Welcome to the 2015 Quicksilver Quills!!!

Hello, and welcome to the TENTH annual Quicksilver Quill awards!

Yes, that’s right, everyone’s favourite MNFF awards ceremony has rolled around once again. Since 2006, the Quicksilver Quills have celebrated the best writing MNFF has to offer, last year giving 15 writing awards across twelve categories. Each year, stories are nominated and judged by our members. Some of MNFF’s finest readers and writers assess each nomination and decide upon the winners. 

This year there will be a few changes. Rather than having the twelve categories we have always had, we are condensing the categories due to the number of stories posted this year. In each category there may be one or two winners, and winners may be separated into one-shots and chaptered.

Categories

 

• Best General Story (contains best General, Mystery, History, Marauder Era, Humor, and Alternate Universe fics)
• Best Dark/Angsty Story
• Best Canon Romance Story (contains the SSP of Dumbledore/Grindelwald)
• Best Non-Canon Romance Story (contains all other SSPs)
• Best Poetry
• Best Post-Hogwarts/Next Generation Story

Nomination threads open today and will close at either the end of the day on the 23rd July or once thirty-five stories have been nominated, at which point there will be a one week break in order to assign judges to each category. Judging will begin soon after. Anyone is welcome to submit a nomination either via the forums or as a comment on the archives. We are looking to find the absolute best stories from the last twelve months. They should be well-written, have engaging plots and characters, and be a good representation of the category for which they are nominated (though they don’t necessarily have to have been submitted to the corresponding archive category). In short, they should be the stories that make you go WOW.

 

The rules are similar to previous years but please refresh yourself with them anyway to make sure you nominate the right stories in the right categories. There is also at least one new rule for you to take note of. 

Rules

+ Only stories written (or, in the case of chaptered fics, updated) since the 1st June 2014 are eligible to be nominated.
+ Stories do not have to be in the corresponding archive category to be nominated. For example, a story may be in a romance category but if you think it is particularly funny, it can be nominated in humour.
+ An author or story can win more than one award in the same year. We reserve the right to place a cap on the number of awards given to any one author/story at a later date.
+ An author is eligible to win in a category they have been either winner or runner up in before.
+ Winning stories from previous years may not be nominated again in any category, though with the twelve month rule, we do not expect this to be an issue. 
+ Please use the form provided in the first post of each nomination thread and ensure you provide a working link. Nominations that do not follow the correct format will be removed. 
+ Do not second nominations – seconding clutters up threads and gives an unrealistic indication of how many stories have been nominated. Having more than one nomination does not increase a story’s chances of winning.
+ Any author can be nominated, including moderators.
+ New Rule: Each person may only nominate a maximum of FIVE stories across the six categories. Unfortunately, this is a necessary step to keep the number of nominations under control, as an ever-decreasing number of judges means we simply don’t have the resources to judge overly large categories. Please try and keep all your nominations for a category in one post to make it easier to keep track of how many stories you have nominated.
+ New Rule: There is a cap on the maximum amount of stories able to be nominated this year at thirty-five. Again, due to the low estimated participation of judges it is simply not realistic to judge more stories than this. This means that nominations
will be done on a first come, first serve sort of basis.

These are changes from last year’s rule of twenty-five per member and no limit on total stories. It does allow for fewer nominations per member, but it is an unfortunate necessity. 
+ The judging committees reserve the right not to present an award in any categories where they do not feel the standard of nominations is high enough. However this will only be done as a last resort.

Judging

As with the past few years, I will be opening a thread on the forums for members to volunteer to be judges. Judging can be demanding but also fun, and we really value the input of as many members as possible in the judging process. You can find more information on judging in the sign-up thread. We do require that one be a member of the forums in order to judge, as judging does take place within the forums.

Finally…

If you have any questions, please post below! Any nominations, also post below, using this form:

Nomination Category: (Best General, Poetry, etc.)
Story Title: 
Author: 
Character Name: (only use for Original Character nomination)
One-Shot/Chaptered: 
Reason for Nomination: