Explanation/how-this-is-all-going-to-work post! This should, hopefully, make the ficathon seem relatively organised instead of horribly chaotic. You’ll almost definitely have to read the whole thing to understand what’s going on, though, so you can get your tl;dr gifs ready now (or tl;cr gifs, if you’re a Scott fan).
1. PROMPT SUBMISSION
Prompt submission will open on Saturday at 4 PM EST/9 PM GMT, and will be open until Monday at the same time. Basically, there’ll be a “prompt submission” post, with comments screened, and submittees (shush, that’s totally a real word) will comment with their prompt. Anyone can submit prompts - regardless of whether they’re writing for the ficathon. Also, the same person is allowed to submit more than one prompt.
2. SIGN-UPS/ALLOCATED PROMPTS
The sign-ups post is going to go up at the same time as the prompt submission post, but it’ll be open for a day longer. (So until Tuesday at 4 PM EST/9 PM GMT... just in case anyone needed that clarified.) Here people will fill out the short form provided in the post, listing what characters they’re willing to write about, whether they prefer AU or non-AU, what ratings they can write, etc. Comments in this post will also be screened. After closing the post, we will reply to each comment with the prompt which we think fits the commenter’s requirements best.
EDIT: As screened comments can’t be replied to without being unscreened, but Molly was too stupid to figure that one out at first, the prompts will now be emailed to everyone who signs up instead of being a reply to the comment. Sorry about that.
3. LEFTOVER PROMPTS
It seems fairly likely that we’ll receive more prompt than we will sign-ups. So what we’re going to do is have a ‘leftover prompts’ post, listing all the prompts which nobody is filling. This will be posted as soon as the other prompts have been allocated, and will not be closed until the ficathon deadline. Comments on this post, too, will be screened, and anyone can comment to claim a prompt (we’ll reply to you to confirm that you’ve got your prompt, and cross it off the list) at any point. If anyone decides that they can’t do the prompt which they were allocated, they should contact us telling us so, and then we can add their prompt to this list.
4. DISCUSSION POSTS
A discussion post will go up every Friday during the ficathon. Obviously, taking part in this isn’t compulsory. But if anyone wants to talk about the fic they’re writing, or ask questions about characterisation, or share excerpts... anything like that can be done in this post. Also, posts in the community aren’t moderated, and anyone taking part in the ficathon is free to post anything fic-related throughout the month. This isn’t about getting your prompt and then hiding yourself away to write in private; it’s supposed to be an everyone-encourages-everyone-else type of thing.
5. DEADLINE & SUBMISSION WINDOW
The deadline for the ficathon is the 6th of September, which means that, ideally, you should have finished your fic by then. However, we’ll then have a two-week period for writers to post their fics in, so if you aren’t quite done then you have that time to finish off. We’ll post a couple of notices when the deadline’s coming up, anyway, to remind anyone who might be in danger of forgetting. (We’ll have a post with the form for posting fic to the community, of the author/pairing/rating/lj-cut-with-writing-under variety, a day or so before the deadline.)
6. OPTIONAL ANONYMITY
If, for whatever reason, you don’t feel comfortable about people knowing that you’re the writer of your fic, you can do the whole thing anonymously. Comments will be screened on the prompts submission post, the sign-ups post, and the leftover prompts post; anonymous commenting will be turned on for the discussion posts; if you send us your fic, via direct message or e-mail, we’ll post it for you on one of our accounts. (You will have to submit it before the deadline if you want this to happen, though.)
7. CONTACTING US
Direct message: This account (
aificathon),
mollying,
wutendeskind E-mail:
marblz333@yahoo.co.uk or
o.ordonez@mac.com AIM: rustyohaus or aweakpretence
If you have any further questions, please do contact us and ask them. And... I think that’s it. Happy ficathon-ing, everyone!