I based my story on a prompt from the post, although I ended up not running as closely with it as I thought I had, re-reading it.
For next year --- well, I had a lot of fun, but like a few other folks, I wasn't actually working a group. :) Maybe it's a bit crazy, but since there seemed to be many more writers than artists... maybe allow writers work together? I think it would be a very difficult but rewarding challenge for people who wanted to do it. I know it would push me to work differently. I also know it would push me to keep to a schedule better. ;)
I'm still looking forward to reading the stories I haven't yet, and to the friending meme!
There are a lot of ways to do it! You can trade off chapters, or you can take turns with revision passes, or you can write separate stories that are sort of conjoined. Two friends of mine who write together each pick a viewpoint character and trade arcs --- but they always write the dialogue for their main character. You could even have one person who does the actual final product writing but other people who do worldbuilding, (prose) sketches of scenes, storyboarding kinda stuff. I think figuring out how an individual group of writers might work together would be part of the fun!
I'm really happy that I participated in this Big Bang. I got to push my word limit and got to read some pretty good fics. My beta's really responsible and did her (I think it's a her?) job frequent enough. I felt bad for writing stuff all over the place and made the work really confusing for both of us. I should be more organised next time. I don't know if I will participate again next year because I'm thinking of trying another Big Bang by then and Pokemon was not that big for me... I love Pokemon, but apparently the love's not enough or something because my inner word-count control was off its meds and the final tally shot over 40k, while in, say, Good Omens Exchange, the word-count will be near the one I want, like between 1 and 1.5 times the minimum word-count. Then again, maybe I'm just not experienced enough or too stressed by school
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I had a lot of fun doing this, even though I was really nervous and unsure I'd finish at first. I'd kind of fallen behind with my fanfiction work for a while and this really got my spark back- having to finish it by a deadline in a period of time.
I'm definitely going to do the next Big Bang- I do have some suggestions on how it can go more smoothly, though.
For one, I think more of an effort could be made to pair up artists with writers. I felt a little intimidated being a first timer unable to find an artist, and maybe there could be an "adopt a newbie" thread or something for newer ficcers/people who've never done big bangs before, or just a general "post here if you want to illustrate for someone" post. Something so everyone has a shot at getting an artist.
Aside from that, I think the big bang went great, and I can't wait for the friending meme!
I think part of the problem is that there are so many more writers than artists. If you look at the initial sign-up posts, there were thirty-something writers, seventeen artists, and around ten beta-readers. A lot of writers dropped --- well more than 50% --- and artists lost 75%! Beta readers almost all stuck around, it looks like. Hooray for beta readers! This makes it tough to match everyone with an artist, though. Recruiting artists more might help, but I think that either grouping writers together or encouraging people to try art stuff for the first time is probably the best way to make sure everyone gets to work in a group. I had a lot of fun doing the music thing --- had I been doing just music I would have made a full mix CD, written some stuff around it, found some art and pretended I understood Photoshop... doing that for someone else while writing my own story would have been awesome if I had known I had that to do three months in advance! I don't know about you, but oh god will I manage my time better next year. :)
Yeah I did notice that. I think that if they'd done blind groupings, they probably wouldn't have had as many drops, but at the same time, artists are fickle creatures and you can't necessarily assign artists the same way you could writers.
Next go around I might just make my own fanmix and be my own artist.
1) We didn't want anybody to feel cramped. Writers can write what they want to write; we wanted artists to also create what they wanted to create, and beta-readers to read what they wanted to read. The only way we thought we could ensure that was if betas and artists had free choice. In particular, some artists wanted to draw only specific things. Two artists even bowed out of the big bang early because none of the stories being written this year "called" to them. (Think of it this way: how would you feel if you were an artist? Wouldn't you want full control?)
2) This is, sadly, something that we had to consider: painstakingly creating groups where everyone's personal tastes are taken into account would require a lot of work on our part, and both of us mods have really tight schedules. This isn't as simple as a holiday exchange: this is a three-way matchup, which means more variables than I really want to think about. Ultimately, the less we had to actively do, the happier we were.
I just noticed today morning that End Run: Pokemon Original Character Tournament 2011 is open for registration since Nov 5th and will stay open till January 1st. It's on DeviantART. The plot is set in WWII, about 160 years before the games. Would it be good idea if bunch of us go participate as soldiers or NPCs with the Pokemon Big Bang link in our signature as some sort of passive recruitment?
Um I'm really sorry this is kinda late, I've been busy. I just want to say that I really enjoyed this Big Bang! It was so fun getting to work with other people and I'm really proud of what came out of it <3
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Comments 19
I based my story on a prompt from the post, although I ended up not running as closely with it as I thought I had, re-reading it.
For next year --- well, I had a lot of fun, but like a few other folks, I wasn't actually working a group. :) Maybe it's a bit crazy, but since there seemed to be many more writers than artists... maybe allow writers work together? I think it would be a very difficult but rewarding challenge for people who wanted to do it. I know it would push me to work differently. I also know it would push me to keep to a schedule better. ;)
I'm still looking forward to reading the stories I haven't yet, and to the friending meme!
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I'm definitely going to do the next Big Bang- I do have some suggestions on how it can go more smoothly, though.
For one, I think more of an effort could be made to pair up artists with writers. I felt a little intimidated being a first timer unable to find an artist, and maybe there could be an "adopt a newbie" thread or something for newer ficcers/people who've never done big bangs before, or just a general "post here if you want to illustrate for someone" post. Something so everyone has a shot at getting an artist.
Aside from that, I think the big bang went great, and I can't wait for the friending meme!
Reply
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Next go around I might just make my own fanmix and be my own artist.
Reply
1) We didn't want anybody to feel cramped. Writers can write what they want to write; we wanted artists to also create what they wanted to create, and beta-readers to read what they wanted to read. The only way we thought we could ensure that was if betas and artists had free choice. In particular, some artists wanted to draw only specific things. Two artists even bowed out of the big bang early because none of the stories being written this year "called" to them. (Think of it this way: how would you feel if you were an artist? Wouldn't you want full control?)
2) This is, sadly, something that we had to consider: painstakingly creating groups where everyone's personal tastes are taken into account would require a lot of work on our part, and both of us mods have really tight schedules. This isn't as simple as a holiday exchange: this is a three-way matchup, which means more variables than I really want to think about. Ultimately, the less we had to actively do, the happier we were.
3) Yes, as ainbthech said, there were ( ... )
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