Prompt Time 2016! Prompt Time 2016! Prompt Time 2016! Prompt Time 2016! Prompt Time 2016!
Well, it is that time of year again, the time that we throw out as many prompt suggestions as possible. This post is to collect prompt ideas and allow everyone to view and think about them.
We will give ourselves until 11:59PM (or, really, the end of the day) on Sunday, April 3rd to suggest and collect prompts. At that point, we will give ourselves another week or so, to discuss (if necessary, though it's not really come to that before) and vote (or, rather, choose) the prompts we like. Yes, this does sound early, but in the past we've found that getting this out of the way is helpful. Also, it gives us longer to create the actual prompt table post which can be a coding nightmare.
A quick overview of how prompts work:
1) Prompts generally work around the theme, but they also expand it. This year our theme is: "There's a Time and Place for Everything," so prompts should focus on the ideas of place or time. In a perfect world, a prompt might go both ways, but, clearly, that is not always possible. And, as we discussed earlier, the best prompts are those that can be interpreted in more than one way. Perhaps as you go along, you can can think about multiple ways each prompt could be taken.
2) This year, as in most years past, there will be three types of prompts. This gives the participants the widest-range possible of options, and, as we know, people are inspired my many different things. The three types are:
A) Word-based: these are quotations, passages from literature, poem fragments, etc. Traditionally, there are the greatest number of these, as they tend to be quite popular, but that might be a little different this year.
B) Picture-based: these are photographs and other visual images. These tend to be popular, too - perhaps with the writers more than the artists. One thing to keep in mind here is copyright law. In general, this is not an issue but, theoretically, it could be if the wrong person came along and had issues with the use of the art. One way to get around this is to credit the artists/photographer when necessary.
C) Audio-visual prompts: These are, unsurprisingly, songs and videos. It should be noted that it seems easiest to embed actual videos of songs so if you have a song in mind, you might search for a You Tube video of it. If you don't want to cloud the issue of the song by images, there are usually videos available that only feature the lyrics or maybe pictures of the artist. Traditionally, we need fewest of these type prompts, but they can be the most fun. NOTE: In past years this post has become a little overwhelmed by the various embedded videos, so please feel free to link, too.
3) We are looking for a wide variety of prompts that have appeal to a wide variety of participants. This means that we need prompts that inspire art as well as story and could lead to a wide variety of genres (humor, romance, angst, adventure, hurt-comfort, smut, AU, non-magic AU, crack!fic, and everything in between). Strange as it may sound, we need to think of the possible outcome when we consider the prompt. For the sake of the readers, we want to avoid a plethora of story retellings and stories than all have the same tone and feel. And we want to give participants the chance to create anything they want to regardless of the theme of the Games. This also means that good prompts should be accessible participants regardless of age, gender, religion, educational level, ethnic background, nationality, socio-economic status, etc. Obviously, not every prompt can appeal to every person, but it is something to keep in mind when we eventually choose the ones we want to use. Also, this year please keep in mind that there will be a Team Time and Team Place, so please keep that in mind, too. In fact, if a prompt only fits one Team, you might want to indicate that: (Time), etc. We did the year we did "Seasons" and that really helped.
4) In the past we have found that the best prompts are the most open-ended. In other words, prompts that seem vague seem to be the most popular and lend themselves to the widest variety of options. (For example, one year, choices like the picture of a foggy road at sunrise or the Proclaimers' song 500 Miles or this quotation: It is not down in any map; true places never are. ~ Herman Melville, were often chosen and seemed to create great works.) Prompts that are too specific can be problematic in that sometimes a participant chooses it because they love it at first, but the inspiration doesn't come in the end. That leads to negative things like dropping the fest, creating something half-assed, or just general unhappiness and frustration. Also, we've found in the past that sometimes prompts that are too specific lead to the same thing over and over again and that gets boring for the readers. Remember, submit anything you want, but keep in mind what might lead to a variety of interpretations.
5) The more choices we give ourselves, the better it is in the end. If, as in years past, we have around 70 initial participants, we will want at least 40 prompts. This leads to a wide variety of works. If we have too few prompts it leads to too much of the same thing over and over and it gets boring for the reader/viewer.
Below you will find three main comments to this post: one for word-based prompts, one for picture-based prompts, and one for audio-visual prompts. All you have to do is respond to each comment with your own comment (or comments) containing each prompt. It helps if you number them because that makes the voting/choosing part easier. You may list your prompts all in one post or over many posts, but please keep your numbering consistent and consecutive. In other words, when doing picture prompts, start with #1 and keep going from there. Even if you make seven different picture prompt posts, keep numbering as if it were one post. And, if you can, please indicate if the prompt is Tome or Place or both. Also, please just number your own and don't worry about anyone else's numbers. This makes it far easier to keep track of in the end, for we can refer to things as "Pica #7" or "Cackles #2" or "Whitestar #13." Still confused? Please look at previous years posts.
We will give ourselves until 11:59PM (or, really, the end of the day) on Sunday, April 3rd to suggest and collect prompts. At that point, we will give ourselves another week or so, to discuss (if necessary, though it's not really come to that before) and vote (or, rather, choose) the prompts we like. Yes, this does sound early, but in the past we've found that getting this out of the way is helpful. Also, it gives us longer to create the actual prompt table post which can be a coding nightmare.
A quick overview of how prompts work:
1) Prompts generally work around the theme, but they also expand it. This year our theme is: "There's a Time and Place for Everything," so prompts should focus on the ideas of place or time. In a perfect world, a prompt might go both ways, but, clearly, that is not always possible. And, as we discussed earlier, the best prompts are those that can be interpreted in more than one way. Perhaps as you go along, you can can think about multiple ways each prompt could be taken.
2) This year, as in most years past, there will be three types of prompts. This gives the participants the widest-range possible of options, and, as we know, people are inspired my many different things. The three types are:
A) Word-based: these are quotations, passages from literature, poem fragments, etc. Traditionally, there are the greatest number of these, as they tend to be quite popular, but that might be a little different this year.
B) Picture-based: these are photographs and other visual images. These tend to be popular, too - perhaps with the writers more than the artists. One thing to keep in mind here is copyright law. In general, this is not an issue but, theoretically, it could be if the wrong person came along and had issues with the use of the art. One way to get around this is to credit the artists/photographer when necessary.
C) Audio-visual prompts: These are, unsurprisingly, songs and videos. It should be noted that it seems easiest to embed actual videos of songs so if you have a song in mind, you might search for a You Tube video of it. If you don't want to cloud the issue of the song by images, there are usually videos available that only feature the lyrics or maybe pictures of the artist. Traditionally, we need fewest of these type prompts, but they can be the most fun. NOTE: In past years this post has become a little overwhelmed by the various embedded videos, so please feel free to link, too.
3) We are looking for a wide variety of prompts that have appeal to a wide variety of participants. This means that we need prompts that inspire art as well as story and could lead to a wide variety of genres (humor, romance, angst, adventure, hurt-comfort, smut, AU, non-magic AU, crack!fic, and everything in between). Strange as it may sound, we need to think of the possible outcome when we consider the prompt. For the sake of the readers, we want to avoid a plethora of story retellings and stories than all have the same tone and feel. And we want to give participants the chance to create anything they want to regardless of the theme of the Games. This also means that good prompts should be accessible participants regardless of age, gender, religion, educational level, ethnic background, nationality, socio-economic status, etc. Obviously, not every prompt can appeal to every person, but it is something to keep in mind when we eventually choose the ones we want to use. Also, this year please keep in mind that there will be a Team Time and Team Place, so please keep that in mind, too. In fact, if a prompt only fits one Team, you might want to indicate that: (Time), etc. We did the year we did "Seasons" and that really helped.
4) In the past we have found that the best prompts are the most open-ended. In other words, prompts that seem vague seem to be the most popular and lend themselves to the widest variety of options. (For example, one year, choices like the picture of a foggy road at sunrise or the Proclaimers' song 500 Miles or this quotation: It is not down in any map; true places never are. ~ Herman Melville, were often chosen and seemed to create great works.) Prompts that are too specific can be problematic in that sometimes a participant chooses it because they love it at first, but the inspiration doesn't come in the end. That leads to negative things like dropping the fest, creating something half-assed, or just general unhappiness and frustration. Also, we've found in the past that sometimes prompts that are too specific lead to the same thing over and over again and that gets boring for the readers. Remember, submit anything you want, but keep in mind what might lead to a variety of interpretations.
5) The more choices we give ourselves, the better it is in the end. If, as in years past, we have around 70 initial participants, we will want at least 40 prompts. This leads to a wide variety of works. If we have too few prompts it leads to too much of the same thing over and over and it gets boring for the reader/viewer.
Below you will find three main comments to this post: one for word-based prompts, one for picture-based prompts, and one for audio-visual prompts. All you have to do is respond to each comment with your own comment (or comments) containing each prompt. It helps if you number them because that makes the voting/choosing part easier. You may list your prompts all in one post or over many posts, but please keep your numbering consistent and consecutive. In other words, when doing picture prompts, start with #1 and keep going from there. Even if you make seven different picture prompt posts, keep numbering as if it were one post. And, if you can, please indicate if the prompt is Tome or Place or both. Also, please just number your own and don't worry about anyone else's numbers. This makes it far easier to keep track of in the end, for we can refer to things as "Pica #7" or "Cackles #2" or "Whitestar #13." Still confused? Please look at previous years posts.