Stargate Fan Awards update, and thanks

[fignewton]

So the Stargate Fan Awards have moved into the next phase: informing nominees so they can place their stories in the appropriate categories. They've given a two week period for this. Hopefully, the Awards will go live on April 1st with all the nominations and move into the voting phase soon after that.

And, well... ::scuffs toe:: I wish to thank the lovely people who have chosen to express their enjoyment of my fics by nominating five stories: SG-1, Ninja Style, In Search of Possibilities, All This Time, Team's Day Out, and Famed in Song and Story.

And in even more exciting news, redial_the_gate has also been nominated! I've said over and over again that Redial represents fandom at its shining best. Keep redialing the Gate, guys! (And hey, the recap of 2010 goes up today!)

A couple of questions for my knowledgeable flisters:

First, I archive my stories in three different places: here on my LJ, at Heliopolis, and at Stargatefan. It's interesting to see where people read my fic, based on which links were given for the nominated stories! :) But since I have the option to change the story links, here's my question: where do you prefer to read stories? On LJ? At an archive? The question becomes more complicated for longer stories that don't fit in a single LJ post. All This Time, for example, is posted as two entries here on LJ because I couldn't fit it into a single post, but it's on only one page at the archive sites. But In Search of Possibilities is divided in chapters, so you'd have to click to multiple pages in either case. So which links should I use? All on LJ? All at an archive? A combination of the two?

I also need a little help in categorizing All This Time. Nominees are asked to categorize their stories according to fandom (SG-1 or SGA), then genre (gen or otherwise), then character/team, then story type (ep related, humor, drama, whatever). Now, some of these are easy (Famed in Song and Story, I'm looking at you), but All This Time is very difficult to put in place.

I see ATT as a Sam character story: her first mission as SG-1 leader, and how she copes with crisis. If I had to give a line from the fic as a summary, it would be this: She didn't know if she would ever command SG-1 as well as Jack O'Neill, but she promised herself that she could come close - and maybe, if she worked hard enough, she could keep Daniel's deaths down to an absolute minimum along the way.

On the other hand, it's also a team fic. And, to be frank, I strongly suspect the story's popularity on Stargatefan is due to the copious Daniel-whumping. :D

So if you had to categorize All This Time, where would you put it? As a Sam fic? As a team fic? Even as a Daniel fic? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

Personally, I almost always prefer to read on an archive unless it fits in a single LJ entry. I gave up on Heliopolis a long time ago (lots of reasons), but love Stargatefan. :-) Remember, too, you can use two urls for each nomination, which helps if a particular site is having a problem at the time voting goes live (we had one major archive go down just as voting was starting a year or two ago - they got it back up again, but it was one of those 'nobody's fault' things).

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Yes, the two URLs are very useful, but it's not as if I can label them, "This one is on LJ, and this one is on Stargatefan, so choose your preference."

...Can I? ;)

Thing is, though, that ISoP is four chapters on Stargatefan, and three posts on LJ, so... so I don't know what. :)

[cleothemuse.livejournal.com]

Oooh, definitely with tejas here: archives are much better than LJs, and as a Stargatefan admin, I'm always happy to point people that way.

As far as where to place it? Well, eyeball your other nominations, decide where those could be placed, then try to put each one in a different sub-category. It's always better if you're not competing against yourself :)

[sg-wonderland.livejournal.com]

Definitely what Cleo said, don't compete against yourself if you don't have to.
Congratulations on the noms! It looks like there's some great works in this year's award. And a big yay for redial the gate, it's one of my favorite sites.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Heh, good point on not competing with yourself. But it doesn't compete with anything, really. The other teamy fics are in humor, and this one is anything but! (But I should go make sure those two aren't in competition with one another...)

[lokei.livejournal.com]

Yay you! Fabulous stories all.

I don't tend to read stories on archive sites unless they've been recc'd. In general, I find them huge and overwhelming and occasionally hard to navigate unless you know EXACTLY what you're looking for. So I do most of my reading on LJ, and I like the fact that you can comment right there, and also see others' comments: it's nice to feel like you're part of a dialogue, and also see what other insights readers have had to the story.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

I feel as you do: I really do prefer reading on LJ, to be, as you put it, part of the dialogue. If I have a fic rec for a story archived somewhere, I will actually try and hunt for the story on LJ, because I know the author is much more likely to get feedback in I link to it there.

On the other hand - archived fics are neater. In the case of All This Time, I do think it might be the best choice, because it's on a single page rather than divided into two posts. So I'm mostly conflicted right now. :)

[dicranum.livejournal.com]

O_O!!! I've never seen Stargatefan before. OMG. A whole new archive for my reading pleasure!

I'd like to help suggest a place for your fic, but I haven't gotten that far yet. Though I do like reading on archives that allow the story to be kept together.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Wow! You've got a lot of reading ahead of you, then!

You'll note that Stargatefan is divided into classic fic and new fic. "Classic" is oldtime fics - the archive wasn't taking any new stories for a period of at least two years, I think. "New" fic is all the stories that were uploaded after Stargatefan switched over to the efiction self-upload.

Take a look at the classic fic, if you can - there are some real gems in there! And the "by episode" pages are especially useful.

[nomadicwriter]

Stargatefan is the easiest for me to access on dialup. I hate reading multi-part fic on LJ, and Heliopolis is a bit slower to load.

I got a nom for Fractures, which I was really pleased with because I didn't think that story got very wide exposure, but alas, it seems I am banned from participating because I'm a published author. Bummer. :(

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Oh, Fractures was awesome!

(no icon noms?)

Wait, wait - you're published in the sci-fi genre?! Where? :)

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on your nomination! That published author rule is new this year (and I think totally bites, but that's just mho on the subject. I'm not involved in the awards except for as a fan/nominator/nominee).

But the honor is in being nominated anyway. So, go you!

[maranya14.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the nominations! I have to rush off and re-read these...

Of course, being new to reading in this fandom, I don't know much about these awards, but my suggestion for what it's worth: All This Time should be in the 'Sam' category.

cheers,
Maya

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

You should spend some time browsing through the Awards' archives. You may not agree with every award given to every story, but at the very least, it's a great starting point for what others consider to be good stories. Think of it as a collective rec list of sorts. :)

And thanks for your advice re ATT.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Yay you! All good stories!

I too prefer to read stories at archives if they take more than one LJ entry. The only advantage I see in reading them on LJ is how easy it is to leave feedback directly.

I would call "All This Time" a Sam story, with Gen Duet Sam/Daniel as a second choice. (You can see I've been wrestling with categories recently!)

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

::nods:: I do agree with the archives being better if it means a single post, but that's not always the case - ISoP is four chapters on the archive, and three entries on LJ. Just to be confusing. :)

Duet Sam/Daniel? Huh. Interesting. I think I need a "duet" Sam/Daniel/Teal'c, actually. :)

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

And apparently I'm the only person who preferentially reads on LJ (or an author's website). Huh....

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Well, no, you're not - I prefer it that way, too. :) But this is more about other people's preferences, not mine.

Still, I'm glad to see a vote in my direction!

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

1. Congratulations!

2. Thanks for the Stargatefan link. I'm looking forward to looking into that further.

3. I have no constructive advice to offer.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

It fascinates me that there are two people here that didn't know Stargatefan existed, because it was the place where I first found fanfic when I got addicted to SG-1!

Then again, there was that years-long hiatus, when it wasn't being updated - that might have something to do with it.

Thanks for the congratulations, in any case. :)

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

I prefer reading on LJ, too, but Stargate fan is just as good.
I think of it as a team story, but it can be anything you want it to be (within reason, of course ;).

And congrats!

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Aw, within reason - you're no fun! ;)

And thank you. :)

(Another vote for LJ, yay!)

[samantilles.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the noms! (though honestly I'd be a bit surprised if you hadn't been, I don't think there's been I story I've read of yours I haven't liked, let alone made my personal canon...)

As for archiving, I admit I'm a bit partial to LJ myself, if for no other reason than I can see when I have left a comment or a review. Especially when doing alphabet soups or ficathons, its a great way for me to keep track of what I've read and what I haven't, and comments are love.

ATT is definitely a difficult one to categorize, but I agree with aelfgyfu_mead that as its mostly from the POV of Sam that it should be classified as Sam first.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Awww... ::blushes:: Thank you very much. :)

Like you, I prefer LJ. But I can see the point of others who prefer archived posts. Happily, green_grrl offered the perfect solution below, so yay!

I do want to classify it as Sam, I think. We'll see.

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

I like reading on LJ for commenting purposes, and to "get to know the author" if I really like someone's writing. But I do like reading in one piece when that's available. Why not list the LJ addresses in the Awards, and edit in a line at the top of the LJ posts that says, "To read this story in one piece, click here ()." Or, "Available in one piece on Archive1 () or in four chapters on Archive2 ()."

And, congratulations!

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! ::squishes you:: That is the perfect solution all round. :)

[lilyleia78]

See, I'm opposite. I prefer LJ, because I feel more comfortable leaving feedback on a post as opposed to on an archive. I like the interactive nature of it.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm with you there! And green_grrl offered the perfect solution: link to the LJ versions, but add a link on my LJ page to the archived versions. That way everyone is happy. I hope. :)

[scifithinker.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the nominations!

While I personally like LJ, I doubt fandom as a whole would agree with me. I do think the multiple links on your LJ posts is a great idea. I would suggest you actually put in your text which archive you're sending people to so they can pick where they're most comfortable.

I'm think I've read all the stories, but I'm off to double check. Well-written fic on a weekend is a very good thing. I'll probably reread stuff.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Oh, your icon is so cute! ::matches it with own Sam and Jack icon::

Yes, I've specified that the links go to Stargatefan, but it's a good suggestion. Thanks!

And thanks, too, for your lovely words on my fic - hope you enjoy the rereads. :)

[acarlgeek.livejournal.com]

I strongly prefer the Archives, especially for a "voting" situation where my primary goal is to read the story, and form my OWN opinion on it, not wade through other people's opinions on the story.

One of my biggest problems with LJ is that all the links and comments can take forever to load, especially if you're on an older computer that can't upgrade to the latest and greatest version of Firefox or Explorer or whatever, a dial-up connection (or moody wireless), or are accessing the internet through an anal-retentive security system that insists on vetting every link on a page before it allows it to load enough for you to be able to navigate the page. I am also old school enough that I usually find it easier to navigate an Archive for story categories I like than navigate LJ pages to find the same. StargateFan (and most other Archives these days) stores the reviews separately from the fic itself, so you have the option of checking the comments, or not, and you don't have to wait for them to load to read the fanfic itself.

So, I have to admit that the notion of being directed to an LJ page, from which I then would have to follow yet another link to get to an archive, is not one I think of as optimal for reading a nominated story. Also, today, LJ wouldn't let me access ANYTHING until I logged in (never done that before). Would non-LJ members be able to follow a link to an LJ post? In fact, it could technically prejudice me against a story (if it's too much work to get to it, or I encounter a blocked site, I'll read something else first, and there have been years where I didn't get back to skipped fic before the voting closed). I know the Awards team really tries to make certain links are going to open sites, but there are too many nominations for them to check them all.

Whatever you choose, LJ or Archive, it's going to be a problem for someone. :-)

[acarlgeek.livejournal.com]

See, NOW LJ shows me your final comments, which hadn't loaded before, so I see my post was moot because you already made your decision (the "right" one, IMO, :-),). [sigh]