I almost can’t believe it, but … this is the Fourth Annual Exquisite Corpse Challenge!  Woot!

Even if you've written for the EC before, please read through the challenge, as the rules get tweaked a little bit every year.

For those who are new to the concept:  an "exquisite corpse" is a surreal, collaborative artwork created using a series of prompts.  Each person writes their part based on very thin knowledge of what came before.  The history of the form is here.  You can read the previous Elysian Fields exquisite corpses here.

This is intended as a time-limited, prompt-driven challenge -- that is, by signing up you commit to waiting for your prompt, to seeing what it sparks, and then to writing for approximately 7 days. The end result tends toward the surreal specifically because the small amount of info passed along from author to author encourages discontinuities.  That’s a feature, not a bug.

Here's how it will work:  

1.   If you want to participate, PM me before or on January 31. Let me know if you have special timing needs -- any periods in February, March, or April when you know you will be otherwise occupied.

2.   I'll put you on the list.  

3.   I will randomly draw names from the list to establish the order of writers. 

4.   The first person writes Chapter 1, and sends it to me.  

5.   I send only the last paragraph and a deadline on to the second person, who then sends me their completed chapter.

6.   Etc.

7.   This will publish on consecutive days, starting no sooner than April 30, after it's complete -- although if we get many more authors than expected, we may split it into a couple of flurries of continuous days.

Rules:  

• Your chapter must start with the paragraph you were given, just as you were given it.  
• Only your final paragraph will be forwarded to the next author.  A natural last paragraph is preferable. (“Crap!” said Buffy, for instance, is an acceptable final paragraph; as is “Crap,” said Buffy, glaring at the now teacup-sized Angel.  But you don’t have to force out something like “Crap,” said Buffy, glaring out the now teacup-sized Angel who had been shrunk by a boomeranging shrinkage spell of his own devising that had been intended for Spike on the occasion of this their wedding night.)  
• No cross-overs.
• We are a small community -- please do what you can not to share info about chapters before publication. You are of course free to have your chapter beta’d, but preferably not by a fellow Corpser.
• NC-17, though you do not have to rise to that rating.
• The Bewildered Rule: While I generally recommend a 1,000 to 5,000 word chapter, there is a maximum word count of 14,000.
• Your chapter should be sent to me by your deadline if at all possible, since other people will also be waiting for their prompts.  But if something comes up that interferes with your ability to write during your assigned week, let me know and I will see if someone can swap places with you.

And just a note, because it can be an issue: participation in the EC (or other collaborations) will mess with your word count -- if I remember right, it awards all the EC words to me, because I create the story.  My understanding is that there isn’t a fix for that.