Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Guess the Author/Holiday Ficathon 2008?

The old Guess the Author thread revived an old interest. It was so fun I think we should do them again.

How did that work last time? We were given a six week period of time to write a story, e-mailed it to an impartial third party who posted it to the boards? The only difference is that I think we should decide in advance that at the end of six weeks a list should be made, in alphabetical order, of all who wrote fics alongside a list of titles, in order of posting. Then the official guesses can go in that folder for one week with the revelations to follow.

I think we should also do another gift-fic. If I remember correctly you write three things you want in a fic, three things you don't want in a fic, your favorite season and some other thing I don't remember. If we do this, I think there should be two people running it, so they can send and receive a fic and still keep the secret.

Of course, the bummer is that I'm suggesting these right before a bunch of great authors write a novel. However, if we slide the days just right we can still get this to work. The Guess-the-Author could be from now until December 15. The gift-fic could have sign-ups from now until December 10. The assignments could be mailed out at or before December 15 with the gift-fics (was that called a fic-a-thon?) to be posted by January 30.

So what say ye, fair folcs. Is anybody interested in twisting again like we did last summer? (Translation, should we do these shindigs again?) If there is sufficient interest I don't mind being the person to post the Guess-the-Author stories this time. If this is the wrong time of year or somebody has a great idea, I'm open to suggestions.

I'm also willing to be one of two who would post gift-fic assignments. Is there a second volunteer? Ditto the note about is there sufficient interest, a better suggestion on timing or a new great idea.


Elisabeth

Here's Lynn's original thread:

Guess the author I

And Laura's info from when she last revived the idea:

Guess the author II

LabRat

Sending you an email about the ficathon.

For me personally, it's too late to do a Guess the Author pre-Nano - though that might be a good mid Jan idea when it tends to slow down as people start looking at Kerths. Would keep fics coming but they'd be short etc.


Carol

I like both ideas, but I can't say for sure if I'll be able to participate. I'd need the complete dates first, I guess.

I thought this thread gave the opportunity to vote on what dates you preferred. Of course someone sometime will have to make a decision, but without anyone voting there can't be a majority to rule.


Elisabeth

Oooh, I vote december! It could be a secret santa thing!

I vote for a secret Santa - NaNoWriMo will be over and we can concentrate on our other stuff. (Uh let's see, 2 L&C, 4 SR - I've lost some in there somehow...)

December works.

Elisabeth, did you have a suggestion for a topic? I noticed that all the guess-the-author stories before had a specific topic to write about.

If you give us the topic now so writers can be thinking about it off-and-on during NaNo, then December 15 would probably work okay for that contest.

Last year's theme was Halloween/Costumes for the Guess the Author doohickey.

I emailed Elisabeth yesterday - I'd been thinking about this too and had looked up last year's Holiday Ficathon dates recently. The discussion didn't even start till late Nov iirc.

Last year's GTA started in early Oct IIRC with the goal to be posted by the end of the first week in Nov.

Here was my thinking:

Holiday ficathon signups: Nov 26 - Dec 3 or so [maybe a week earlier? signups during Nano but assignments made after? or even assignments made by Dec 1?]
Assignments out: Dec 6-7 [or, well, see above]
Post: by Jan 10

Guess the Author topic posted: Jan 15
Fics posted: by Feb 15 [maybe a Valentine's Theme?]
Lists/guessing thread: Feb 16-20 or something
'Prizes': awarded Feb 21

The boards tend to be a bit slow the first couple months of the year - in part as people start getting ready for Kerths. My thinking is that GTAs will be short enough etc that they won't take TOO much time writing or reading and hopefully help with the early year lull.

Other thoughts?
Carol

I forgot about the whole theme idea. What about this one: someone gets a surprise. Is that broad enough for those who want to write a Valentine's-y story and for those who don't?


Elisabeth
PS I like Carol's dates.

I am glad you suggested this Elisabeth.

I like Carol's dates too, as at the moment I am not so successfully, I admit, attempting to ressurect my interest and ideas for 2 in progress fics as well decide the fate of 2 others not yet started. So not having to committ right away to a holiday deadline would be helpful.

If I am read Carol's post right, it looks like there might be 2 separate ficathons? One Holiday and the other V-Day or did I miss something? I do like the theme idea or maybe, to do make it a little different maybe, rather than (or even in addition to) each person requesting 3 things they want in their story, they could also suggest three possible themes and then their secret author would surprise them with one? Is that too confusing? Just an idea so we'd get a variety of themes but also have the element of surprise.

My other question is in Lynn's original thread it looked like stories were both n and g fic. Would we go by request or only have one or the other?

Mona

Mona -

Two separate things.

Holiday ficathon - three wants/don't wants are submitted; authors are assigned someone else's list and write them as presents for whoever they get assigned

Guess the Author - moderately generic topic [last year: Fall/Halloween/Costume/something like that]; authors send stories to coordinator/s who post/s them; at the end of allotted time a list of fics and participating authors is posted and everyone tries to match them up.

Does that clear it up?

Carol

On the German boards, we tried ficathons with an overall theme. This idea was highly successful, so why don't we do the same here? For example, this summer we had the ficathon theme 'revelation'. So, everybody got the three wishes and anti-wishes from his partner (as usual) and this overall theme. And you wouldn't believe what sort of stories people came up with. (One of them would be Michael's "Batman, Zorro, And Other Liars")

Thank you, Carol. For some reason my tired brain last night read the holiday ficathon and guess the author as one and the same as opposed to two separate things which I see they are.

Mona

/votes for Carol's dates.

Michael