sholio | SGA genficathon 2009

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exchange:sga genficathon

SGA genficathon 2009

A few people have asked if I'll be running a genficathon again in 2009.

The answer is yes. :) The response last year was thrilling and awesome, the quality of the stories fantastic, and I was very happy with it (once I got done being stressed out about it *g*).

I'm thinking that it might be a good idea to wait a month or two later than I held the signups last year, though. The last episode of SGA (*snivel*) will air on Jan. 9, and I suspect January will be a bit of a gloomy time in the fandom, not a good time to be inviting people to commit themselves to writing a story.

So right now I'm thinking about holding signups in March. I know this will end up overlapping with Big Bang more than I'd like, but I'm pretty sure the number of people last year who wrote for both Big Bang and the genficathon was relatively small.

I'm also considering various different ways of doing prompts/posting this year. The genre/prompt combo last year was fun (and pretty easy for me to administrate as far as giving people their assignments, not nearly as complicated as a fic exchange) but it was complicated, difficult to explain to people, and led to a few problems with pinch hitting.

This year I'm thinking about doing it as a more straightforward fic exchange, with each person being assigned someone to write for, or else giving each person a unique prompt rather than having a number of people writing for the same prompt. Posting would still be anonymous, and there will be a few minor rule changes to make it easier for me to post the stories that are sent to me (I liked how Big Bang had a style guide for formatting stories, making it much simpler for people to submit their already-formatted stories even if they're not familiar with HTML).

What do you guys think? Possible pros and cons of doing a fic exchange rather than a prompt fest? Or what about letting people choose prompts, like some of the other fests do?

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Yay, another genficathon!

I liked the way you did it last time, instead of an exchange, mainly because in an exchange people usually ask mostly for John and/or Rodney, then team-y stuff, or Ronon and/or Teyla, so it rules out writing anyone else as a main character. Which I'm totally not saying because I ended up writing about Ford :) But with the way it was done last time, there was a lot more flexibility about who got written, which was cool.

Or what about letting people choose prompts, like some of the other fests do?

Could there be an option for just being randomly assigned something by the mod if people wanted? I'm chronically incapable of making a decision for myself (which has made house-hunting oh so much fun this month!). That's just me being pathetic though :)

Hee! I prefer the mod-assigned prompts myself (as a ficfest participant, I mean). I always second-guess myself too much when I have to pick it myself ...

And I was trying very hard last year to make sure that all the characters would be represented. (I was delighted at the range of fic that turned out! Someone even wrote about Jinto.) I'd like to try to keep that diversity this year ... so, hmm. Lots to think about. Thank you very much for the input!

First off, yay! \o/ April was like, the funnest month this year for me, in large part due to genficathon. I'm still catching up on stories, but having too many good fics to read is never a problem.

I really enjoyed the genre/prompt combo both as a reader and as a writer. I kind of had an idea of what sort of stories to expect from the genre and the prompt (although there were a few good surprises and twists.) As a writer it made it a bit more challenging to come up with an idea that was genre appropriate (my second attempt which turned into Wit's End, definitely not a comedy) -- but once I did finally come across an idea I liked it really clicked and worked, because there was nothing else I had to really worry about. The bonus round at the end was an added bonus, because we could sort of cherry pick from prompts and genres that had been sparking ideas during the ficathon.

This is just me personally, but I find fic exchanges a lot harder to write for. I can never shake the feeling that I'm writing the story for someone else, and it does wind up influencing the story a lot more than if I'm just writing "for me" (if that makes any sense.)

I liked how Big Bang had a style guide for formatting stories, making it much simpler for people to submit their already-formatted stories even if they're not familiar with HTML

Oh, that was so very helpful -- and it wound up introducing me to my beloved Word macros by Astolat. I know the coding got to be quite a handful last year, so a style guide would probably help cut things down on your end. (And I know it'll probably be a separate post, but I'd always be happy to help out on coding. It's insanely easy for me to do now, and I've got the dreaded Word 2007 that can work through any of those issues as well.)

I have the same problem with fic exchanges; I end up feeling paralyzed by fear that I'm accidentally writing all the recipients' worst squicks. I find it much more stressful that simply writing to a prompt.

I'm pretty laid-back about how people interpet the categories; "Wit's End" *was* funny -- actually, I thought what made the story so good was how it mixed humor with serious elements, giving the tragic parts more punch than they would have had in an all-humorous story. It's all fun and games 'til someone gets shot in the head ...

Oh, I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds them more stressful. Not to say that I dislike them, but it's a bit more like an art commission than a surprise picture you drew for someone's birthday. (If that analogy works any.) Not that you don't want to do it, but they've got clear expectations and you don't want to fail them.

I'm pretty laid-back about how people interpet the categories

That's definitely a good thing *g* I'm my own worst enemy sometimes. Even though both "Wit's End" and "Thicker than Water" are extremely humorous, they've got those big gut punches, and that just doesn't quite equate as comedy in my mind? Or I don't want people going in needing a good pick-me-up funny fic and getting something else instead.

It's all fun and games 'til someone gets shot in the head ...

So true, so true... sadly, Lupin can't come back for another round this year, otherwise everyone will know it's me XD I think the anonymous posting was half the fun last year!

Oh, and thank you for the offer on coding help -- my biggest problem last year was that, while lots of people had offered to help, I didn't really know what I was going to need so I didn't take any of them up on it (except for Naye at the end, because I was going stress-crazy). This year, I know what gave me problems and the coding was definitely a big part of it!

Oh, you're very welcome! I felt really bad last year because it really was a lot of work (especially when some anonymous people insert the world's strangest footnotes into their pinch-hits that throw everything off.) There's this really handy one I use a lot that converts the entire document into LJ-ready format. It took maybe twenty seconds to do all 250 pages of my entire Big Bang story.

Heh. The footnotes weren't too bad once I figured out what they *were*, though I don't think I quite got them formatted correctly in the end. Ah well, live and learn ...

I have a major advantage on formatting because my word processor (AppleWorks) saves "clean" HTML -- i.e. no fancy tags except for bold and italic. So I just do a "save as" at the end and then do a quick pass over the HTML to insert anything special (like links or LJ tags), and I'm good to go. Sometimes I write the tags in at the beginning, but I don't usually like to do that; it's too hard to convert the "b" and "i" and so forth to the correct formatting in my head. (Naye and I did our Big Bang story that way, though, with the HTML tags hard-coded into the text. We were passing it back and forth as plain text, and it was just easier.)

p.s. what's that icon from? It's really cute, but I keep forgetting to ask!

Heh. The footnotes weren't too bad once I figured out what they *were*, though I don't think I quite got them formatted correctly in the end. Ah well, live and learn ...

Heh, they look fine to me. I'm still wincing a little at the typos in that one (and Rodney referring to Parrish as a biologist, d'oh). I think how you had to note any special formatting for the Big Bang stories was rather nice, so there aren't any weird surprises like that at one in the morning.

That clean HTML sounds very handy. The processes I have to got through in Word is a little annoying, but I can actually use the macros to make formatting for different sites at the same time (plus my Kindle), so it works out. There's a lot of bloat in MS Office IMO -- but I just can't seem to go back to WordPad, which is where I used to write.

Sometimes I write the tags in at the beginning, but I don't usually like to do that; it's too hard to convert the "b" and "i" and so forth to the correct formatting in my head.

Yeah, for writing rough draft, I can definitely see that hampering the process some. I've been writing in Notepad a lot lately, and I wind up using asteriks usually to indicate the italics. It's helpful in a way, because it forces me to go back an reread and tweak things along the way.

p.s. what's that icon from? It's really cute, but I keep forgetting to ask!

It's from a movie called Four Brothers, sort of my guilty pleasure fandom. Have you seen it? I'm not sure if it's exactly your kind of movie, but there are some elements in it I'd think you'd enjoy.

It's from a movie called Four Brothers, sort of my guilty pleasure fandom. Have you seen it? I'm not sure if it's exactly your kind of movie, but there are some elements in it I'd think you'd enjoy.

Ah! I knew they looked familiar, and I kept staring at it trying to figure out where from. :D (I do that with people's icons a lot; I'm always looking up the userpic info on intriguing icons trying to figure out what fandom they're for -- that's actually how I discovered Dresden Files, I think!) Yes, I have seen it -- I even own it! I never thought of looking to see if there was a fandom for it, though.

It's a microfandom at best -- surprisingly, the only real presence I can find for it is on FFnet. Unfortunately, it's very, very prone to Sues, so you have to sort through a lot of it to find the good stuff. But there are some absolute gems. I adore all four of the brothers, which I think is what really sucked me in more than anything.

I really liked the way the ficathon worked last year. I enjoy fic exchanges, but I spend a lot of time hoping that I'm close to what my recipient wanted. The ficathon let me write my own story.

I adore the idea of each person getting a unique prompt. That would be great.

Would it be possible to have people sign up for a genre and pick a prompt? As each prompt is picked, it goes off the list and after a certain genre is filled, it goes off the list. Too complicated? Too stupid?

I like the idea of unique prompts, too. For one thing, there were so many awesome prompts last year that it seemed like a terrible shame to only use eight of them!

Hmm... the only problem is that the number of people writing for each genre depended on the total number of people signing up. I ended up with, I think, seven or eight people in each genre, but it would have been less than that if I'd only had ten or fifteen writers. So you *couldn't* fill categories without knowing how many people were writing.

I could always let people pick prompts and request first and second choices for categories. Or let them request categories and then assign them a prompt. Hmm... *thinks some more*

I like the idea of being able to pick a category, with a 2nd and/or 3rd choice - in case you end up with 20 angst and 1 humour (!) - and then being assigned a mod-given prompt. Fic exchanges are fun too, but there are quite a few of them and it's nice to be able to do a different kind of ficathon.

Of course, ideally, I'd love it to be the same as this year's ficathon, but I fully understand you wanting to go for something simpler!

Requesting first and second choices for categories would be fun especially if the prompt is assigned later. Lots of challenge in that.

I enjoyed the combos last year. I like having the genre and prompt as guides to work with, but allowing still enough creativity. I'd suggest keeping is the same this year, except expanding the prompts so there are more. I'm fine with being assigned one..that's what makes it a challenge.

Thanks for the input! As a writer, I happen to prefer assigned prompts to self-selected prompts myself -- but I don't want to impose than on everyone if it's not popular. However, since it seemed to go over well last year and it looks like most people liked it, I'm leaning right now towards doing basically what you said -- leaving it similar to last year but with more prompts.

I loved last year's! I think my two submissions were some of my fav fics and there was such a amazing response and the quality was stunning.

If you need any help with things let me know.

Thank you! I'm definitely not going to be too proud to ask for help this year. :D

I'm so happy you'll be running this ficathon again. Some of my favorite fics this year came out of genficathon.

Awww, thank you! :)

There was really some wonderful fic written for it. I was very gratified at the response -- and kind of stunned by the people who turned out novel-length epics!

I also don't want anything to change :-)

Thanks for the input! *makes note*

As a reader (and an incredibly picky one), I love fic exchanges because it means getting something you've been craving for a long time. However, as a writer, it can be restrictive. If the prompt doesn't spark any ideas - or ideas you personally want to write - then it verges on being torture ;)

I personally liked what was done last year because 1) the prompts were simple enough to allow for flexibility (though I did take mine pretty literal) and 2) for me at least, it kept the plots from getting out of hand (I've gotten into the bad habit of over-thinking my stories. Prompts, sometimes, seem to help keep that from happening.)

Anyway, that's my two cents :D

Thank you! It does help -- and I basically set up the ficathon "rules" to be something that *I* wanted to write for, so I'm glad it was fun for others. *g*

*\o/* The last ficathon was an absolute blast! I'll be looking forward to the next one, however it's set up.

I will say, though, that prompts work much better, for me, than a fic exchange. I'm finding inspiration for my Yuletide assignment much more difficult going than I did for my ficathon work, simply because I don't know where to start!

Now, a fic exchange where prompts are also involved . . . that might work.

Thank you very much! ^_^

I generally lean towards preferring prompts to exchanges myself ... but I don't want to take a possibility off the table just because I prefer it another way. *g*

Yuletide people are generally *supposed* to give a prompt, though I notice many participants seem to skip that part ...

Or if they don't skip it, they keep it minimal to avoid "restricting" their author. And you know, I appreciate that, but I wouldn't mind something more than "I don't like second person POV" or "please, no snakes." (examples are pure conjecture, but you get my drift.)

And of course, there are advantages to an exchange -- the realization that the fic is actually for somebody else's pleasure, and not just my own amusement, pushes for a higher standard. And that's not a bad thing.

Yeah!!

I really liked the format you used last year. It left a lot of freedom for interpretation by the author. From what I've seen of fic requests (I've never actually written for one mind you) the requests can be very specific. And my muse just doesn't do well with specific. She likes to have room for her own special interpretation. I really liked having several different people writing for the same prompts but from different angles, too. It was so fun to see how everyone viewed things!

Thank you! :)

It's funny ... some people seem to prefer open-ended prompts, where others prefer very specific ones. I tried to find a sort of happy medium...

Chiming in to echo everyone else - looking forward to this happening again, and I liked how it went last time - assigned prompts are less stressful than gift-exchanges, and the prompt/genre combo you offered was very effective, as the writer could pick the genre but didn't have to choose the prompt (prompt-choosing can be stressful, too.) I liked the prompts being so open-ended, too - it tied the stories together well enough to really feel like a themed 'thon rather than just a gen fic archive, but at the same time it allowed for a huge variety of stories.

Thanks for the input! :) I kinda just designed a ficathon that *I* would want to write for ... and I'm glad it seemed to work pretty well for other people, as well. (The prompt rules were more or less patterned after McShep Match, which I liked a lot, except I reworked it to work without teams, and with more categories/genres.)

I liked last year's format just fine. Though I know it was a pain in the butt for you on occasion. *hugs*

Hee! I've definitely learned my lesson about asking for help ... *g*

I just wanted to wave my hand in the air and say how much I loved last year's format. I liked it *because* it was different to anything I'd seen before, and now we've done it once, I'm sure we could manage it again. As much as I'd love to, I can't offer to help, since the

tardis_bigbang (which I help mod) will be winding up around then, and with the SGA one starting, even I know my limits. Sometimes. But I'll definitely be signing up, no matter what format you choose.

Yay!

Thank you! :D

It seems from the responses that last year's format was quite popular; I tried to design a ficathon that *I* wanted to write for, so it's very flattering that other people liked it as well! Since people were happy with it, I think I'll probably end up doing something similar again.

The unique prompt maybe something I can test myself on. I'm hoping by March I might have written something, anything, even a drabble!

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SGA genficathon 2009

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