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The New Library First-Time Fest

The readers have gotten theirs, now the authors can get some too!

This journal may contain explicit adult content.

Created on 2008-06-17 18:54:33 (#15888267), last updated 2009-01-02

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29 Journal Entries, 4 Tags, 0 Memories, 0 Virtual Gifts, 8 Userpics

Basic Info

Name:	The New Library's First-Time Fest
Membership:	Open
Posting Access:	Select Members
Description:	Harry Potter fanfiction

About

This explanatory info is organised into several sections.

1) What is The New Library? Why are you mentioning it? What else do you guys do?
2) Okay, so what is this community for? Why yet another TNL comm?
3) So, how is this whole fest thing going to work?

If you're new to TNL completely, part 1 is a good place to start. If you're an old hand, and just new to this comm, start with part 2!

This community is affiliated with the rest of The New Library group:

The New Library: a comm where stories by new and underappreciated authors (basically anything that deserves more readers, in any ship or genre) can be recced by anyone who wants to. The New Library was the first TNL comm to be created, and also runs a Member of The Month feature and prizes (in the form of prompted fics) to the post of every 101st rec!

The New Library Awards: an awards community where new and underappreciated authors and their stories are the focus. The first round of the Awards ran in the summer, and the masterlist of winners can be found there. Another round of 'Classic' awards will begin in January.

The New Library Nominees: a comm where nominees at The New Library Awards may have their stories hosted, if they so wish. Particularly useful for people who otherwise post on password-protected archives and who don't want that to prejudice their running in the Awards because voters can't all read their work.

So that's enough about the rest of TNL. This community is a little different to the others. Instead of focusing our attention on the wonderful stories already written, we're hoping to produce some new gems. The basic guiding principle is still the same, however: branch out, try something new, experiment. Only, this time, we're asking authors, rather than readers, to do the experimenting!

The goal is for authors to try something new. So...

Normally write lengthy fics? Five, six, ten thousand words per chapter? Why not try writing drabbles or a perfectly timed one-shot?

Normally write slash, but curious about femmeslash? Or het? Or gen? Or vice versa? Then try it!

Normally write humour? Darkfic? Then why not try writing your OTP in a different way?

Normally write Snupin? Dramione? Want to stay in your 'type' of ship, stay in slash or het, but maybe play with some different characters? Why not try Snarry or Draco/Luna?

This is essentially what we hope everyone will do. Try writing a different fic length, a different ship, a different genre! You can pick a prompt that appeals to you but is a little different and experiment. Branch out and thrill new readers at the same time!

There's our mission statement out of the way! Now, how will it all work?

This fest will begin taking prompts at the end of August. Some of you may have noticed that you require a mod's approval to post here. That's because really, only the mods will need to post! Confused? So, here's how it will work:

* Prompt submissions will be accepted from 12:01 on the morning of 17th August! There'll be a Prompt Request Post post at this time, which will include a form for you to fill out (including your preferred ship or characters, genre, a rating, some likes/dislikes, etc., the usual stuff). Here, for your information, is the form:

Prompt Form
<b>LJ Name</b>: <b>Preferred ships</b>: (Please list two or more unless you wish to specify 'gen') <b>Scenario</b>: (This should be fairly specific, and please include a few genres you think the prompt best fits into!) <b>Things you want</b>: (Like witty banter? Like lots of evocative descriptions? Let us know what ticks your boxes in a fic!) <b>Things you <i>don't</i> want</b>: (Particular squicks? Don't want any mention of the Epilogue of Doom? Don't like kids in fics? Don't like a particular fandom cliche? Tell us!) <b>Preferred length</b>: (Would you like a drabble series? A short one-shot? A long one-shot? A chaptered fic (may result in a WIP, however)?) <b>Preferred rating</b>: (Anything from G to NC-17 is permitted)

Once you have figured out all the things you want/don't want, you should leave the filled-in form as a screened comment to the Prompt Post.

* Once checked over (just to make sure you have filled out all the categories, etc.) your prompt will be put up in a separate post (the Prompt Claiming Post) for everyone to look at. The turn around will probably be 24 hours between a prompt being submitted and it being posted ready to be claimed. However, you don't have to be intending to claim a prompt to leave us one! However, if you do want to participate solely by prompting and not by writing, we ask that you do a little branching out in asking for something different than you might normally!

* Once prompts are posted in the Prompt Claiming Post, it is free to be claimed, again by screened comment. All the prompts will be given a number as they are posted, and to claim, you will just need to leave a screened comment requesting a certain number. The claimed prompt will then be crossed off. It would be also very nice if people claiming prompts would submit one of their own at the same time so that the cycle can go on and on!

Only one person can claim a certain prompt. It will be first come, first served. However, there will be two rules for who can claim prompts:

1) You must be a member of the community
2) While this isn't technically an exchange, the fics you write will essentially be 'gifts' for the prompters. The mods will endeavour to ensure that everyone who wants to participate can, but will have to balance that against not allowing people to claim prompts who will never actually submit things. We reserve the right to take a peek at other recent fests/exchanges and see if a prompt claimant has dropped out of anything recently. If you have, we reserve the right to ask you about it, to at least open a dialogue about the probability that you won't be able to get the prompt fic in on time. We won't disqualify anyone, but we may want to raise the issue with you. Please don't be offended if we do, and please don't let that discourage you from taking part! :-)

* Prompt claiming will end 1st September.

* Fics will be expected back in on 1st November. That is two months to get your fic written and betaed. Angel Mischa will expect all the written fics to have been betaed and emailed to her by the end of 1st November (at angel.mischa@yahoo.com).

angelmischa may be a little unfit these days (due to all the hours spent on LJ!), but she'll still hunt you down if you don't get your fics done!

All fics, when being returned to Angel Mischa ready for posting, must include the following information as a header:

Fic Header
<b>LJ Name of person who provided the prompt</b>: <b>The original scenario specified</b>: <b>Additional information used from prompt</b>: (Which ships/genres/ratings/features came from the prompt and the 'things wanted/not wanted' categories? Which were all your own idea?) <b>Summary</b>: (This can be just the same as the original scenario specified by the prompter, but you may want to branch out and write your own!) <b>Author's notes</b>: (It might be nice to include some info on how this story is different to what you normally write, how you found branching out, etc. Any warnings and thanks can be put here)

* Posting will begin on 3rd November and run until we are done (possibly with a week's hiatus for Christmas if we have that many fics!) The mods will post all the stories anonymously (which is why all the fics must be emailed to angel.mischa@yahoo.com, and you should not discuss which prompt you claimed or who you are writing for until after the big reveal, which will come at the very end of posting!!!)

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