We are considering an additional sub forum called "The Best of Fan Fiction." I have reviewed other fan fiction sites, and ours is one of the best!

With all the truly amazing stories here, it is easy to overlook some of the best works. A newcomer to our forum may never see exemplary works like "A Twist of Fate," "Listen with your heart," or "The Legend Of The Great Sea Monster!"

There's a lot to be considered before a decision can be made.

• Would you support such a forum?
• What criteria should we use to select stories?
• How many stories should be included?

This is YOUR forum, so please take a little time to help us out with this.

I think that the criteria shouldn't be based on the number of views, because as you pointed out, many people can overlook greatest stories out there. I think everybody should have a say in what stories go on there and that other stories can be added over time. Maybe adding a poll at the end of one of the stories chapters whether or not it should be in the Best Of Fan Fiction. Nominating stories and then taking a vote would be a good idea.

Maybe adding a poll that has several stories, and people can vote on the best ones

Some of the basic criteria I have in mind are these:

1. Complete (kinda obvious)
2. Easy to read (good grammar, punctuation, etc)
3. Sets a good example for those who want to write fan fiction
4. Contains a theme which really draws you in (i.e. you can't stop reading till it's done)
5. Evokes an emotional response from the reader (it makes you laugh, cry, wish you were there, etc.)

Can you think of any other criteria?

I'm also thinking that initially we should have only 10 stories in the Best of forum. We could begin by nominating any story currently in Fan Fiction that meets the criteria we establish.

Later we could vote yearly to add 1 or maybe 2 new stories. Remember, these would be the Best stories so not every story would (or should) be moved there.

I'm also thinking these stories should contain their own permanent comments threads.

Agree? Disagree? Got any other thoughts?

I like this idea.

Edit: Oh, and don't forget Obi.

Include Obi, and maybe add one for each new page if there are nominatable stories

The Little Obi stories would certainly be among the choices for the forum. I can, off the top of my head, think of at least a dozen stories that I think should be considered.

I really love the idea, especially since I'm new here and people like me would be able to find the best fan fictions a lot easier. The whole reason I joined was for the fan fictions.

I think it's important to remeber the later pages for anyone who wants to vote.

IMO probably the best fan fic so far is "The Story of the Hard Tribe", which was one of the very first. It used to appear on the main LDW site as a PDF along with another good FF although ISTR that it was difficult to find. I don't know if it's still on the new site. Gamey's "Little Obi" stories also obviously deserve a place.

Both "The Story of the Hard Tribe" & "Mahala" are still viewable in PDF format. Go to http://www.virtualvillagers.com Under Community, click on Fan Fiction.

I can convert word to PDF fairly easily. It is an excellent format for stories that involve graphics (screen shots). Maybe we should consider asking to move our "best of" to that format, IF, we go ahead with it. So far, the voting has been a bit slower than I had hoped for.

Aren't the individual sites like virtualvillagers.com to be taken down in due course, to be replaced by the one LDW site? If so, I hope the fan fiction there is not lost.

I'll make sure that nothing is lost as we shuffle web sites around.

I hope that the Best of Fan Fiction will stay on here though. Maybe if You labeled the topic as sticky and moved it to the fan fiction forum, You might get a better and larger response to this wonderful idea. Also it would be from other authors too. Maybe the Best fan fictions could also have a picture thread, too.

I think that in Best of Fan Fiction, you should have a link that people can click to nominate a fanfiction for the Best of Category. Also, you could have sub categories, such as Best Humor Fanfic, or Best Overall Fanfic.

I like Kikian's idea about the sub forums a lot.

Great idea.By this we can easily know what other people think about it.

Great idea! If I don't have time to read ALL the stories in the Fan Fiction forum I can check out the Best of Fan Fiction sub forum.

100% agree!

The "Best of Fan Fiction" forum is going to happen, but right now the admins are all tied up on getting VV5 released. When it happens, it will be a sub forum of Fan Fiction, much like the comments sub forum.

Oh wow! That'll be awesome! I'll make it my new goal to write a fanfic that gets in!

When will it come out?