Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related What are the all-time LnC classics?

I agree that some writers won't be offended. But what I had said was "discouraged". Lists of favourites can have that effect, formal or informal.

c.

Really? I have to admit I'm surprised to hear this. I wouldn't have considered my stories to be so very different from the hundreds of others on the Archive! Well, all I can say is I don't consciously attempt to use a different vocabulary! <g> When writing I pretty much use the vocabulary I use in everyday speech and I've never thought that it was particularly out there. Perhaps it's all those years working for solicitors. I do tend to use words like timeously and think it's normal, thanks to them.

I'd tend to agree with this. I think if you stick to the Kerth lists you miss out on a heck of a lot of terrific fanfic. As I said in another thread, we're victims of our own success at times in this fandom and each year dozens of truly wonderful stories don't even reach the nominations stage simply because of sheer pressure of numbers, rather than any lack of merit. So I think it does us good to look beyond the Kerths now and then.

LabRat

Totally agree with that sentiment, Lab.

However, the greater proportion of the stories cited on these lists *are* Kerth winners while most of the remaining stories are K nominees. So, I'm not sure these lists do succeed in looking beyond the Kerths to any great degree.

c.

It was meant as a compliment though
(though I wouldn't really know whether I'd feel praised if somebody told me "I'd like to read what you write but I hardly understand anything." But I hope you get my point )
I just wanted to say that your choice of words is very impressive (at least for me who has a hard time to keep a conversation in english alive without stammering) but that I try to read your great work
Well, at least, I managed to finish Epiphany and If tomorrow comes and I loved them

Best,
Jana

Oh, yes - I wasn't at all offended by your comment, Jana. I just kind of blinked in surprise when I read it, because that the vocabulary I was using in my stories was any different from any other story out there just wasn't something that had ever occured to me before.

So, yes, thank you for the sweet compliment. And for persevering with those stories!

Well, this is just one list, Carol. Out of many. I don't think you can generalise about them to any great degree. And this list is kind of skewed towards Kerth nominees/winners because it's specifically looking for 'the classics'. Rather than just good fanfic in general. That tends to gravitate towards the Kerths. Other lists might be more generalised.

Although, there are many classics which never made it to the Kerths, of course. I could probably list a few if my memory wasn't shot to pieces these days...

LabRat (wishing she hadn't lost her personal favourites list...)

Or not

I guess the only way to find out if the lists in this particular thread are atypical of the pattern here is to go back and check.

But since I'm very lazy.....

Lazy? Carol, I should hope you've got better things to do than dig up old threads and do a statistical analysis of their "fairness" quotient or proportion of Kerth noms.

When you're talking about great fanfic, you're going to include a lot of Kerth nominees. The point here is that a list like this isn't limited to Kerth nominees -- as opposed to your suggestion of going to the Kerths page on the archive.

Now, if someone wanted to do a thread about great stories that somehow never got a Kerth nom... that might be very interesting

PJ

p.s., to get back on topic -- I've been reading Dandello's Plane Storm in the fanfic section, and it's really quite fascinating.

Lol, Pam. But seriously, I think you've misunderstood what I was getting at with the comment about the stats - my post was limited to a generalization that had been made about proportion of Kerth stories, nothing more than that. What I was suggesting is that it's diificult to assess the validity of a generalization without the supporting evidence. (That sounds so dry!)

As for having better things to do, well I didn't want to say that in such a crude way. So I opted for "lazy", (not to mention not really motivated to do such a thing.)

But truth be told, I'm in avoidance mode - supposed to be vacuuming, and, well, obviously, I'm not. Of course, that may not be a better thing to do

Sorry for not explaining my point more fully.
c.

Disclaimer: The below statement is not made to offend or start argument. I love you all and think you are great. *cough* Continue...

I'm always amazed that these turn into debates about them being Kerth Nominees. Honestly, I don't think us new people really care if they are or not, we are just looking for something good to read and looking for a short list of essentials to start with. I chose the "read it all" approach but some people just don't have the time for that.

And... I will never knock a story (because even if I didn't like them most are very well written) but I will be honest and tell you a Kerth Award does not mean "Great" story for me. Cause I have found a few that have an award and a nomination that I didn't really care for. It's human nature, we aren't all going to like the same things. If we did we would be robots.

So lists like these make me double check to see if I have read a story, or if I skipped over it and need to give it a second chance. After getting a few I didn't care for, I started ignoring those little nominee and Kerth award symbols when picking what I read. Cause I don't know about you but have you actually paid attention how many of these stories actually have one of those beside it? ALOT...

So let's not debate on whether Kerth's should be named or not. I would like to see anything anyone thinks it worth a read, because there are those of us who are just here to read some great stories and since the archive holds such a sheer number of them, give us newbies somewhere to start please.

We mean no harm with our lists we just have busy lives and haven't been following the stories in the archive for years and had plenty of time to take them in slowly, they were thrown in our face in one chunk... and oh how we have loved every minute of it. I for one did a little "fanfic jig" at my desk when I found the goldmind that was the archive. So, let us make a few lists and don't get offended if you aren't mentioned. Hell, if you aren't mentioned and you think your story was pretty dang awesome, tell us about it and toot your own horn. Cause, I'll go read it if you do. =P


*whispers Irene Dutch's Second Generation stories are my most favorite of that genre ever. Go read them. Start with Firestorm. Am I the only one who kept hoping Lois and Clark would have another kid so she would write another story?*

^
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See I did a recommendation, so I wasn't to far off topic. Okay I was... Just don't beat me with a cane...

Yes, ironically enough, that was kind of the point I was making in my previous post. Hence the statement:



Glad we seem to be in agreement, Carol, that generalisations are generally a bad idea.

Actually, that's a darn well thought out post, Jojo. Which makes some valid points. Can't imagine why it would cause offence or argument.

LabRat

As another newbie, I absolutely second this. (As an aside, I wonder how long someone is considered new. Six months? A year?) All round this fandom produces good stuff, but due to sheer numbers I can't read them all anytime soon so a threads like these are helful.

Back on topic... I recently read LabRat's beautiful Shape of my Heart and highly recommend it. Others highly regarded: anything by CC Aiken, the Home series by Nan, the Future series by Tank, Duet by Shayne.

That's a relief. But sooner or later there had to be something we could agree on.

Would anyone actually have enough confidence to do that if they hadn't been mentioned?

c,

New is as new feels, Lisa I've been in the FoLCdom since early 2003, and I still feel like a newbie sometimes.

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

Oh, I totally hear you. :p I've probably been keeping up with the fandom in some fashion since 2000 or 2001, but I didn't do any de-lurking til '02, so I still feel new sometimes. <g>

JD

I've been around since 1990-something and, while I probably don't feel new any longer, neither do I feel like an oldie. It was something of a surprise - not to say rather flattering - to discover I'd been recommended in the 'old classics' thread.

Yvonne

I think newbie is a state of mind, rather than a time period. You're a newbie when you're still feeling your way, trying to suss out the rules, find your place.

Once you feel comfortable somewhere...that's when being a newbie ends.

LabRat

Darn, and here I was hoping to be a newbie for at least the first year I was active in a fandom.

I think that, if you've been in different fandoms before, you pretty much get the whole form of things, how they go and everything. The first fandom takes the longest to get comfortable with, and then if/when you go to other fandoms, it's pretty easy to translate it over, and if you go by LabRat's definition of a newbie, then your time as a newbie in subsequent fandoms is shorter every time.

Or at least that's been my experience. There are just certain things that happen in almost all fandoms (or at least the 3-4 I've actively participated in) . . . like message board etiquette (although this fandom is MUCH more up on that), rules for posting/reading Nfic, abbreviations for different parts/episodes of a series--the most popular of which are known by almost all members, etc.

Most of the "being a newbie" part in any fandom after the first is just being up on the "canon," and learning the fandom-specific aspects, like which episodes are the most-abbreviated, and which fanfic authors are the most lauded/respected, what activities or meet-up opportunities there are within the fandom and such.

And then there's me -- I've been in this fandom for eleven years now, and discussions like this tend to make me feel older than dirt But in the nicest possible way!

But seriously, I think DS has nailed it -- your accumulated "fandom" experience makes every transition easier. I barely even remember feeling like a newbie in FOLCdom -- but I was in a format I already knew. <older than dirt>On CompuServe, they had a Sci-Fi Media forum, which had about 10 or 12 sections, each with their own show, chat room, and file library</older than dirt> I'd been very engaged in several of the sections already, so when I got hooked on L&C I had only a very small jump to make.

Now, I do remember *years* of feeling like a newbie on IRC All those commands and strange ways to talk... but that comfort level comes with time and practice. And FOLCs have always been very patient and helpful, in my experience.

PJ

Ok just to make some thread-related comments, pretty much anything by Tracey I'll read over and over again. And I find several of ML Thompson's to be epic staples.


But completely on the fandom tangent, you know what's weird? It's like, a rash of people wrote before me, and now another rash of people are writing after me. And I joined somewhere in the foggy middle right after the Archive was reformatted, sort of during the great message board split... And thse days, I'm kind of hanging around in this retarded jigsaw puzzle wondering if I have anything left to write about, wondering if I should sit back and see what several new authors are doing...and in general wondering if it's time to start lurking again.

JD

I love so much The Late Great Lois Lane of CC Aiken!!!So touching and strong!
And Momentum 1 and 2 of Kathy Brown! I enjoyed for every line!!!!! Wonderful, romantic and funny!!!! The best
And the season 5 and 6!!! Great episodes!