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Gen ficathon - discussion post the second
Okay ... walking the dogs tonight, I was thinking about the various ideas that have been batted around lately for setting up a gen ficathon, as well as some of the stuff that I like to play with (e.g. different writers working off the same prompt). See if this sounds completely nuts to you. Obviously this is not How Things Have To Be(TM), but just one possible way of setting up the "rules".
Let's have seven different fic "genres", one for each day of the week -- e.g. angst, friendship, team, humor, etc. When people sign up (anonymously, via screened comments) they request which genre they'd like to write -- with a couple of backup choices in the inevitable case that nobody can get their first choice. After the writing period is over, stories will be posted one per day, going week by week 'till we run out of stories -- Monday might be Angst day (isn't it usually?), Tuesday for Humor, etc.
Each week has a prompt -- so the first seven stories, for example, might all be written off the prompt "Steampunk" or "Memories of childhood" or "Trust" or "Pink" or ... well, whatever. You don't know what your prompt is going to be 'till it's emailed to you; all you know is that six other people are going to be writing very different sorts of stories from the same prompt. And nobody but the writers knows what the prompts are until the unveiling of the stories begins.
Stories are all anonymous until the big writer reveal, at the very end, once all the stories have been posted.
The signups would be in January/early February, after everyone's had time to recover from the holidays. Writers get 2-3 months to write their story. Minimum 2000 words (negotiable) but I doubt if I'd be a hardass about it. (I like the idea of a higher minimum word count, but I think people are right: no sense in scaring folks off by setting the bar too high. 2000 words should be do-able for most writers, and gives enough space to tell a decent story while still having the possibility of going longer, if desired.)
ETA: Okay, still thinking. How about these genres?
-Monday: Angst
-Tuesday: Humor
-Wednesday: Team
-Thursday: Friendship
-Friday: Action/adventure
-Saturday: AU
-Sunday: Anything goes!
Thoughts? Is this too complicated? Too ambitious? Not ambitious enough? Help!
Let's have seven different fic "genres", one for each day of the week -- e.g. angst, friendship, team, humor, etc. When people sign up (anonymously, via screened comments) they request which genre they'd like to write -- with a couple of backup choices in the inevitable case that nobody can get their first choice. After the writing period is over, stories will be posted one per day, going week by week 'till we run out of stories -- Monday might be Angst day (isn't it usually?), Tuesday for Humor, etc.
Each week has a prompt -- so the first seven stories, for example, might all be written off the prompt "Steampunk" or "Memories of childhood" or "Trust" or "Pink" or ... well, whatever. You don't know what your prompt is going to be 'till it's emailed to you; all you know is that six other people are going to be writing very different sorts of stories from the same prompt. And nobody but the writers knows what the prompts are until the unveiling of the stories begins.
Stories are all anonymous until the big writer reveal, at the very end, once all the stories have been posted.
The signups would be in January/early February, after everyone's had time to recover from the holidays. Writers get 2-3 months to write their story. Minimum 2000 words (negotiable) but I doubt if I'd be a hardass about it. (I like the idea of a higher minimum word count, but I think people are right: no sense in scaring folks off by setting the bar too high. 2000 words should be do-able for most writers, and gives enough space to tell a decent story while still having the possibility of going longer, if desired.)
ETA: Okay, still thinking. How about these genres?
-Monday: Angst
-Tuesday: Humor
-Wednesday: Team
-Thursday: Friendship
-Friday: Action/adventure
-Saturday: AU
-Sunday: Anything goes!
Thoughts? Is this too complicated? Too ambitious? Not ambitious enough? Help!
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This is going to be fun.
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http://community.livejournal.com/steamfashion/
http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk/brassgoggles/
Here's some visual aids, but as others have already answered, Steampunk is basically Victorian-fudged to WWI era technology science fiction. Steam power, clockwork robots, dirigibles and so on.
The idea of a steampunk prompt for a Stargate Atlantis ficathon is brilliant!
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I haven't commented before on the gen ficathon posts, but I really like the idea of having a "theme week" where every story is on the same prompt, but in a different genre. I think it would be a fantastic challenge as an author, and a really interesting concept for the readers as well.
2000 words sounds about right for story length-- substantial without being too intimidating.
I like the line-up of genres that you have, as well. (Especially AU and Action/Adventure.) If you were looking for something to fill in on Sunday, maybe something like "Minor Character Focused." -- a story that must be about a character who is not in the main credits. (?)
Another thought I had was, perhaps it would be useful to separate out "Friendship, John&Rodney," and "Friendship, Other" -- so, for instance on Thursdays you'd get a J&R friendship story, but on Friday you could get John&Ronon, or Teyla&Elizabeth, or Rodney&Zelenka friendship stories. I only suggest this because otherwise I worry that you wouldn't get any of the "other" types of friendship stories, but I suppose it depends on the demographics of the writers that you get to sign up. :)
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Oh, these are both excellent ideas! I am in *love* with the idea of a "Minor Character Appreciation Day" -- I'm practically drooling at all the wonderful stories that could come out of that! As [Unknown site tag] pointed out in the other thread, a ficathon of this sort could easily become quite John-and-Rodney-heavy, and (despite my very shallow personal appreciation for both characters *g*) I would love to see a nice variety in the kinds of stories that are produced.
There is a delightful sense of mystery to this sort of ficathon -- not knowing what your prompt is going to be ahead of time, or what other people are going to do with the same prompt ... it makes it really fun, as both a writer and a reader, I think.
Thank you for the input! *makes notes*
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- Helen
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You could also allow ambitious writers to sign up for more than one story... say, posting one in week 1 and one in week 3. I don't know how many people would go for it, but it's a thought. :D
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- Helen
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And as
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Maybe make Sunday sort of a grab bag - so there is a genre (or subgenre) assigned, it's just different each week.
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That's not a bad idea with rotating genre on Sunday ... except it would make it a little harder to sign up for. (And I've completely fallen in love with the idea of having a minor character appreciation day, too. *g*)
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1) Would people get to pick which week their story is due? (if you have a lot, it could give week 6 people a LOT more time than week 1 people)
2) Do you have an idea of how many weeks you want this to run. SGA is a big fandom and I know gen isn't all that popular, but I could see you getting enough signups for 6 weeks. Do you want it to last that long? Maybe some days/weeks you could allow two stories to post (maybe week 3 has two themes at once or something?)
3) People are late with ficathons. Life gets in the way, ideas don't work, whatever. How are you going to deal with Monday's week 2 person not being ready to post that day? The
4) It occurs to me this setup could make for a really interesting challenge community as a permanent thing...
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2. You've got a good point here, and if there are a lot of sign-ups (or a lot of people who want to do more than one story), some weeks could easily be doubled up. Maybe aim for running it about three weeks, and if there are more sign-ups than that, some days would have multiple stories posted ...
3. Well, this was kinda answered in comment 1 -- I think I'd have a deadline but shuffle the order of the prompts to try to accommodate needs for time exensions. And, yes, pinch hitters are a very good idea -- perhaps people could volunteer to possibly pinch-hit at the time they sign up for their genres.
4. Hee! That might be interesting, but I dunno ... there are already a lot of challenge comms in this fandom; I'm kinda reluctant to add another one.
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4. Hee! That might be interesting, but I dunno ... there are already a lot of challenge comms in this fandom; I'm kinda reluctant to add another one.
But it might make a good semi-annual event. I bet you could get enough participation twice a year to make it worthwhile. And the advantage in that is there are always going to be writers who wanted to participate the first time but were too covered up with work, school, etc., who might be freer later in the year.
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And, yeah, a lot of ficathons ask people if they're willing to be asked to pinch hit when they sign up. It works.
4) Point - we don't really need more. I like the idea below of, if this works, doing it periodically. But I suppose we should wait and see how it works the first time...
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Are you going to need any assistance with organization or anything like that. That's typically a slow period for me and I'd love to help out if you need it.
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2,000 word min is good, if a little scary for me (I know I write a lot of longer stories, but they *can* take me months to finish if the plot bunnies, muse or whatever wanders off, and so the shorter the min limit the better chance I have of getting it finished before that happens - of course, having said this what's the bet I write something longer?!!!).
Looking forward to it and will (all things going well) sign up for one story. (Not sure my nerves can cope with signing up for more...this time!)
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And I'm glad you're interested! As far as having more than one, I think I want to see how the first one goes before thinking that far ahead...