but not anymore.


Gavin: Evidently you never read your Fanfiction Hall of Fame entry. Heh.

[Gavin Luper]

The suggestions topic is now closed, guys. Thanks for all your input. Please wait while we put together the Nominations Thread.

Cheers!