Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related 25th Annual Kerth Awards 2023: Let’s Discuss Categories!

Hey, FoLCs!

As we prepare to kickoff the 25th Anniversary Kerth Awards 2023, we wanted to talk categories with you all!

Now, categories have always grown and changed over the years depending on how many and what types of stories are written. As has happened throughout the years, the committee likes to have input from the fandom as a whole as to what categories should be included and what matters most to the fandom. We'll take your input and ideas into consideration and review the eligible stories to see if the categories are viable and make sense to include.

Over the years, we've had not only the Kerth Awards, but also the nKerths and the altKerths because our fandom is full of awesome and creative people. With this, the 25th anniversary of the first-ever Kerth Awards, we wanted to expand the Kerth Awards a bit to make it an award that's more inclusive of all fandom members, not just the fanfic authors. For that, we need your help and ideas and input!

Starting this year, all nfic stories will be included in regular eligibility. And for your consideration, we'd like to add a "Best Nfic" category to the Kerth Awards—just as we had in the very first Kerth Awards!

What other categories are we looking at? Well, we'll definitely have the traditional size categories (Best Super Short, Best Short, Best Mid-Length, Best Long), which the committee will consolidate/adjust based on story count and viability.

In addition to those size categories, we present to you some possibilities selected from all the categories that have existed throughout the years as well as some brand-new categories that bring in a bit of the altKerth celebration aspect of things.

These are all just possibilities at the moment! The Kerth Committee will make a final decision on what this year's categories will be based on the number and types of eligible stories and fanart, etc. For now, we ask that you comment here to discuss and let us know your opinion!

So what do you think? What's your favorite? Is there something we're missing or something new we haven't thought of yet? We're so excited to hear your thoughts!

Thanks!
Sara, Darth Michael, AnnieM, and lovetvfan



POTENTIAL 2023 Kerth Categories

Best Comedy
Best Dramatic Story
Best Waffy Story
Best Revelation
Best Episode Adaptation (rewrite/fix-it/in-betweenie)
Best Elseworlds/AU Story
Best First Kiss
Best Holiday Story
Best Original Character/Supporting Character
Best Challenge Response
Best Nfic
Best Overall

New Categories
Best Fanart (any media—e.g., graphics, videos)
Best Commenter/Feedback Giver
Best Beta Reader
Best Enabler/Supporter
Lifetime Achievement Award

Kerth Announcement Post / Index

Ooh, I like the idea of best commenter! Might help incentivise more activity in the FDK threads.

I have to admit, this is the perspective category I'm most excited about potentially adding. As a writer, those comments mean the world to me. And as someone who is terrible about staying on top of reading and commenting, I know how much effort goes into them and that makes me appreciate them even more. I know how motivating they are for me and many others. Without comments -- especially thoughtful, enthusiastic comments -- there's little motivation to post. Those comments truly keep the fandom alive. I'm so excited about the idea of honoring the readers who keep us all engaged and excited.

As we consider categories and what they comprise, we should be looking for categories that are broad enough to encompass a large chunk of the eligible stories. That way being nominated is a true honor. (For example, if we only have five AU stories for the year and we have five nominees, that means every eligible story is nominated by default, and the honor of being nominated is lost.)

Part of the job of the committee will be checking exactly that. Making sure that category has enough eligible stories to make it viable and no story is nominated by default. Every nomination should be an honor.

But at this stage of the conversation, we would love to hear thoughts from all of you about how to craft these categories (what categories can be combined? What category had be broadened? etc) to create a list of categories that makes sense AND are competitive.

I have what is probably a stupid question but what is the difference between an Elseworlds and AU story?

All the potential and new categories are interesting. I particularly like the best waffy, first kiss, revelation, holiday and overall categories. If there are not enough fics, I can see combining best first kiss and revelations into one category. I also like the addition of the nfic category. It will be nice to honor the writers of those stories too.

I also want to apologize to all the writers in the community for not leaving feedback for the past few months. I truly appreciate you and thank you for all the joy your fics have brought to my life.

Not a stupid question at all! This is actually an excellent question because it's something unique to this fandom and probably a lot of people don't know this.

Because this show features an established, canon Alternate Universe, we use that term to refer to stories about the "Alt-Clark" (and his Lois) featured in the episodes Tempus Anyone and Lois and Clarks. All other stories about original universes created by the author (what would be called AUs in other fandoms) are Elseworlds.

Well, count me among the people who didn’t know this! So thanks for asking! Elseworlds was always kind of this nebulous definition in my head, but I didn’t worry too much about it since they were always listed together in my recent memory.

Thanks for the answer, Annie!

Thank you, Annie and Sara! That makes perfect sense.

The new categories soudn interesting, especially best NFic (because it needs an extra talent to write this type of story well) and and best comentee (I mean, some of the people here realy put a lot of effort into this and every author knows how encouraging that is so they deserve their own award). As for other categories, it might make sense to merge best AU and best Elseworld, indeed, but I see that's already done here. I always apreciate the best original character one too. I always foudn it a bit weird to have both a super short and short category but if there are many stories qualifying why not? Best comedy, waffy, drama, is always difficult but interesting. Likewise is Best Revelation (I love creative revelation stories so...yeah). Ah, I'll just be along for the ride and see what categories you'll come up with and then vote.

And I'll use this as opportunity to jump on the train of those who are aware that they should leave more feedback...I'll try to be better at this next year because the great authors here deserve it!

I'd like to see the categories from previous years included - things like short, medium, epic, best supporting character, best villain, best revelation, etc. AU and Elseworlds are fewer and further between so it makes sense to keep them together. Best challenge response is great because it recognizes that someone ran with a simple idea and makes it more appealing for people to answer challenges. Best Introspective is also fun because it's nice to peek into a character's head. Holiday stories are awesome if we have enough! Maybe something like "Best Before," "Best During," and "Best After" for stories that take place before the pilot, during the show run, and after the finale (possibly different than Next Gen stories.) Also, they would need better names but my brain is toast from work training all week.

I'm not sure I like bringing Nfic into the mix for 2 reasons - 1) They have their own committee (I couldn't even tell you who tbh) and 2) I feel like the Kerths should be family friendly, like the show (sure, things were implied, but nothing explicit).

Fan Art is interesting and would be nice to recognize. However, I don't think it's fair to put graphics against videos and I urge you to rethink lumping them together. I speak from experience when I say that the two are VASTLY different in the skillsets required. I used to make wallpapers on LivePix (dating myself here) for Lost (really dating myself now) when I was in college. I also took a video production class that required us to shoot and then edit (on analog machines...yeesh!) videos (including music videos and movie trailers). Video editing is MUCH more difficult than putting together a banner/wallpaper/college/icon. And MUCH more time consuming. It doesn't seem right to lump them together. Also, would they only be taken from this website or would the internet be scoured for more fanart? (The way stories on Ao3 or fanfic.net would be eligible for awards?)

I don't really understand what best enabler/supporter would look like and how it could be verified. I would think that would be more of an email/pm thing and personal to a particular writer. What would the guidelines be? What constitutes being a supporter? Is it just "Hey, you can totally write this?" or "I will sit and bounce ideas around with you so you can write this?"

Lifetime Achievement is interesting. What would the guidelines look like for this one? Oldest writer? Most fics written? (Would it matter if it was 100 short fics versus someone who wrote 50 epics?) Is it for someone who has always been around but never won a Kerth? (Kinda like when the Oscars recognize an actress for being nominated a boatload of times but never won anything?) Is it recognition for people who have won a boatload of Kerths?

The idea of a best feedback giver makes me uneasy because of the potential for people feeling left out. For some people, they have a ton of time to leave thoughtful, detailed feedback. For others, they might only have time for a few nice words before heading off to work, before the kids draw on the walls, etc. It kind of feels biased against people who don't have a lot of time on their hands after reading to write several paragraphs worth of feedback. Also, would it matter if the feedback was on an eligible story versus left on a 15 year old story? What about feedback that is directly emailed or PMed to the writer? How would the rest of us be able to judge that?

So many good questions/points being made here! I'm so glad we are discussing this publicly so we can get all this input!


Much like the show, nothing during the Kerths would be explicit. No one is required to read all the stories or vote in all the categories. Anyone who chooses not to read nfic can just skip reading/voting in that category, and everything during the ceremony will be family friendly. To clarify -- we are not considering adding explicit categories or explicit discussion about nfic stories. There is still room for the nKerth committee to hold their own awards at some point should they decide to do so. That ceremony would honor specific elements of nfic stories. This would simply be "Best Nfic" in the manner of "Best Relationship" or "Best Comedy". It's a popular genre in this fandom, and there has only been one ceremony to honor it in the last ten years, so it feels like a way to honor more members of the community.


This is an excellent point. In a perfect world, they would definitely be two separate categories. My personal hope is that by including a general category like this, we will encourage more submissions in the future, hopefully enough to split it into multiple categories. As for eligibility, we will not be scouring the internet for anything. Everything on this website and the archive/the nfic archive are automatically eligible. Anyone who wants to submit something from AO3, FFNet, an online repository for fan art, or a personal website would need to opt in.


Personally, I agree with this completely. I don't like this option because I worry it would feel like a popularity contest, which is the last thing I think any of us wants. The committee was just trying to open up discussion about different types of categories with this post, and tried to include a broad spectrum of awards to encourage public discourse and discussion. To be clear, none of the categories listed in this post are set in stone and we are actively recruiting suggestions for additional categories as well as feedback both positive and negative on these sample categories!


These are great questions for everyone, not just the committee! This is exactly the kind of discussion we want to have! If we create this category, what should it look like? How should we frame it?


Some people have tons of time to write stories, and others don't. Some people have college degrees in writing, and others speak English as a second language and are comfortable reading but not writing. Some people are professional graphic designers, others can barely crop and save screenshots. We all have different skills and abilities and talents and time commitments. Right now, the ONLY people in the fandom being honored by the Kerths are writers. Literally everyone else is being left out.

I think asking questions about what categories could comprise or how they would be judged is super valid. But I don't think we should shy away from including any new category because it only honors one type of contribution to the fandom. That is the whole point of having lots of different categories.

I would assume that for the purposes of voting in this category, it would be based on public feedback given on the board. The point of the award is to honor the members of this fandom who contribute by posting and encouraging writers and contributing to keeping the fandom alive and thriving. Those are all public activities. Private feedback is lovely and (speaking as a writer) always welcome. But for purposes of an award, I think the voters would be judging based on what they see.

I'm loving this whole conversation and glad to see people weighing in on this topic! Keep the posts coming!

I feel like there are always stories that people will skip by or don't read because they aren't their cup of tea but we don't exclude them for that reason alone. Whereas, Nfic has been left out or excluded for not being "family friendly". Many stories that contain NC17 scenes are full and realised stories and in many cases can be of epic length. For the most part there are many that are not just smut for smut's sake. I dislike having to water down anything I write simply to be included.

If someone doesn't want to read it or won't vote for it simply because it contains a consensual sex scene between two loving adults then I am fine with that. Just as I will skip stories at times because the concept doesn't appeal or it's a type of story I don't care for or a style I am not a fan of etc. Personal preference is fine but it shouldn't be a barrier to being eligible.

As for the graphic design category, I am of two minds on this one. We wanted to include it in order to get people making banners, vidding, doing fan art etc. It's hard to revive something if nobody is doing it.

I have made several fan videos in various fandoms over the last two years. It was something I have always wanted to learn and was inspired by as a teenager by this fandom and others. I know how much time it takes to make a fan video and the hours that go into it because I made several this year.

I also know there are people making incredible banners and fan art and that is something I CAN'T do and would love to see recognized. If I lost in that category to someone who made an incredible banner or piece of digital art I am not going to feel bitter because my fan video took more time to make. Instead, I'm going to hope that by simply being there more people will make fan videos and art next year giving us enough for two separate categories.

But yeah there won't be much this year and they are two different art forms and there would be a lot to decide as to how something is eligible and where to find it etc. So things to think about for sure!

Queen, Annie, Songbird, BlindPassenger, Deadly Chakram, and lovetvfan—thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and opinions to help keep the discussion going!!


We’ll absolutely be having the size/length categories, and since those are straightforward and a given, I left those out of the potential list. So, we’ll totally have them! The only question is really whether we need both super short AND short or just short, but given how Ficlet Friday has taken off, it might well mean we have both!


I totally agree with best supporting character because some people do some REALLY great work with those supporting characters and original characters too! And best revelation seems like a mainstay of L&C fanfic! I did enjoy those years we had best villain; we’ll gauge interest on that and have a look at the stories to see if there are enough to make the category work this year.

And yes! The challenges were so fun last year to read how everyone took the Kerth prompts and made them their own! And adding to that Queen’s generator prompt and Advent Challenge, I think it’s almost certain we’ll have enough to support this category this year! And the same *might* be true for holiday fics as well—we’ll have to see how many more pop up in the last few weeks here.

I’d love to hear more about what best introspective means—because I LOVE me some introspection! (Sometimes too much. ) I feel like a lot of stories seem to have this by default, so I’m unclear about what would make something a best introspective story. Maybe one that has particularly good insights from one of our main character? A story that’s mostly introspective? Tell me more!


Ooh, I was looking through historical categories the other day before posting this, and I remember there was “Best Early Years” but… then that usually implied Clark’s childhood and adolescence, so yeah… “Best Before” would could be Clark’s travels, etc. I do like the ideas of the Before/During/After—hopefully others can chime in on those too!


Oh, good call! I included some categories that were just fun brainstorming ideas that weren’t thought all the way through—clearly. Yeah, I agree this one is far too varied and subjective to be an award category.


I included this one for discussion because I saw it in the first year Kerths:


So my thought was more of honoring someone for their contribution to the fandom as a whole over time. Part of what we’re looking at is to expand the Kerth Awards to celebrate all the many aspects of fandom and the FoLCs that do so much to keep the fandom alive all these years—like how you and Val worked so hard to keep the Kerths alive for YEARS! And Annette, who has worked hard to keep the boards and other sites alive and updated to the best of her ability. And LaurenW, who created and maintains (and pays for!) the main archive all these years. And Dawn and and crew, who have been indexing stories and running the nKerths. And Labrat who was very active in boards administration and still is EIC of the archive. I like the idea of honoring some of these individuals. So this one—like the Oscars—isn’t so much about competition, but for celebrating contributions to fandom. I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this and how it might be discussed and decided!

I’m going to address feedback separately so it doesn’t get lost in this really long post. (OMG, I’m so long-winded! )

Thanks so much for the time spent giving us such detailed and thoughtful discussion points!

Sara

You bring up a good point about feedback, but this category isn’t so much about who has the longest and most detailed, thoughtful feedback—it’s not about the art and craft of the feedback itself. It’s about the intent and engagement. We do so much to celebrate the authors of this fandom because fanfic is really the lifeblood of FoLCdom, so it’s definitely deserved. But without readers and feedback, as we all know, the desire and reward in writing for authors decreases. ALL feedback is valuable, whether long or short or analytical or simple reactions.

For me personally, if someone just wants to comment on all my stories and ONLY say “Awww” or “Gahh! Loved it!”—literally just a few words, but they always take just that extra minute after reading to let me know? To me, that would be a contender for best commenter just as much as someone leaving insightful comments or really detailed feedback!!

So yeah, while it is a more subjective category than others, and not all feedback is public, it’s more about nominating and honoring those FoLCs who contribute to the fandom by way of feeding and encouraging the authors—can’t keep the lifeblood of the fandom alive without feedback! In the few years that I was involved in the altKerth committee, I remember this being one of the most popular categories and can’t recall any complaints of favoritism or anything. Again, it’s not that the feedback itself is getting judged and awarded a prize—it’s the FoLC and their efforts to engage in the backbone of our community!.

Sara

Hi Sara,

I have to start dinner in a few minutes, so I'll respond to this part: (It'll be so nice when my kids are old enough to fry chicken cutlets)

Your question about introspection pieces.

Introspective pieces have traditionally been stories told from the POV of a character, more of a look inside of their heads during a particular episode or moment or whatever. It's not really a story per se of "I did X thing, then Y thing happened, so I responded by during z thing." It's more like "X thing happened and here's how I feel about it," or "I want Y thing to happen so this is what I'm going to do."

To use examples of things I've written (simply because they pop into mind because I'm more familiar with them), a story like "Erased" is not introspective, even though Lois' thoughts about how bad Clark is when she finds him in Arkham are included. Something like "There's A Fine, Fine Line" WOULD be introspective because its Lois's thoughts and feelings about Clark dumping her "for her own good." It's not telling a traditional story. Which is fun because we can get overlap sometimes - a story where Perry is pondering why Lois doesn't see through Clark's disguise would be eligible for both introspection and supporting character. One which shows Lex's thoughts about pursuing Lois and how he's going to win her from Superman would count toward introspection, supporting character, and best villain.

The main difference is that the introspection is just thoughts rather than action.

Hey all,

Just chiming in to say I probably don't have much to say that others haven't already said

Among the potential categories, I would really love to see all of those listed, if there are enough stories. I agree with combining Elseworlds and AU. Among the proposed new categories, I definitely agree that it would be great to have Best Fanart, Best Commenter/Feedback Giver, and Lifetime Achievement Award. I do think it would be great to have Best BR and Best Enabler/Supporter, but I would also worry that those would be difficult to judge since many interactions are done privately, rather than say the public feedback given here on the boards.

Thank you to everyone who is involved and working hard to organize this! I hope I'll be able to help in some way when there is a call for volunteers

-Bek

Hi FoLCs!

I also want to chime in with a big Thanks! for all the discussion about the categories.

My own thoughts on the Lifetime award: While I don't have any insight in how e.g. the Oscars or other similar awards do the lifetime-thing, I guess it's more of a consensus-discussion than a vote per-se. It's also not a surprise during the ceremony (you're not nominated in a single year together with some other FoLCs and then one of you wins). So what Sara said about honoring FoLCs who dedicated a lot of time and effort to the community would be the ones eligible. And who to choose, that's tough. For instance, just doing this 10 years in a row and just working through the list of those most deserving it would work, though it might not be the most...I don't know, inspiring? Nah, that's not the right work. Maybe...creative? And simply picking those who are near retirement would also be strange and would hopefully *not* encourage retirement in other FoLCs . And what about those who spent 15, 20 years in the early years but drifted away later? For now, we have some truly long-term and special names listed by Sara who are still active, so that question doesn't present itself.

Anyhow, so as to not take Sara's crown for rambling on, a discussion about consensus, probably / perhaps in a committee that is larger than K-Com? Perhaps K-Com plus 2-3 other FoLCs who are well-rooted in the community and optimally a bit of exchange during the years. And not simply a majority vote?

Lastly, could it also be an author with an exceptional body of work? In theory, yes, though for our community it's a bit different than with other awards because we want to honor a FoLC and great authors already receive recognition via the Kerths. So, it's really for the committee to decide on the contribution they want to honor.

Michael

Hi FoLCs,

The nKerth Committee wanted to weigh in on this discussion.

We've actually been discussing having another nKerths since it's been awhile since our few. We had one in 2013 and one in 2018. The ceremonies were canceled because of lack of participation. The only reason there weren't more nKerth Awards is because of the lack of stories. Currently there are only 34 stories (written between 2019 to now) eligible for the upcoming nKerths but that can be addressed by reducing the number of categories. We currently plan on having an nKerth Awards after the upcoming Kerth Awards. 

Comments?

Thank!
Dawn & nKerth Committee

Just popping in quickly to thank Dawn and the nKerth Committee for weighing in!


That's a great idea! We are so excited that there are enough stories now to run the awards. In light of that information, we’ll take the nfic category out of the running for potential additions. That said, we are still wanting to allow ALL stories (gifc and nfic) to be eligible for Kerths. Given that the nKerths tend to have different categories (like Best First Time and Most Sensual, etc.), and that it’s still worthwhile to have all nfics compete amongst themselves for different awards, we don’t feel like the two awards will interfere at all with each other, especially if we don’t add the “Best Nfic” category.

Sara and the K-Com