The inaugural Indies were hosted during the Summer of 2009. They covered a broad spectrum of categories and the response was amazing. We established a process that helped us review and validate all nominated stories at the time of submission. This process will continue to be used and it will be refined for every cycle as we find additional ways of improving the awards.
All nominees and winners are posted publicly. We work with a team of judges on every cycle that once nominations close validate stories for content and rule compliance. Two rounds of voting are used to net down from all the nominated stories to a final list of winners, both by popular vote and Judges Recognition.
In addition to our regular Indies cycle we are held our 1st Writer's Contest in Fall of 2009. The Indies First Time Writer's contest was open to anyone who had not posted a fic but had always wanted to.
You can view details of past Award cycles & Contests on our
Archive section.
For specific Rules and Schedule of our Active Awards, please see below.
Thank you for supporting us and for supporting all the Indies writers out there!
Romeo and Juliet. Catherine and Heathcliff. Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Edward
and Bella.
Okay, we may be stretching...but it was fun.
Love translates through many different ways: humor, anguish, or hope to name a few
The love of a parent, the love of a significant other, the love in the back of a
car. So many ways to label it and so many great stories that tell the tale.
New to the 2010 Winter Indies is the "Love Conquers All" One Shot and Novella category.
Focused on exactly that, love overcoming great odds, this category will encompass
those completed stories in single chapter or short story (less than 50,000 words)
that deal with the concept of great love conquering all that gets in its path. Canon,
AU, AH, all takers are welcome so long as they are well written and concept of love
overcoming great odds.
To be eligible in the one shot or novella category:
- A one shot must be between 2,500 and 20,000 words, and have less than 45 reviews
- A novella must be completed (no works in progress), be less than 50,000 words, and
have less than 500 reviews OR on average less than 30 reviews per chapter.
In addition to the one shot and novella categories, we've introduced a series of
new categories for multi-chaptered stories. As a reminder, these are Works in Progress
(WIP) with less than 30 reviews per chapter OR completed stories with less than
1,000 reviews.
Multi-Chapter (Work in Progress and Complete Story) Categories
- Best New Moon Story: This may be pure canon or AU, and must start off from some point during New Moon (for example Edward leaving, Jake saving Bella from drowning, etc). This may be a work in progress or a completed story.
- Best Secondary Characterization: Stories with strong representations of secondary characters that are not one of the Cullens, Bella, OR Jake. Examples of this include the Volturi, the wolf pack or Quileute tribe members, High School friends, or Nomads. In your nomination, please site one specific chapter where you feel the characterization is overly strong for speed of reference
- Best Action or Drama Story: Inclusive of drama, action, adventure, horror, this category covers those Canon, AU, and AH stories that can't be classified as love stories.
- Best Love Triangle: In keeping with the triangle that came to a head in New Moon , this category is for the best WIP or Complete story with a believable, compelling love triangle. This category can include canon and non canon pairings.
- Best Use of a Parent: Any AU, Canon or AH story with excellent use of Charlie, Renee, Billy, Carlisle, Esme or Sue in a parental role.
- WIP Canon or AU story that knocks you off your feet: Well written, thought provoking, unable to put it down, this is the one story that you can't get enough of, and want everyone to know about.
- Complete Canon or AU story that knocks you off your feet: Well written, thought provoking, unable to put it down, this is the one story that you can't get enough of, and want everyone to know about.
- WIP AH story that knocks you off your feet: Well written, thought provoking, unable to put it down, this is the one story that you can't get enough of, and want everyone to know about.
- Complete AH story that knocks you off your feet: Well written, thought provoking, unable to put it down, this is the one story that you can't get enough of, and want everyone to know about.
In addition to the above categories Special Judges awards will be given to Fics of Exemplary Note: Judges will award three awards for pieces of work that are truly unique and innovative, representing what they feel are the best in Twilight Fan Fiction.
Process to nominate:
- Open nominations via this website for ten (10) days.
- Upon close of nominations, stories with more than 1 nomination in each category will be validated for review count general adherence of content rules.
Validation Criteria:
At the time of submission, review count for all nominations will be verified against the guidelines and locked in our records. For stories that appear on multiple sites the highest review count will be the used for eligibility purposes. For example, a Completed story with 200 reviews in Twilighted but 1500 on fanfiction.net will not be eligible, the 1500 will be the count used for validation purposes.
For Collaboration stories, the highest review count will be the used for eligibility purposes. If both authors have posted the story, we will use the highest of the counts.
As stories move through the review process, they will be validated according to the following criteria:
- Spelling/Grammar/Punctuation: A story will be ineligible if there are significant mistakes in spelling, punctuation, verb tenses, etc.
- Shipping: All ships are acceptable, including slash and polyamorous pairings. All sexual content must be tastefully done and well written, but content of a pedophilic or incestual nature are NOT acceptable. Any story found to violate this criteria will be ineligible for The Indies.
Why two different review criteria and why different criteria for WIP vs completed?
There are a few answers. To explain, we'd like to take you through the process used to create the criteria.
Using FanFiction.com, we looked at roughly 100 stories that were either complete or WIP, analyzing the review trends. What we found was the following:
- There is a threshold at approximately 28 reviews per chapter for a work in progress. Once a fic starts to clear that number, it seems to pick up momentum, pulling reviews in along with it
- There is a 'magic' number of 1,000; when a fic hits the 1k mark, it seems to pick up additional momentum due to the credibility that 1,000 reviews brings
- A number of completed works averaged below 30 reviews per chapter for the duration, then upon completion went above the 30 average due to people reading and reviewing only the last chapter. As an example, a fic that was completed in December might have averaged 28 reviews for the first 20 chapters, and then received 100 reviews on the last chapter, effectively putting it out of contention. By creating the 1,000 review band for completed works, we have guaranteed that fics are not penalized due to the pattern of reviewing the last chapter of a fic and skewing the average
There may be situations where a story does not fit either criteria (e.g. a completed work with 65 chapters and 1300 reviews, which works out to 20 reviews per chapter). Those will be reviewed at judges discretion for inclusion in the process.
Process to vote:
Once nominations have been reviewed and validated we will have ten (10) days of voting for top five stories in each category.
All nominated/validated stories will be listed on this site, along with the link to their story. Our goal is to promote awareness of as many stories and authors as possible!
Please note that Staff members (validation readers, judges, organizers, etc) are not eligible to win The Indies.
Stories may be screened by judges, and excluded at their discretion due to quality of written content inclusive of poor grammar and/or material the judges deem as inappropriate.
The Indies were designed to create awareness of under-recognized works of Twilight fan fiction. We view the actual voting process as secondary to the nomination effort. Our goal is to create a diverse list of stories that deserved promotion and recognition.
Rule Changes Specific to Winter 2010 Indies:
- If author has another story with over 60 reviews per chapter for a WIP or 2000 reviews for a completed story they will be ineligible for the Indies. This is a change from the summer 2009 cycle, and is important to consider as you nominate stories.
- If a story made it to the final 10 in the 'completed' category for summer 2009 indies, the story will not be eligible.
- Summer 2009 winning stories regardless of completion are not eligible.
- Nominated WIP stories from summer 2009 will only be eligible if they are completed.
- An author is free to promote his or her story in ways that they see fit, including author's notes, twitter, email, and forum notices. An author may not use his or her readership or sphere of influence to garner votes for other authors. Examples of this influence may include but are not limited to: the offering of outtakes, faster updates, or new stories in exchange for votes or consideration. If this is discovered, the nominated story will be immediately disqualified and removed from the nomination or voting ballot.
Initial Schedule:
Nominations: 1/18 to 1/28 at midnight
Announced list of stories: 1/31
First round of voting: 2/20 - 3/2
Final round story announcement: 3/7
Round of Voting: 3/15 to 3/24
Winners announced: 3/28
This schedule is tentative and may change if we experience any technical difficulties.
For updates please follow us on Twitter at:
@TheIndiesTwific
You can also find us on the Twilighted threads at:
http://www.twilighted.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4113&start=0