life is a single skip for joy

Hahaha, Trey. No, this is strictly a fic-writing extravaganza on eljay.

From:

halfdutch.livejournal.com

Well, (and this may all well be stuff you know, so if so, please skip): general ficathon advice is that you can go about it two ways: Solicit prompts and post a list from which people can then pick one to write. Or you can ask people to put in requests and what they're willing to write (pairings, ratings, etc.) and then match up requests to requesters. It's a lot more work that way, of course! I hosted one ficathon and about 2/3 of the fics got written, which I think is fairly typical. I think more people write if it's for someone else than if it's just something they signed up for.

Anyway, as far as getting people interested, I'd just pimp it around the appropriate comms and hopefully like-minded folks will come out of the er, woodwork!

From:

I've participated in exactly one ficathon which resulted in my very first Supernatural fic actually. (Of which, there are surprisingly only two!)

The way it was done was you chose a number and based on that number were given a pre-selected prompt. And then you could write anything based on that prompt in any of the fandoms. (It was a multi-fandom ficathon.)

I was thinking of suggesting we set it up that way, and letting whomever choose whatever pairings that they wish and write a fic of any length, from drabbles to epics based on/inspired by their given prompt. Because I really don't want to limit people to pairings, etc. Leave all that up to them. I think they may be more willing to write that way.

It's a lot to think about and I definitely appreciate your suggestions!

From:

spikeyboots.livejournal.com

Mmm. I'm not much good with knowing where to point you... but I was interested... will it just be slash, or femmeslash as well?

From:

Ah, actually, no. I don't want to exclude anyone, but our whole idea for the 'thon came from the fact that there is very little m/m slash in the bsg fandom. It's practically non-existant. There is far more femmeslash. And I think that's kind of an understatement haha! So, no, we wouldn't be including femmeslash.

From:

gregoria44.livejournal.com

Hiya you! Sorry I've not been in touch much, I've not seen Battlestar G so your fics have been passing me by, though I just know they're great!

If it's any use to you, have you checked out

slashfest at all? It's multifandom, but it might give you some pointers. They're VERY friendly folks, or so I have always found.

Wish you luck with it, whichever way!

*hugs*

From:

Oh thank you!

And yeah, me too. Distractions, distractions. You really should watch BSG. *loves it*

I actually wrote some Jawyercita recently. I can't remember if you read those of mine.

Anyway! Glad to see you popping by I will DEFINITELY check out that comm.

From:

slybrunette.livejournal.com

I've seen fandom specific ficathons. I've seen non-specific-fandom femmeslash-a-thons. Never seen fandom specific slash-a-thons. So I'm just of no help.

From:

Aw, you're a help. I don't know what kind yet, but I'm sure you are!

From:

slybrunette.livejournal.com

I'm glad someone thinks so :)

Unrelated sidenote: I got your card and LOVED it. But the thing I meant to bring up was the girl on the cover. She had on red shiny ornaments for earrings. Guess what kind of earrings I was wearing? It was just too funny, so I wanted to tell you that.

From:

Hee! That is a cute coincidence!

From:

You mind if I make the same inquiry of my flist...and send them here, so we have the advice in one place? (It's okay if you think that's weird. Just say so.)

Life is beyond crazy right now with school, but I'll try to keep this kind of logistical pondering on a productive back burner. Thanks for putting things in motion, at least in terms of thinking/planning.

I know we haven't discussed this very much yet, but I'm perfectly happy to do most of the nit-picky stuff if we get this thing off the ground (anal administrative crap=♥). Just thought I'd throw that out there. ;)

From:

No that's totally cool! Link away! I'm excited to get the thing off the ground! And no worries, slow and steady wins the race as they say.

From:

(here via

cynthia_arrow's post)

Heh, clearly I hang out with a completely different set than you guys, as it seems like me and my posse are making slashy BSG jokes all the time (tho I must admit, there is far more joking around and "SUBTEXT ALERT!!" type discussion than the production of actual fic). As far as I can tell, the most popular pairings fandom-wide seem to be Anders/Lee, Tigh/Adama, and...well, do I really need to say the last one? *jerks thumb at icon* (It's like, one inappropriate bathroom stall encouter away from canon. OH WAIT, THAT ALREADY HAPPENED.)

On a more serious note, I would love to participate in such a ficathon (because like I need more excuses to write the boy-touching). As far as things in general go, I second

halfdutch's comment, and especially the part about assigning prompts making for a more effective go (at least, I know *I* feel way more motivated when I know there's actually someone waiting for my submission specifically).
I don't have any experience or anything, but if you feel overwhelmed by the workload possibilities and would like an extra hand, I would be willing to volunteer somehow. I dunno, for modding or helping organize submissions or whatever. Just in cases. I really like slash.

From:

Yes, it's looking like the consensus is that structure is better--assigning prompts or having people write for others. That makes sense, since it means people have more impetus to finish.

Although, how do you get away from people getting stressed out over deadlines and assignments and whatnot? (Perhaps I've been scarred by the stress-fest that is the Lost Luau, which, God love our fandom, is fun...but people give themselves ulcers over what they percieve as their responsibilities.) That's why my inclination is to leave things open with a prompt and pick your own pairing, but yet the idea of an exchange sounds lovely, too...

GAH. Sorry for the ramble. Thanks ever so much for your input, especially from the Baltar/Gaeta corner of BSG fandom, which is probably the only slash stronghold we have, LOL. :)

From:

Sadly, with this kind of thing there are certain inalienable truths one must accept: some people will freak out, some people will beg for extensions, and some people will never complete their fics at all. You just have to do what you can and hope for the best.

My suggestion is to pick a deadline not too close or two far: too close and obviously more people will stress out and/or just not have the time, but too far and they possibly might forget or get into the trap (of which I know all too well) of thinking they have more time than they really do. A month or maybe two from the time you post the prompts ought to do it.

From:

Yeah we were thinking, a month to write and a month for posting so that essentially gives them two months to write if they need it.

From:

Hi! Thank you so much for the input!

I totally see the Tigh/Adama thing, although I don't know that I've seen any of the fic for it haha. And yes, Gaeta/Baltar. That's probably one of the only slash pairings I see consistently. Or at all should I say.

I'm getting what you guys are saying about a request-driven 'thon, though my concern is logistics. That's not to say I wouldn't know how to set it up, but would there be enough prompters/requesters? And would there be enough writers willing to write each request? Maybe somebody really wants to see some hardcore NC17 Tigh/Crashdown smut? How many of our (probably limited) writers would be willing to write that?

That's my number one concern with participator initiated requests/prompts. I don't want anybody to leave empty-handed, and I don't want anybody to feel forced to write a pairing/situation they have no interest or desire to write.

I think you're right though, in an ideal setting, that would work best, but our pool is so small, it might just backfire on us.

From:

I see your concerns and, based on fic exchanges and ficathons I've seen past, here are my suggestions:

That's not to say I wouldn't know how to set it up, but would there be enough prompters/requesters?

You could make it a requirement that in order to be a writer, you must also submit a prompt. Ala "yuletide", in a way. That way you are always guaranteed to have exactly as many prompts as writers.
(And, BTW, I'd recommend setting some guidelines for the prompts, like "a pairing and some words", because otherwise you'll get some people who just give you a pairing and nothing to work with, and other people who'll give you an entire outline of a scenario, which might just be me, but always smacked to me of the unfair.)

And would there be enough writers willing to write each request?

Well, there are two ways to work around that: one is to tell people they're going to have to suck it up. The very popular

mctabby Cat's Birthday drabblethon is worked this way. She collects all the prompts and pairs them with users via the highly scientific method of writing them on notecards and letting her cat paw at them, and whoever gets paired with what just has to deal with it. Of course, it's a bit easier in that case, as these only have to drabbles so it's easier to fake it, and it's also for the Harry Potter fandom which, you may be aware, is jackass crazy.
Of course, I understand why you might be a little leery of putting such a restriction down the first time out. But I offer the caveat that you'd be surprised how willing some people can be, and also that if you keep the prompts at only a pairing and some words, at least people are free of having to write hardcore sex for a pairing they're not quite comfortable with (for the aforementioned Drabblethon, my prompt asked for Hagrid/Snape, a pairing I never would have thought of and sure as hell was not going to write a full-on sex scenario for; I had them get drunk and turned it into a humorous innuendo-filled thing which still fulfilled the prompt without breaching my comfort zone).

The second option is to allow people to give a brief list of things they don't want to have to write when they sign up: pairings, characters and/or (depending on how specific the prompts are going to get) certain scenarios/ratings. Of course, this makes prompt matching a little more complex, and also opens the possibility that there will be prompts that can be matched with nobody. I've seen other fic exchanges combat this by asking ahead of time for people to volunteer as back-up writers in case of this eventuality. (really, what I'm noticing looking back over all the advice I've just given is that this really a less-is-more scenario: the less info you allow people to give in prompts, the less things you have to worry about.)

but our pool is so small, it might just backfire on us.

I dunno; again, maybe it's just the corners of fandom I hang out it, but I think you'd be surprised how many people might be eager to do some BSG manslash. I think it might be quite sucessful...if properly pimped, of course :)

From:

First, you need to be pointing me to these corners! LOL.

And secondly, I think you've covered a lot here, and given us a lot to think about. I really don't want to force writers to "suck it up" because I want everybody to have fun. But your ideas of having prompters list options is a good one to get around that. I think we may be going a different route, but you've definitely given us some food for thought! So thank you very much for that.

From:

First, you need to be pointing me to these corners! LOL

About 50% of what I catch is just by crusing the round-ups in

the_wireless, although a good place to go to get bombarded with the slash is

gaeta_squee where, I shit you not, they will pair Gaeta with anything. Seriously. A. Ny. Thing. Right now someone's doing a series with him and that guy from Torchwood. Also, I recommend good buddy

cerebel's fic journal (it's linked in her user info), because she will write pretty much any pairing you can dare her to, and WELL.

I think we may be going a different route, but you've definitely given us some food for thought! So thank you very much for that.

Well, you're very welcome! And I'm looking forward to the ficathon, whenever you get it set up.
(BTW, it seems like we have a lot of common interests, so I friended you ^^;)

From:

lizardbeth-j.livejournal.com

Here via

cynthia_arrow, hi! *waves*

I'm also dismayed at the lack of BSG slash, so I support your effort wholeheartedly. As one of the relative few who's written ANY, I wouldn't mind a ficathon sort of thing. er, after the new year for sure, though.

I have various theories WHY there's so much slash in the fandom, but it's hard to know, though obviously the canon het relationships require more work to get around.

There's been no specifically BSG slash ficathon that I know of, but

inlovewithnight ran the Helo ShAgathon (http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/914180.html) earlier in the year, which produced a handful of slash stories, including mine. It had about 25 participants, which is pretty successful, I think for the size of BSG fandom on lj. As someone said above, if you really want people to finish their fics - making it a gift exchange is really the only way to boost the odds, though it's more work to match prompts.

Your idea of Choose-your-own-pairing with an assigned prompt reminds me of comment porn battles, except with the prompt given rather than chosen. I've never been in a ficathon-thingy that worked that way (and it shocks me, considering the great numbers of ficathons I've done), but I can see that working a bit better than an open grab bag.

And, oh yes, there was an actual question in there wasn't it? "slash-a-thon"? Thinking... Not with that name, I'm pretty sure, but I know of ficathons that are (slash) pairing specific for sure in big fandoms. I have vague memories of a call for a slash-only PotC ficathon, but I'm not sure if it actually happened. Otherwise, since ficathons tend to be request driven, they match the slashers all together.

um, that's probably enough from me. If you have questions, I can try to answer. I'm a charter member of Ficathons Anonymous, so I have lots of experience. :)

From:

Canon is, indeed, a huge problem, especially since in this fandom we seem to be the realistic sort, loving our canon so much we want to write in it...then finding that all our boys are emotionally unavailable or rather shockingly hetero (I can't slash Helo to save my life!). Perhaps there should be some playful element to a slashathon, freeing us from the canon-driven angst and things like, oh, 8s, 6s, and blonde pilots. Who we of course love but who are not conducive to the slash.

Thanks so much for your input! It's also good to know that somebody else is interested in this crazy idea of ours. :)

From:

lizardbeth-j.livejournal.com

yeah, something to free us from those pesky chicks all the guys are in love with! :) Aside from the classics of getting drunk/drugged up or Aliens Made them Do it, it's hard to think of a semi-plausible way to get some pairs of guys together at all.

Maybe you could call it the "Everybody's Gay!" Slashathon. A lot of slash fic is based on that premise anyway, so you could just acknowledge it from the beginning as the AU for the ficathon. :)

From:

Yeah, I think we definitely need to not just encourage AUs but maybe even provide some for people to think about. And the "gay already" AU, in a widespread way or just with particular characters, is probably a lot nicer than the way I killed off Cally so I could slash Anders and Tyrol, LOL.

From:

Hi! Thanks for taking the time to come on over! I haven't really given much thought into the theories about why BSG is so slash-less. There does seem to be a lot of femmeslash, so my mind just boggles. I'd love to hear some of your theories though!

I'm super stoked to see those slash stories over at the heloshagathon! That's definitely encouraging. Though I can see we've got some major plotting to do.

Thanks for our advice! :D

Edited Date: 2007-11-30 04:35 pm (UTC)

From:

lizardbeth-j.livejournal.com

about requests, I've in small ficathons where you have to offer to write and request at least three pairings, and are encouraged not to make your prompt too specific, to make the matching easier. You have to request and offer alternatives, in other words.

Like I couldn't just request Helo/Anders - I'd also have to request, say, Anders/Leoben and Tyrol/Lee. And you can also make a list of main characters and require that at least one pairing to be drawn from that list - so nobody tries to request only Crashdown/Hot Dog and Socinus/Fisk or something odd. Anyway there are ways to set it up to force writers to be a little more open to writing outside their comfort zone, if you want to.

Multiple requests and offers sounds like matching is complicated, but it's really just tedious. Can person A write for person B, yes or no? And go through the list. If someone has no match then you ask them if they can widen their requests or offers and try again. I think you're likely in a small ficathon to have people offer pretty broadly -- I usually offer to write things like Anders/Anyone (so I usually get the weird stuff that's harder to match, but that's what I like doing, so it works out).

From:

I am so embarrassed to say I have no idea who Fisk is. Haha. *hides behind a rock* So yeah I'd have to be pulling up Battlestar Wiki for that one!

Thanks again for your input. We're still working everything out. Just in brainstorming mode at the moment, so we need all the thoughts and advice we can get.

Thanks so much!

From:

frappuccinolove.livejournal.com

Hmmm...I've seen someone doing a crossover-slash between Jack of LOST and Lee of BSG, have you seen that?

Except it wasn't slashfic, it was a little group of icons...

From:

You know, I haven't seen those. That sounds rather interesting though haha. Though, honestly, given their characters, not too surprising! It's like the Sam/Jack SPN/LOST thing.

From:

frappuccinolove.livejournal.com

Thanks for finding time to answer me. I guess I couldn't do more for your birthday.

I have this really bad habit of messaging all kinds of people when I need help with something. So, you're not the first one to get this question from me:

It would really, really mean to me if you could tell me how to make my user info more slick, like yours. I want it to have pics and to be nicer, but I guess it's got something to do with HTML, and not CSS. It's hard when you don't have enough knowledge in a certain area, because it's hard to know what you're looking for. It's not for this account, it's for a paid account of mine.

I'd just like to put a picture there, oh, and also, I'd like to use those famfamfam (have you heard of that site?) images on my page, but I do not know where to "install" them. How can I incorporate them into my laoyut?

KC, thanks for everything. I do not remember whether or not I un-friended you by unchecking the box, because my friends page was more focused on a certain community that is important to me, so I couldn't have private life posts from others. And you left that weird voice message :O

P.S. I do not watch Supernatural, but I think you're talking about Dark Angel guy.

Well, thanks for your time and always nice to hear from you.

From:

Try here for profile codes:
http://community.livejournal.com/mintyapple/tag/profile+codes

I don't know about famfamfam images or how to get them on your layout, sorry.

Good luck!

From:

frappuccinolove.livejournal.com

I'm supposed to feel like a complete moron now. I have that site in my bookmarks, it's just that i assumed how it's only for css codes for layouts. Thank you. You haven't heard of famfamfam. It seems like a site that could be of use to you.

Thank you for everything, I mean it. We're having conversations in your comment page all the time, I'll message you in future through LJ messenger. I'll also ask you about your e-mail address there.

I hope you don't mind me flooding you with messages all the time.

Take care
xx

From: