We know it's been a challenge having to wait for our April site event. However, we're only a few days away! We can't help but show our excitement for challenge month. No, really, you can see it with our brand new event skin, which will be our featured skin through the entire month. If you want to make it your default skin for the month, make sure to change it in your preferences page.

In order to make sure everyone understands all that's going on, we'll try to cover everything here. If there's something you're not sure about, please let us know in the comments. There's a lot of information in this post, but please read the whole thing to be sure you know what's happening in April.

How and when do I post my story so that it's part of the event?
After midnight on April 1 (site time, which is Eastern US time-it's listed under the shoutbox), post your story as you normally would. Once you've added your story, find the challenge you're responding to on the challenges page or in your saved challenges list (if you've already saved it to your personal list) in your Account Info page. At the bottom of the challenge, you'll see a Respond to the challenge! link. Click the link, put a check in the box next to the story which is the challenge response and click submit.

Your fic does not need to be complete prior to posting. In fact, it doesn't even need to be completed during April. You have the whole month, during which you only need to BEGIN posting the story.

If you have a banner artist or beta that you worked with as part of your event challenge response, you must credit them in your story notes in order for them to be counted as having participated in the event. If they aren't listed in your story notes, we have no way of identifying that they were part of the event.

How do I find the stories that are being added to the challenge?
Stories that are part of the event will be easy to spot because they'll have a little umbrella icon (That class protector umbrella comes in handy to avoid April showers):

Also, don't forget that we have a site events browse page where you can view all the stories from previous site events, as well as the ones from this event .

Will you be featuring regular stories while the challenge is going on?
There won't be any mod-chosen featured stories in April. For the first half of the month, the usual feature spot will showcase responses to challenges posted at Elysian Fields, no matter when they were published. Starting on the 15th, the featured area will display stories that were created specifically for this event.

Is there a comment aspect to this event as well?
Of course there is! If you write at least 20 comments in April that contain at least 5 words, you'll meet the requirements of the commenter challenge! You'll see a link to the comment challenge leaderboard on the homepage under the Members of the Month where the all star commenter list is usually located.

Besides an amazing sense of pride, do we get anything for participating in the event?
Of course you do! We have some amazing awards that will be given out after the end of April. Our amazing angelic_amy created the following awards for participating authors, artists, commenters, and betas (this is our first event with beta awards, and we're so glad to have them since betas need love too!):

That about covers it. Please let us know if there's any additional questions. Get ready for some amazing new stories!