Prospective participants list for Bang*Bang no.35

[ladysisyphus]

This is a signup for the February 20 issue; the text deadline for the issue is Tuesday, February 14, and the art deadline is Saturday, February 18. Please comment here if you plan to submit a story or artwork for this issue. Artists should specify whether you're submitting a standalone piece, offering to illustrate a story, or doing both. Artists offering to illustrate should provide either links to or thumbnails of past works as examples of style; writers wishing to collaborate with artists (or artists wishing to collaborate with writers) should respond directly to comments to this post. As always, you don't have to sign up to participate, and you're not creating an unbreakable contract by signing up, but throwing your name into the hat is always a good way to get that creative impulse going! Signups for the beta reader pool will be in an upcoming post.

The theme for this issue is HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD: I'd like to thank the Academy....

I know there are many of you who see this theme and think RPS. (If you don't know what RPS is, feel free to skip this paragraph.) Frankly, that's some of what we were thinking when we thought it up. However, all submissions to SSB*B must be original fiction. Of course, this does not preclude characters that just happen to resemble real people, down to many of the unique circumstances of their lives. But the way to do original fiction from that point and make it look like you're not just playing cheap paper dolls with find-and-replaced names is to change something. Humans aren't fictional characters, and not everything that happens in a person's life fits neatly into a plot narrative -- so feel free start from an inspirational source, but don't let that source define what you do with the characters or the story.

This of course does not preclude the occasional cameos and/or supporting roles filled by real persons wearing their real names, as discussed in the signup for the Historical Romance issue. But the point in the larger story is to show off how good you are with an original story. Besides, given the various geography, pop culture exposure, and life stages of readers here, you can never be 100% sure that anyone will recognize any real-life inspiration -- and just as each individual story in an issue must be able to be understood without a reader's having read any other story in any other issue, so must they be able to be understood without a reader's coming in armed already with specific pop culture/historical knowledge.

• Submissions guidelines for writers: All the specifics for text submissions. READ BEFORE SUBMITTING.
• Writing aids and standards: Here are writing resources to make sure your story doesn't fall afoul of the thirty minute rule.
• Submissions guidelines for artists: Whether you're illustrating or submitting a standalone piece, if you're hoping to get your thousand words done with a picture, here's what you need to know.

A small, repeated plea from your editors: use Google Docs. It's not mandatory, and we'll still accept submissions in any form in which we can read them, but please, it makes editing, sharing, and collaborating just that much easier -- and ensures submissions won't be lost in the spam folder. And speaking of that spam folder, if you're going to send us an email for any reason, please take a minute to make sure the subject line and body have enough unique text that they won't trip Google's overactive spam filter; if you don't hear a reply from us in a few days, best to change up your wording and try again.

Also! Please double-check to make sure you have smart quotes turned off. Google Docs' recent redesigns have turned that option back on for many people without their knowng it, and that's terrible.

Please remember also to add yourself as a member of the bb_shousetsu community if you're writing or illustrating, as many admin announcements and past entries are locked to members only. For open discussion on any SSBB-related topic, start a thread at bangbangwhimper. For related nonsense and goings-on, come hang out on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, DeviantArt, and y!gallery!

And one more plug for our social media and theme suggestion poll, because we'd like to get as much input on that as we can!



Prospective writers
beeblebabe
clover71
dalmasca
degrees
drmoonpants
jayellebee
jestana
ladysisyphus
mewenn
olukemi
peripheralsight
straighttieguy
unearthly_calm

Prospective standalone (only) artists:

Illustrators offering services:
erli ( link)
hybridcritter ( link)
leadengine ( link)
neomeruru ( link)
olukemi ( link)
r_a_parker ( link)
ruins_of_sodom ( link)