The Gifts That Keep on Giving: Fanfic Exchanges and Ficathons
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| Title: | The Gifts That Keep on Giving: Fanfic Exchanges and Ficathons |
| Creator: | Merlin Missy |
| Date(s): | December 20, 2007 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | multifandom |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | The Gifts That Keep on Giving: Fanfic Exchanges and Ficathons |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Gifts That Keep on Giving: Fanfic Exchanges and Ficathons is a 2007 essay by Merlin Missy.
Series
This essay is part of a series called Dr. Merlin's Soapbox.
Some Topics Discussed
- fanfic exchanges, Secret Santas, challenges, fic fests
- comments by Astrogirl about Starkathon and the Blake's 7 Ficathon
- comments by tzikeh about Yuletide, VividCon, The Shack Challenge
- comments by elynross about Yuletide
- much about Yuletide, including its inspiration: "The original inspiration was Don We Now Our Gay Apparel, the popslash Secret Santa project. Instead of boyband members, the original idea behind Yuletide was to showcase rare pairings, later rare fandoms."
- Metamorphosis Titles Rewrite Challenge , moderator Oxoniensis
- Remix Redux
- Dick & Babs Commentfic Fest!, run by Liviapenn
From the Essay
Fic fests happen whenever someone wants more of something very specific. For example, when Liviapenn wanted to see more Dick and Babs love in the DC Comics fandom, she ran a Commentfic Fest. Writers signed up and were given a prompt, and then had to write a short fanfic about Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon. Because the format was in response to a Livejournal post, the length of a comment field (4300 characters; approximately 775 words) determined the maximum length of the stories. Fic fests provide instant gratification for a desired subject, and require very little in the way of management skills. People participate or not, and they post or not, and everyone gets to read new, if short, stories.
Challenges often run along the same lines as Fic Fests, either choosing a single fandom and/or subject, or else providing multifandom fun. The most well-known challenge in media fandom is Remix Redux. Run by Musesfool, this challenge matches up participants by fandoms already written. After sign-ups are complete, Musesfool matches up writers who then rewrite stories by other participants. As the community says in its info, "Ever read a fic and think, wow, what a fascinating story, but if I had written it, I would have... Well, now here's your chance to do just that. Rewrite someone else's story, tell somebody else's tale. Take the work of another person and wrap it up in your vision and style, just like a remixer does to songs." The plots and characters stay the same, but the stories change, sometimes by point of view, sometimes by setting, sometimes by time. The rewritten stories stand as counterpoints and echoes of the originals.
Other challenges often resemble the Fic Fests: writers sign up for prompts, and then post. The Metamorphosis Titles Rewrite Challenge involved writers offering fandoms (series, movies, books, etc). Challenge moderator Oxoniensis gave participants prompts that were episode titles, chapter titles, and so on from the original media. Writers then created fanworks from fanfics to album mixes to fanart collages incorporating a new perspective on that title prompt.
Fanfiction exchanges provide a lovely encouragement for participants: a story written to their own personal tastes. Also, since fanfic exchanges usually mean giving a story to a stranger – rather than just writing the images in one's own head – there's extra incentive for writers to polish their work more than usual. Yuletide is a well-known source of very high-quality fiction, for example, but it's not alone.
tzikeh enjoys the fandom-wide pajama party aspect and "[b]eing a part of a collection of HUNDREDS of fans, who otherwise might never have met, have a huge, crazy party of hilarity and panic as the deadline approaches. It really is like a pan-fandom party--and there's a colossal pile of presents that we open at the end of December, and then THOUSANDS of fans go completely batshit looney tunes. Everyone's hopped up on goofballs. Even though (and I'm guessing here) 99% of us are *not* with any other participant when the archive opens, it feels like we're all together, ripping open presents. There's wrapping paper *all over fandom*. I mean, people are recommending stories on their livejournals before I've even gotten up in the morning. And the best part is that each present is for everyone."