[admin] Important Details

[zulu.livejournal.com]

Dear Big Bang Participants:

Greetings from your mods! At this point, we would like to wrap up some housekeeping details in order to ensure that the challenge proceeds smoothly once the deadline and artists' portion of the challenge arrives.

There are approximately five weeks left before the February 15 deadline. This deadline requires that you have a complete draft of your story finished and submitted to the mods. The COMPLETE DRAFT must meet the minimum 20 000 wordcount, and it must be a FINISHED STORY, that is, all the events/plot are wrapped up, and the ending is, in fact, the ending. Stories that are truncated at or after the 20 000 word mark but which are not finished will not be accepted.

The reasons for this are as follows:
1. Your mods require a guarantee that a complete story will be available for the archive.
2. Your artist will be given the complete draft in order to create art.
3. The deadline is, in fact, A DEADLINE, not a "gee, maybe nowish would be good, if that's all right with you".

HOWEVER, the complete draft is not necessarily the final draft. The FINAL DRAFT is due on March 15. The final draft may differ from the complete draft in that it has been fully betaed, edited, nitpicked, and searched for typos. The final draft is the text as it will appear on the archive; the mods will make NO alterations or corrections. Not even if you beg prettily. Get those typos out NOW.

One further note about the difference between the COMPLETE and FINAL drafts: The FINAL draft should not suddenly have road trip hijinks and alien abductions. That is, the final draft should not have a completely different plot or structure from the complete draft. The difference between the two drafts is four more weeks to tweak wording, language use, spelling, and grammar: it is not so that you can overhaul and rewrite.

Your mods would like to note that as they will be coding the website as quickly as possible after the March 15 deadline, THEY WILL LOVE PARTICIPANTS WHO HAND IN THEIR FINAL DRAFTS EARLY. Earn the love of your mods and you will be rewarded in some unspecified but stunningly amazing way at some point in the future.

The complete draft should include the following headers:

Title: This is the FINAL TITLE, and will not be altered between the complete draft and the final draft.
Pairing: This is the primary pairing. You may mention secondary pairings if you wish, and they will be included; however, the story will be archived under the primary pairing. If your story is gen, please indicate that here, and name the primary characters.
Rating: Just for a refresher, this is how ratings will be assessed for the challenge. G - friendship or "pre-slash"; no coarse language; minimal violence. PG - romantic themes; limited coarse language; some violence. R - nudity (other than medical) and sexuality; coarse language; violence and mature themes. NC-17 - graphic sexuality; coarse language; graphic violence; disturbing themes. You are, of course, free to assign whichever rating you feel fits your story best.
Length: Word count of your complete draft. This may change with your final draft.
Spoilers: Indicate the timeline of your story. If it is AU, indicate that here. If it is a crossover, include the timeline of your second fandom as well.
Author's Notes: Thank your betas here. Please keep your notes brief.
Disclaimer: The archive has a complete disclaimer, and each individual story will have a disclaimer attached as well, with the text as follows: "House, M.D. and all its characters belong to David Shore, Bad Hat Harry Productions, and FOX Broadcasting. This is an unofficial fansite and we make no profit." This disclaimer will be attached by the mods automatically. IF YOU HAVE WRITTEN A CROSSOVER, and REQUIRE MORE DISCLAIMERS, please include them here.
Summary: This is your FINAL SUMMARY, and will not be altered between the complete draft and the final draft. Summaries should be short--no longer than thirty words--and engaging, as they will draw in your readers.


EXCERPT:

An excerpt of your story will serve several purposes, and MUST be included with your complete draft. The excerpt will NOT be changed between your complete and final drafts.

1. The excerpt will be used to help artists choose which story they would like to make art for.
2. The excerpt will be used in your post on the community pointing readers towards your story in the archive.
3. The excerpt will serve as a teaser to rev up excitement in the community for the full stories to come.
4. The excerpt should indicate the tone of your story. If your story is mainly humorous, it should be funny; if your story is mainly angsty, it should be serious.

The excerpt should be approximately 200 to 300 words long. You might want to choose a scene near the beginning of the story so as not to spoil it, but of course, this is up to your discretion.

This information will also be sent via email to all writing participants, with some IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ALSO ATTACHED. Please check your inboxes and REPLY ASAP; this is NECESSARY for all writing participants. ETA: winterwaltz and seriouslyjess, your emails are bouncing! Please reply here or email the mods with updated contact information.

Any questions, comments, queries, or concerns can be brought up in comments or by contacting the mods at housebigbangmods@gmail.com.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Your mods,
queenzulu and thedeadparrot

Comments

[lissie-pissie.livejournal.com]

I applaud you on your organizational skills over here. AWESOME. Cannot wait for the stories and cannot wait to make art!

[zulu.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Things are certainly becoming exciting.

[pun.livejournal.com]

I understand that the title, summary, and excerpt cannot change between the complete and final drafts. What about the author's notes? I ask because I'm not 100% sure yet who will be taking a look at this for me during the intervening month. I have a pretty good idea, so I can just go ahead and include them all, but I'd rather be able to change the notes.

[zulu.livejournal.com]

Sorry it took me a while to get back to you. At this point, it seems like we'll probably have fewer than twenty stories, so the coding issue (which was going to be the problem, time-wise) probably won't be too bad. So changing the author's notes should be okay. Thanks for bringing this up, it's a good point that I hadn't considered, I'll try to address it in my next update post.