Rules, Timeline & FAQ

[00q_bb_mod]

This information is also in the user profile. Please refer to the profile for the most up-to-date version.

00Q BIGBANG INFO00q_bb is a fanfiction+fanart collab fest for James Bond & Q, whether as in a romantic and/or sexual relationship or merely as the central characters.

The fest is going to run simultaneously here on LJ and on tumblr. While the writing and arting period is on, there will be a series of small happenings both on the comm and on tumblr, with the first one being the friending meme. These things aren't "participants only" but are open to everyone.

SCHEDULE OF AWESOME THINGS
DECEMBER:
friending meme

JANUARY:
fic & art rec party

FEBRUARY:
drabble/drawble challenge

MARCH:
squee post of squee

APRIL:
drabble/drawble challenge #2

MAY:
headcanon discussions

JUNE:
word wars & pencil races

JULY:
????
TIMELINESIGN-UPS
February
Writers, artists, betas and cheerleaders sign up during February. Writers can start writing as soon as they've signed up. On March 1st I will collect the names of all participants and post a list.
Artists, betas and cheerleaders can continue to sign up after the sign-up period has ended, as we can always use more cheerleaders and the real work for artists and betas doesn't start until after the claiming period.

CLAIMING
May 1st
By May 1st all authors should have submitted a rough draft that meets the draft word count to me. I will post an overview over the stories that have been submitted - and then the artists claim the story they would like to illustrate/work with. The claiming period will be open for as long as there are still stories left to claim, but it should be no longer than a week.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE
July 1st
All writers and all artists are due to have finished their works by this date. Writers and artists will post their work in their own archive (for example livejournal, dreamwidth, insanejournal, etc., or to the collection at AO3) and submit the links + a filled out header to me. It is imperative that the posts must be locked. If the work has been posted to the collection at AO3 the work will automatically be hidden to be revealed later. If you post to the challenge at AO3 you don't need to send me the links as I'll have them automatically, but I will still need the header.
Artists can also post to AO3.

POSTING
August 1st
On the agreed upon date, authors and artists unlock the posts containing their work. I will post a masterpost with the links to the story and the accompanying artwork on both the comm and on tumblr. If posted to AO3, I will reveal the work and the writer/artist will not have to do anything.RULESWRITERS
Completed stories must be a minimum of 15,000 words. A bigbang is meant be challenging and you will have five months to complete your fic. There is no loft for how long your fic can be; it only has to meet the minimum word count.
Your fic must be an independent story written specifically for the 00Q bigbang and can't therefore be a sequel to an existing fic or a part of an existing wip that has been posted online. If you have an unposted wip on your harddrive that you think would be perfect for this bigbang, that's of course all right.
Your rough draft must be 10,000 words by the draft submission deadline. I will put the draft through a word count check once it has been submitted to me, to ensure that it is indeed 10,000 words. If you have trouble meeting this goal, please contact me (pm, tumblr ask, 00qbang at gmail dot com) and we'll make a deal. The draft will be emailed to the artist who chooses your fic to illustrate. It is expected that the writer and artist will co-operate during the remainder of the fest as it can be expected that changes will occur in the fic. Please keep your artists up to date on what is happening with your fic, so that they can work with the changes.

This is a 00Q bigbang; this means that your story must centre around Bond/Q, and/or Bond and/or Q as the central characters. If your fic has a sidepairing/background pairing of Bond/Silva or Q/Mallory (or whatever), that's acceptable so long as the central characters are Bond and/or Q.

ARTISTS
All types of art is acceptable for this challenge. This means: digital art, traditional art, podfics (this would be tough, but if you're up for the challenge...I'm certainly not saying no), knitted items, fanvideos/trailers, fanmixes, graphics, etc. There are loads of artforms out there and they are all acceptable.
However, a bigbang should be challenging for the artists as well, so please do put an appropriate amount of work into your art. This definition of course varies, but as a rule of thumb your drawings should not look like a half hour sketch. Artists have two months to complete their art.

EVERYONE
Common for everyone is that extensions will be given on a case by case basis. There will be regular check-ins for the purpose of getting a feel for how things are coming along. If you need to drop out, please contact me as soon as possible. There will be no repercussions for dropping out, I just need to know so that I can find a pinch-hitter or figure something else out.

All works must be betaed. This means that fics must've been read over by a beta reader and art must've been looked over by an art beta.

This is the header the drafts should be outfitted with. If you choose to post your work to livejournal or other archive where using a pre-defined header is the norm, please use the following header.

Title:
Author/Artist:
Rating:
Pairing/characters: (if you have any secondary pairings, you should list them also)
Warnings/content: Highlight to read *YOUR WARNINGS HERE*
Medium/Word count:
Summary:
Notes:
Disclaimer:
FAQWHAT IS A BIGBANG?
A bigbang (originally Big Bang) is a fic and art fest geared towards creating long fics with art. The first bigbang was created in 2005 in the Harry/Draco fandom with Big Bang, Baby! (which, if you’re in the H/D fandom, you should definitely check out. There’s some really amazing fic and art in there, in all three challenges. There's a newer one, Big Bang: Erised, which is hosted elsewhere.) The minimum word count for the first BBB was 50k (which became the norm for that challenge) and all the fic and art went live on one day, on a designated website. Other bigbangs exist, such as Supernova, where the word count limit is 100k.
From the H/D fandom the bigbang concept spread to other fandoms - the misconception being that a bigbang was named for the “explosion” of fics and art, while the original idea had been “the explosion of sparks between Harry and Draco after years of UST” or something to that effect.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Bigbang practises vary from fandom to fandom, and even within fandom. The general concept is the same; A bunch of writers sign up and write a long story and artists illustrate the stories.
The minimum word count is generally decided by the mods with basis in what the fandom is like; if there’s a propensity for a lot of long works in the fandom, then the word count is higher, if it’s the opposite - well, then the word count is lower. A general rule is that a bigbang is 1) a challenge but also 2) manageable. In a fandom where the tendency is towards shorter fic, it's political suicide to host challenges where the minimum word count is 50k.

More specifically about how a bigbang works: At a decided due date, the writers hand in their drafts. The writers usually have to meet a certain word count by the draft deadline. It isn’t until the writers hand in the draft that they are 100% signed up for the challenge; by handing in the draft they are agreeing to complete the fic for the challenge. It’s a security measure, as the artists will, after the draft deadline, pick the story (or stories) they want to illustrate and as such the writers aren’t “permitted” to drop out, in order to not leave the artist hanging with a bunch of artwork and no story to go along with it. There’s a final deadline for both artists and writers to have completed their works. After this deadline, posting starts. There’s usually a grace period between the deadline and the start of posting, to allow the mods to find pinch hitters in case an artist drops out. It’s pretty impossible to find fic-pinch hitters in that short a timeframe, so if a writer drops out, the mods will usually ask the artist paired with the fic if they want their art showcased specially.

Whether the fic and art goes live in one day or is posted throughout a designated posting period is something that varies from fandom to fandom. Posting practises also vary: for some bigbangs all the writers and artists are required to submit their works and the mods then post everything, either in one place on one day, or in one place over several days, while for other bigbangs, the mods ask the writers and artists to post their works in their preferred archives and link to them in a masterpost in the community.

OK, BUT HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DO IT?
Read the rules above! No seriously. Read the rules & timeline. If you still have questions, please ask - though everything should be covered already.

CAN I SIGN UP AS A BETA?
YES YOU CAN. I would love for you to sign up as a beta and as a matter of fact, you can go right over here and sign up.

WHAT'S THIS CHEERLEADING THING?
Ahaha, that's a silly term I picked up from a friend who's running nextgenbigbang at the moment. Cheerleaders are people who want to participate in the fest actively, but don't want to write or make art. So they offer their cheerleading services and cheer for the rest of us. :D

CAN I TAKE PART IN THE DRABBLE/DRAWBLE CHALLENGES EVEN IF I'M NOT TAKING PART IN THE BIGBANG?
YES YOU CAN. The activities on the list of Awesome Things are open for everyone. You don't need to be signed up for the bigbang in order to take part. Some of the challenges are somewhat geared towards the participants in that they are supposed to shake up the muses and maybe even break people out of art and writerblocks, if needed. But these activites are also meant to be community-strengthening; everyone can take part. Perhaps you'll even make a few new friends while doing so.