It's that wonderful time of year again when one of the best challenges in fandom opens for registration - Yuletide Treasures! This challenge has inspired some of the best stories online in small and obscure fandoms.Now before you run and sign up, some words of wisdom from Miss Mary Sue who has both participated in and run challenges.
Why sign up? Challenges force you to write on a deadline and within restrictions. Just like a sonnet, this can inspire great writing. Plus, on the day itself, you'll get the warm glow of accomplishment and a whole bunch of great stories to read.
Why not to take part: Look deep into your heart and ask yourself, can you keep a deadline? Can you finish a story within a few weeks? How busy is your schedule? (Especially around the holidays) and most of all, are you inspired? Do you have an idea sparked by the challenge?
Pinch-hitting! If you're a fast writer and you enjoy challenges, you can help a lot by signing up as a pinch hitter. Every challenge, someone will drop-out and rather than disappoint the recipient, a story has to be written up in their place. Most challenges add this as an option, or you can email the organiser and offer. You'll usually get 24 hours to write a story to spec. Don't worry about length - short and fabulous is what's needed. Keep an eye on Pinch Hit for help needed!
Oh no, I have to drop out.... It does happen. People fall sick, work goes overtime and so on. You must:
- Tell the organiser as soon as possible. That gives them time to find a replacement writer.
- Apologise sincerely. Don't make excuses, just a short explanation.
You've got a great idea for a challenge? A fandom that needs a little bit of love?
- Find some friends to share the responsibilities.
- Set up either a livejournal community or a blog to quickly post updates
- Think up a catchy name.
- Choose a decent length of time. For drabbles or short pieces, two weeks is fine. For anything longer, a month or two is fine. Too much time, people will forget!
- Get someone to make a graphic for a banner people can post in their own blogs and LJs to spread the word about your challenge.
- Write a short announcement and DO NOT post it to communities and lists. Instead, email it to the moderators of those communities and ask them if it's okay. No-one likes a spammer, and you'll get a lot more respect if you play by fandom rules.
- Set up a submission form to make it easy for people to sign-up for the challenge.
- Reply to all the emails people send, confirming what they've agreed to do.
- Set up a spreadsheet (Excel or Google Apps) to keep track of people, their emails, the date their story is due, who the story is for and so on. Keep it simple and updated!
- Send out short and cheerful reminders every week to participants
- As the final date draws near, send out emails to ask for the stories.
- Get the website for the stories ready. An easy trick is to format the stories and put them up but with the names changed slightly, e.g. testXena&theDragon.html, so that on the date, you can just change all the names and launch the website.
- The best challenge websites have comment forms at the end of the stories so people can immediately and easily leave feedback. Livejournal and other popular blog platforms have this built in.
- Publish the website! Email everyone involved, and notify the communities you first posted in.
- Say thanks to everyone, and start planning your next challenge!
When you write a story for a challenge:
- Read the challenge FAQ first!
- If the story has a recipient, check out their blog or LJ and read their stories to get an idea of what they like.
- Read up on the fandom if it's unfamiliar. Go to the book, film or tv show and read the stories (delicious.com/tag/fandomname is a great way to find popular stories)
- Read the fandom challenge again. If the recipient has asked for schmoopy Ron/Draco with reindeer, then don't write a Harry/Snape tragedy where Ron and Draco pop up in Molly Weasley's handknit Christmas sweaters for a single scene.
- Send it to your organiser in the format they asked for - as an attachment or plain text.
- If you send it a few days before the challenge ends, you will be their favourite!
- Wait until the challenge has been launched and then post a link to your story on your own blog or website.
- An email to the organiser to thank them for their work is really lovely!
Dear Mary Sue, I wrote a wonderful story and the recipient never thanked me!
Go ahead and grouse and complain to your heart's content as long as you do it privately. Your recipient might have been run over by a truck or simply be very badly mannered. That doesn't make it okay for you to whine in public. And be super careful about friendslocked posts or email whining - emails and posts can be forwarded!
You can also send a short polite email to the recipient saying 'Hi, I hope you got the story I wrote for you in the 2008 Mary Sue challenge. The link is at..... Thanks, Miss Smarty Pants.'
Dear Mary Sue,
I worked my butt off for this challenge but it just fizzled out. Can I still post my story?
Sure! Just don't bitch about the challenge. You might mention it ('This story was written for the 2008 Mary Sue challenge') but be classy. If a couple of other people also took part, you can add links to each others stories to be extra-awesome.
When you receive a story for a challenge:
- Thank the author as soon as possible. A great way to do it is to send one very short email immediately, then re-read the story and send them a long detailed email. That way, if you flake out between emails, they'll still know the most important thing: You got it and you appreciate it.
- Thank the challenge organisers and your story writer publicly in your blog or LJ if you have one. Link to the story and the challenge.
Dear Mary Sue, The story that was written for me was terrible! It wasn't what I asked for, it was badly written and I hated it. What should I say?
This is up there with soap on a rope. And just like Uncle Bernie, you still have to grit your teeth and write a short thank you note. Say how much you appreciate their work and find a single detail (their spelling! the way they described glistening cerulean tears!) and say you noticed - if you can stretch it, you liked - that.
Most of all, don't mock the writer in public, or even semi-public. That's what IMing is for!
Other great challenges:
- 14 Valentines
- Nanowrimo
- Make the yuletide gay
- We invented the remix
- The Dead Letter Office
- I Saw Three Ships
- Bandom Big Bang
- Secret Slasha
- Supernatural and J-Squared Big Band
- And a long list of Seasonal challenges
And some more advice on challenges from the trenches!
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