That’s right folks, we’re running this again––but with a couple of changes from last year.
If you weren’t around last year, or need a refresher, here’s the crux:
For the entire month of July (with a little spill over into August), participants will be writing fics that are five chapters long. Each chapter must respond in some way to a given prompt, and the fics must be complete at five chapters––no longer, no shorter––with said chapters posted within the relevant time windows (detailed below).
Your fic can be a sequel to a mystery fic you wrote for last year’s event, but it doesn’t have to be. The only requirement, beyond what we mentioned above, is that it be a brand new fic, not an existing WIP, and written specifically for this event.
Last year, each Mod provided a different prompt, but this time, we are crowdsourcing prompts from you guys to allow Mods an opportunity to take part without giving us an unfair advantage.
LINKED HERE IS A GOOGLE FORM WHERE YOU CAN SUBMIT PROMPTS. They will be collected, put into a spreadsheet, and a random number generator will pick four––chosen one at a time on the day they are announced. The fifth and final prompt will be for the fic to end with a Happily Ever After/Happy For Now. Prompt suggestions close on 22nd June.
Prompts can be the name of a character, an object, a location, a color, a number––pretty much anything you want, though we please ask that you limit your suggestion to five words or less.
There will, of course, be awards for everyone who completes the challenge, as well as commenters, betas, and banner makers. (So long as beta readers and artists are credited in the fic notes or summary!) Commenters will need to leave a minimum of 15 comments in July that contain at least 5 words (for any stories here on EF, not just on challenge fics).
Dates:
- Wednesday 29th June: Prompt One Announced
- Friday 1st to Thursday 7th: Posting Window for Prompt One
- Wednesday 6th July: Prompt Two Announced
- Friday 8th to Thursday 14th: Posting Window for Prompt Two
- Wednesday 13th July: Prompt Three Announced
- Friday 15th to Thursday 21st: Posting Window for Prompt Three
- Wednesday 20th July: Prompt Four Announced
- Friday 22nd to Thursday 28th: Posting Window for Prompt Four
- Friday 29th to 4th August: Fifth and final chapters to be posted
If you have any questions, please comment below!
--The Mods on May 31, 2022 08:03pm 31 Comments
I am so excited!
Oh yay, this was so much fun last year!
Yay! I'm looking forward to this! And what a fun idea to have random prompts submitted by the membership. So glad the mods can participate this year in writing!
Warning to all: once you start submitting prompts, it is difficult to stop...
Oh I love the way you’re doing the prompts this year! Brilliant!!
Sounds like fun!
Is there an SOP for joining or submitting a fic once completed?
All fics will need to be completed on time. If you fail to get your chapter in during the posting window, your fic is removed from the event. This is something we will monitor and enforce in real-time. Thankfully, we didn't have to disqualify many authors last year, but it did happen.
Do we know what the icon for the Mystery Challenge Fics will be yet?
@MrsAkers I'm making them as we speak!
Very psyched for this event again-everyone outdid themselves last year. I am anticipating another excellent round of creativity 😊
Thank you mods, and all authors! This is such a great event and produces such amazing finished works to read. Love it thank you
I love this event and I really hope that I won't be too busy that I won't be able to join for this year. But I am certain that I will read a lot of fics for this event since I enjoyed the ones from last year! Thank you Mods for bringing this event back!
I'm so excited!
Just to make sure I'm reading this right ... we won't know the other 4 prompts to begin with? We will have to devise a story that will have to be able to jump into whatever direction the next prompt comes for? For example we write chapter 1 after the first prompt, chapter 2 after the second prompt etc?
Tasha, that’s correct. I mean, I guess you could write the whole story and insert something related to the prompts (I’m not a writer so I can’t give good advice on that lol). Last year the first prompt was to use a specific character, then the 2nd was to include the location of an attic, the 3rd was to use a BBQ fork in the story, 4th was a quote about aliens invading Zimbabwe, and the last was to make it HEA if that helps at all. Not to say this will be anything similar, but it might give you an idea. There is also a little overlap from when the chapter needs to be submitted and when the next prompt releases.
Thanks @Stephaniem191. I appreciate the heads up. My only concern is not being able to come up with the next chapter to match the next prompt. I have some WIPs unfinished from many years ago, but I have been writing them offline again. I wanted to start posting again before the end of the summer, but I thought this challenge event might be a good idea too.
@Tasha, here’s a link to the amazing fics created from last year’s event if you haven’t seen any.
https://dark-solace.org/elysian/browse.php?type=2021mystery
The authors had to write how the completed each prompt in the notes for each chapter if you wanted to see just that too.
@Stephaniem191 Thank you again!
@Stephaniem191 Yes, thank you.
@Tasha Stephanie is indeed correct in how she explained things. I really hope you can join in the fun!
Woohoo!!
Not sure how this works for Banners - would the banner be created from the prompts and submitted for the event or does a banner and writer need to work together to create a banner for a story? Thanks for help on my question.
@nmcil if you want a banner, you should reach out to an artist as you would do for a regular fic and credit them in the standard way.
@tasha - just wanted to point out that the mystery fic must be a new fic, not a WIP. It can be a sequel to an existing fic, but must be a new fic itself.
https://dark-solace.org/elysian/viewuser.php?uid=19
See my note above about WIPs vs new fic.
No worries @the_big_bad
I did figure it had to be a new story. I just meant that I am hoping it helps to encourage the Spuffy muses more. It's the first challenge or Spuffy that I'll have posted in years.
If you create your own art/banner for the story ... do you qualify for an artist award for the challenge?
@Tasha Yes! So long as you tell us in the story notes :)
Not sure how this works for Banners - would the banner be created from the prompts and submitted for the event or does a banner and writer need to work together to create a banner for a story? Thanks for help on my question.
I really loved reading the challenge fics last year and I love that you are changing it up so that mods can participate too. Can’t wait to see what you lovely writers come up with!