A New Game: The Million-Word Fanfic Challenge
Now that I've finished my final fic bingo card of the year, I am ready to introduce the new game that I will be playing in 2023.
I enjoyed fic bingo. I liked being challenged to read fics I would not have otherwise in order to cover all the letters, and I liked sharing my feelings about what I read. Yet there were a few things that I disliked. The principle one was that fic bingo discouraged me from reading fics, particularly long ones, that started with a letter already filled on my bingo card. Another was that it made me less likely to read short fics, because I wanted to boost the total words for each bingo round. A third, minor one is that I was discouraged from reading fics starting with numerals. (I also found that I spent too much time choosing and tweaking the images to represent each fic on my bingo card, but that is not an inherent flaw in fic bingo, but rather in how I chose to play it.)
My new game, the Million-Word Fanfic Challenge, is designed to correct these issues while preserving the good features of fic bingo. In this game, the object is to read one million words of fanfic across all fandoms while fulfilling minimum word counts for each letter. The minimums only add up to 375,000 words, however, so there is lots of room to read extra fics for any letter.
I hope some others might enjoy playing this game, too. Feel free to share this post with anyone you think might be interested. Happy New Year!
How to Play:
Each fic is worth a number of points based on its word count. To find the point value, divide the word count by 1000, and take the integer part of the result. (So, 1,205 words yields 1 point and 45,934 words yields 45 points. Fics under 1000 words do not count toward the total.) The goal of the game is to reach 1000 points while satisfying the following minimum point totals for each letter:
Letters other than Q, X, and Z: 15 points
Q: 10 points
Z: 10 points
X: 5 points
Any numeral or non-letter symbol: 5 points
During the game, participants make posts in their journals to track their progress and share what they have read with others.
That's all there is to it, at root, but I've also created a board for keeping track of points. Or rather, two boards:
Each square represents one point. They can be filled in as points are accrued, and the board can be posted as part of journal updates. I plan to use different fill colors for different fandoms and types of fandoms:
Green for The Professionals (one of my major fandoms)
Blue for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (my other major fandom)
Yellow for other TV and movie fandoms
Red for book fandoms
Purple for anything else
I also plan to write the initial letter of the fic in the squares that represent it. Here is a sample:
Neither using the boards at all nor using them as I plan to is necessary to play the game, however. Players are free to find their own ways to keep track of their points.
That's all. Read fanfic, be happy.
I enjoyed fic bingo. I liked being challenged to read fics I would not have otherwise in order to cover all the letters, and I liked sharing my feelings about what I read. Yet there were a few things that I disliked. The principle one was that fic bingo discouraged me from reading fics, particularly long ones, that started with a letter already filled on my bingo card. Another was that it made me less likely to read short fics, because I wanted to boost the total words for each bingo round. A third, minor one is that I was discouraged from reading fics starting with numerals. (I also found that I spent too much time choosing and tweaking the images to represent each fic on my bingo card, but that is not an inherent flaw in fic bingo, but rather in how I chose to play it.)
My new game, the Million-Word Fanfic Challenge, is designed to correct these issues while preserving the good features of fic bingo. In this game, the object is to read one million words of fanfic across all fandoms while fulfilling minimum word counts for each letter. The minimums only add up to 375,000 words, however, so there is lots of room to read extra fics for any letter.
I hope some others might enjoy playing this game, too. Feel free to share this post with anyone you think might be interested. Happy New Year!
How to Play:
Each fic is worth a number of points based on its word count. To find the point value, divide the word count by 1000, and take the integer part of the result. (So, 1,205 words yields 1 point and 45,934 words yields 45 points. Fics under 1000 words do not count toward the total.) The goal of the game is to reach 1000 points while satisfying the following minimum point totals for each letter:
Letters other than Q, X, and Z: 15 points
Q: 10 points
Z: 10 points
X: 5 points
Any numeral or non-letter symbol: 5 points
During the game, participants make posts in their journals to track their progress and share what they have read with others.
That's all there is to it, at root, but I've also created a board for keeping track of points. Or rather, two boards:
Each square represents one point. They can be filled in as points are accrued, and the board can be posted as part of journal updates. I plan to use different fill colors for different fandoms and types of fandoms:
Green for The Professionals (one of my major fandoms)
Blue for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (my other major fandom)
Yellow for other TV and movie fandoms
Red for book fandoms
Purple for anything else
I also plan to write the initial letter of the fic in the squares that represent it. Here is a sample:
Neither using the boards at all nor using them as I plan to is necessary to play the game, however. Players are free to find their own ways to keep track of their points.
That's all. Read fanfic, be happy.