(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

Hokay, friendslist, so I can't sleep and this is the thing, when I can't sleep my brain does terrible things. Tonight, what it started to do was complain to me about the serious lack of Young Wizards fanfic out there on the net (okay, so everyone who knows me knows this is something my brain does a lot. Shut up.) At various points in time pretty much everyone I've approached about this has told me, with differing degrees of niceness*, that if I want fanfic- especially outside ffn.net aka The Pit of Doom, which I do- I need to do it myself.

This is true, and people may be afraid to know that I have henceforth sloooowly started writing a piece of fanfiction (masses flee, run away, etc.) Never mind. But what I also want to do, in my fevered, slightly nauseous state**, is run a YW-fic challenge, probably based around livejournal. I would initially recruit participants (read: victims) through youngwizards but would most likely create an offshoot community where I would base it- possibly on the premise of a general ficcing community which also ran challenges. There would be banners and stuff (it's all an excuse to play with Photoshop.)

So what I want to know is: how many of you are in emergent fandoms, or have been? How did ficcing momentum start? How can I do it? If I do do a challenge, and manage to drum up enough people (say, ten?) to get started on it, what kind of challenge would be a good challenge? I could do the get-everyone-to-list-an-idea then stick the list up and let everyone have at them for a bit; alternatively I could do one challenge and have everyone meet it, in which case, what would be a good idea for that challenge? (I'm looking for general format reccomendations here, because most of you have not read these books. But I think I can say that a lot of fics would be either gen or G, if that gives you any idea.)

And, the big question: how many of you would sign up for a challenge? Strictly low-pressure, long deadlines, easy extension, not too complicated, first-time writers welcome (hey, I'll write in it, that's how much I beolieve in accepting everyone)... I know there are people on my flist who have read YW and not thought of ficcing for it, ever; I know there are people on my flist who have ficced it (Yay, persephone_kore! Who's not around this week. Never mind.) And most importantly, and this, trust me, is the group I will totally be ganging up on: I know there are people out there who have read Young Wizards, and have ficced in other fandoms. I'M LOOKING AT YOU, sixth_light. You people, I'm begging you, MY FANDOM NEEDS YOU. I don't care if you join and write one challenge fic and then skip out on the fandom, but please just write one tiny fic for me, I don't care how long (although, like, preferably not drabbles. But I'll take drabbles, that's how desperate I am.)

People, I am hungering after input, here. I love this fandom and I want it to grow. I'm probably totally nuts and it'll never work but I absolutely have to try, and that means, you know, doing something about it. SO. Please just consider it?

And just so you know, if you're on my f-list and I know you've read the books, don't think you can escape by not commenting on this post because I will track you down. spiderfish, gooseberry107 (and where are you, anyway, Ella?) , sennical, rysade: I am coming after you and I am going to ask you to write in a challenge. You can, of course, refuse- there's basically no point if I make everyone sign up and then no-one wants to write- but the idea of a challenge is to encourage fic from people who wouldn't necessarily have done it by themselves. And if I can encourage that by chatting up my friends, I can and I will do it. You're warned.

I'll also be lj-stalking anyone I've seen on fanfiction.net. Just so you know you won't be alone. :P

Oh! and! Forgot to say! Will probably also take fanart, anything.

*but mostly very nice. This is a generally lovely fandom.
**Nothing to do with fandom, although maybe why I can't sleep

Comments

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

I am sort of around after all (thanks for the Yay-ing ;)), and I've been summoned to comment on this. I'm not sure what input I'm supposed to provide, though. *g*

Fic challenges make me Very Nervous, even though I have done them. *pause* Actually, the only real one was just about a year ago, because this is an annual meeting, and I was frantically writing to deadline in the middle of last year's. *grin* I'm not sure weekly Very Vague Drabble Challenges count.

I'd probably try for a YW challenge, though, if it looked like something I could do.

I don't think I've ever been in an emergent fandom. I just sort of wander into established ones, mostly. (I'm teetering on the brink of writing Star Wars fic. Meep.)

I think if you let everybody offer ideas, you might want to put some sort of limit on the type -- even if only how specific they can get. *g* Randomly assigned challenges could be really intimidating, depending. Um... similarly, a single challenge would have to be specific enough to be inspiring but open-ended enough that you wouldn't get the same thing over and over again.

Hmm. Maybe a multiple-choice sort of thing. Allow each person to submit three challenges (and be assigned three, to pick one of them), and each can specify up to four of the following: character (each character specified counts as a slot), mood, focal theme, problem, setting, fill-in-the-blank plot element.

...I'm not sure that makes sense at all, actually. The hazards of in-comment brainstorming.

Perhaps you should issue a call for challenge ideas, and pick some, and then farm out or offer as options the ones that seem to work well.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Wow, I can summon? Ooh. *revels in the power, or something.*

*grins* Well... since I have already subtitled it in my head the "I dare you" challenge, this could be curiously appropriate. I will therefore make every effort to ensure it'll also be as stress-free as possible, because no-one trying something new or semi-new is going to be real happy if it's all PRESSURE all the time, right? (laughing about your annual meeting, too. :D)

I wonder if anyone ever thinks they;re in "emergent" fandoms? I mean, that's what I vaguely think of YW as, but after all, the fandom is older than methuselah me, anyway. So perhaps that's a very self-centered perspective. :p You should totally write Star Wars, I'm mildly surprised you haven't already. And I bet you a dollar it's Anakin (the elder) fic.

I think if you let everybody offer ideas, you might want to put some sort of limit on the type -- even if only how specific they can get. this and its reverse is very valuable advice and I'm thinking really hard about it; what I may do, in the event that I do make it a multi-challenge challenge, is take a more claim-a-challenge rather than assign-a-challenge angle, and make sure there are many, many more challenges than participants, so that someone will almost certainly get something they'll be able to write/find inspiring. While assigning challenges can be done really well, I think it would be best left till after the first one, at least (assuming I manage to birth any sort of momentum for ficcing through this, of course. Which I may not. I am not counting any chickens here.)

I am also planning on issuing said call. :) I'm sort of drafting an introductory post and companion poll to put on youngwizards and I'm hammering out that last kinks on that now- I want to get it up quickly because it occurs to me that US summer is coming, which means however many of my participants who are at school/college in the Nthn Hemisphere will have time free to write. This is a Desirable Thing.

Any suggestions as to good stuff to put in the poll? (I have the obvious: deadline, have you read fic before, will you beta (yeah, right), would you consider entering, and a vague and confusing one about comments.)

thanks so much!

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

...Anakin the elder? Do we have more than one Anakin? Did I not get enough sleep last night?

(*grumble* I like the prequels, but I'm not sure it would be in character for Dairine to do so, which makes it really hard to bring up the YW/SW connection. Even though Peach said she was a Jedi. */grumble*)

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Er. well. If you've read any of the post-original series novelistations, which OF COURSE I have not, AT ALL, even a little bit, ever, then you know that Han and Leia have a bunch of kids and call one of them Anakin. And then I think he dies later on, but I don't know because I realyl didn't read that far. >.>

(I think Dairine would hate them, I have to say. There's a rather cute little fic on ffn.net on that premise, actually- Ethics (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2367008/1/). funny. :D but dairine!Sw fic would be GREAT.)

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Oh, right, him.

I liked the kids, actually. But if they kill off little-Anakin, I'm ignoring them. Hmph.

I'd like to think Dairine has better taste than that. ;) But considering what she liked about the originals, she might not enjoy seeing How Everything Went Wrong.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

*grinning* I fortunately never got too emotionally involved, mostly because of the little voice at the back of my head that kept saying Star Wars books omg what noooo.

Well, I personally harbour a vehement dislike for Clones, am negative towards PM, and... haven't yet seen Sith, so who knows?

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* I picked up a few of the books. Some were fun, although they had their weird points. I really liked the ones about Jaina and Jacen for a while, but then... I don't know, I got the feeling the authors decided it was time to be gloomy. But I vaguely remember picking up some of the Zahn ones and being Very Bored, whereas when I watched Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones I was not Very Bored, so the movies are winning. ;)

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

:P Well, yeah, even the early movies win over the books, I think.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Funny thing is, I vaguely remember some concepts from the books that don't sound as if they ought to be boring, but apparently they didn't go over well.

On the other hand, I did enjoy Shadows of the Empire.

"Do you mean that asteroid field directly in front of us, Commander?"

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

*ponders* Well, if something new comes out and people pounce on it, I guess that's emergent. I'm not sure what it is if it's been around for a while and some people really like it and talk about it, and then it expands or people get a lot more participatory.

I think the claim-a-challenge idea (with an excess of challenges) is a really good one, with the caveat that there are some challenges I'd be defeated on, but on the other hand, there are cases where I stare at a list and won't really have any ideas unless I'm forced to consider one or a very few.

Getting people to agree to beta sight-unseen probably would be kind of tricky. *wry grin* Erm... in the poll, you could put things people might like to see in challenges, and that might give you ideas for creating them. Things like, would you want to see more obscure characters, um... something like that. Or not. Minimum length! Drabble, 500, 1000 words?

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Hmm, yeah.

Well, that's the thing- while in some ways the claim-a-challenge thing has benefits, it also has the downside of, er, what if the suggestions are all really crappy? :P If that's the one that gets picked, I may end up specifying that you can't do 'ship challenges, or something, because otherwise we may end up with, um, lots and lots and

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Hmm, yeah.

Well, that's the thing- while in some ways the claim-a-challenge thing has benefits, it also has the downside of, er, what if the suggestions are all <i>really crappy</i>? :P If that's the one that gets picked, I may end up specifying that you can't do 'ship challenges, or something, because otherwise we may end up with, um, lots and lots and <i.lots</i> of Nita/Kit chellenges and nothing else. This is Undesirable. :P

Eheheh, well, yeah. I was actually thinking that the likelihood of getting anyone at all to beta is a fairly faint hope at all. I might end up offering to spellcheck everything- or making it compulsory to spellcheck everything through me- and telling people that if they want a more thorough beta they'd be better to approach someone else. :-/ Not ideal, but the most likely situation, i feel.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Well, the thing about betaing is, you have to either really like the person, or really like the story, or really like/be committed to betareading. Which is tough. Although if you get participants who need a beta to catch accidents rather than to catch half a dozen disasters per sentence, it's a bit easier.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, exactly. I'm committed to encouraging fic in the fandom, but NOT committed enough to beta-read properly. I don't even know how to beta-read properly. But I absolutely draw the line at having poorly spelt and punctuated entries.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Minimum Length! Thanks for pointing that out. :D