Welcome and FAQ
Welcome to Pod Together Lightning!
Pod Together Lightning is a quickfire collaboration challenge for writers and podficcers. Inspired by
pod_together, writers and podficcers work together to create a fanwork of at least 100 words.
The challenge, from sign-ups to fanwork reveals, occurs over the course of a single month.
1st-3rd of the month: sign-ups
4th-6th of the month: matching and assignments
7th-28th of the month: creation
29th of the month: fanworks due
30th of the month: reveals
Sign ups will occur at
pt_lightning and pt_lightning, and posting will occur at the Pod Together Lightning AO3 collection. We can also be found at
pt_lightning and
pt-lightning.
Pod Together Lightning Year 1 ran Nov. 2013-May 2014. Year 2 will run every third month starting in November 2014. The schedule thus far:
Round 1: November 2014
Round 2: February 2015 [with reveals on Mar. 2]
Round 3: May 2015
fleurrochard and
somnolentblue are the challenge mods; pt_lightningmod is the official voice of the mod team. You can contact them with questions or comments by leaving a comment on this post, emailing them at pod.together.lightning at gmail dot com, or through the Page a Mod post.
FAQ: Sign-ups
What am I committing to if I sign up?
You are committing to creating a collaborative fanwork of at least 100 words as part of a writer-podficcer partnership by the end of the month. All other details about the final shape of the fanwork will be decided by you and your partner(s).
Perhaps you want to create something comforting, a petit four-sized fanwork featuring your favorite things, or perhaps you want to create something experimental, using a new narrative or performance technique. The fanwork might be a drabble or poem, a monologue or a radioplay. Maybe it will feature sound effects or multiple voices, wordplay or song. It is totally up to your partnership!
The form of the posted fanwork -- identical text and audio, divergent text and audio, audio only, some combination of the above -- is also totally up to your partnership.
Work with your partner to figure out what you'd like to do, and then work together to create it!
How do I sign up? What's the difference between an Individual Sign-up and a Group Sign-up?
Every round, we will create an Individual Sign-Up Post and a Group Sign-Up Post at
pt_lightning and pt_lightning. To sign up, comment at the appropriate sign-up post with the requested information.
There are two types of sign-ups: Individual and Group.
An Individual Sign-up is for someone signing up who needs a partner. A writer who does an Individual Sign-up will be matched with a podficcer partner; a podficcer who does an Individual Sign-up will be matched with a writer partner. The mod team will match partners based on the list of Fandoms and/or Content/Genre that you list in your sign-up. You can also opt-in to being matched randomly (more on random matches below; it is completely optional).
Individual Sign-ups will match people in groups of two, one writer and one podficcer. You can opt to be matched to two groups, and you can choose to be matched as a writer, a podficcer, or either.
A Group Sign-up is for groups who are signing up together, no matching required. There must be at least one writer and one podficcer per group, but the number of group members and division of duties is totally up to you! You could sign up in a group of three or more, any or all of the group members could be both writing and podficcing, you could write or podfic round robin style -- whatever suits your collaborative creative process!
Sign-ups are new for every round. If you do an Individual Sign-up to match on Coffee Prince, Teen Wolf, and filk and no random matching on Round One, you can then sign up to match on Avengers, Princess Bride, and poetry with a random match on Round Two. You can do an Individual Sign-up as a podficcer during Round One and a Group Sign-up as a writer during Round Three.
What's the difference between Fandom Matching and Content/Genre Matching? What's Random Matching?
Fandom Matching is based on common fandoms that are listed in the sign-up. For example, if Person P (podficcer) signs up with the fandoms Lord of the Rings (books), Princess Bride, and Princess Princess, and Person W (writer) signs up with the fandoms Princess Bride, Teen Wolf, and Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare), they would be matched on the fandom Princess Bride.
Content/Genre Matching is based on genres, tropes, kinks, etc. that are listed in the sign-up. Examples might include: 2nd person POV, filk, footnotes, kidfic, kink, poetry, women characters, etc. If you want to write or perform something specific but are a little more flexible on fandom, a Content/Genre match might work really well for you.
We're going to look for a reference list(s) for suggested terms for Content/Genre matching that we will link on the sign-up posts. They're not going to be required terms, for fandom is a varied and beautiful place, and we could never find a list that encompassed all the possibilities for all of fandom! Also, we may end up doing some behind-the-scenes wrangling so that "urophilia" is matched with "watersports", "five things" is matched with "5+1 things", or "poems" is matched with "poetry".
Note: if you put something in the Content/Genre to be matched on, you may get matched *only* on that and not on fandom. So if you enter, for example, "Fandoms: anthropomorfic (knitting); Anne of Green Gables (series); and Coffee Prince", "Content/Genres: breathplay; cuddling; filk; five things; poetry", you may match with someone based on "Content/Genres: breathplay; poetry".
A Random Match is an opt-in method of matching. It means that there may not be anything in common in a partnership's sign-ups, and it's up to you and your partner to figure out that you want to create that coffee/tea anthropomorphic fanwork or that you both feel fannish love for an obscure musical group. This is an optional feature, and you can choose to opt-in during one round and not opt-in during another round.
FAQ: Collaboration and Creation
What does a collaborative fanwork created by a writer and a podficcer look like?
What a collaborative fanwork created by a writer and a podficcer looks like varies greatly, and it's one of the things we hope challenge participants have fun exploring.
The most basic answer is that it is a fanwork created by at least one writer and at least one podficcer, and what it looks like depends on the writer-podficcer partnership. Every collaborative fanwork is going to look different because every partnership has a different energy and chemistry.
You can see some of the fanworks other writer-podficcer collaborations have done at the Pod Together Lightning Collection (AO3) and the Pod Together Collection (AO3). Fanworks include poetry and epistolary works, first person POV and 2nd person POV, the text posted as a script alongside the podfic and audio-only radioplays, dialogue-only works and five things fanworks.
What happens once I've been matched?
When the matching process is finished, we'll contact you and your partner, let you know you've been matched, and tell you what the basis of the match is. After that, collaboration and creation are in your hands.
We strongly recommend that the first thing you do is communicate! This may mean emails, skype chats, instant messaging, writing back and forth in gdocs, using twitter, sending each other semaphore gifs -- whatever works for you! Talk about what you'd like to get out of your project and what you'd like to do. Discuss mutual goals and expectations. The best way to get the most out of your partnership is to talk with each other, to clearly communicate your expectations and hopes to your partner from the very beginning.
What should we talk about?
There is no formal ice breaker week, and the challenge runs very quickly. However, here are a few things you might want to discuss:
- Favorite fandoms, characters, and tropes. Explore what things you have in common and might want to have in your fanwork. Squee over things you love, and discuss things you'd love to see.
- What do you love to do as a creator? What are your strengths and weaknesses? If you both love music and singing, perhaps you'd want to create a song. Perhaps you're awesome or awful at monologues or dialogue-only stories. Be honest with each other!
- Squicks and do not wants. Fandom is a fabulously varied place, and one person's enticement is another person's warning. You want to enjoy this process, not dread it with every bit of fannish energy you have! Discuss and respect each other's boundaries.
- What are you looking to get out of this collaboration? Is there anything in particularly you'd like to try, a narrative or performance technique that you love doing or that you'd like to experiment with for the first time? Be flexible: this is an equal partnership, and you're both bringing creative energy, time, and skills to the table.
- How long do you think the finished fanwork might be? The minimum is 100 words, and there is no maximum. However, the creation period about three weeks, so this may not be the time for the 100K epic! Talk about what you think you can complete during the creation period, which spans about three weeks. Be honest with each other.
- What will your timeline be? Each partnership will set its own internal schedule for writing and podficcing.
A suggested schedule:
6th of the month: assignments go out
7th-9th of the month: discussion and ice breaking period
10th-19th of the month: writing period
19th-28th of the month: podficcing period
29th of the month: posting and waiting for reveals
30th of the month: reveals!
We've talked, but now what? How does collaboration work?
Again, it's up to you! Each partnership will vary, depending on the energy and chemistry of the participants. You both bring strengths and skills to your partnership, and together you'll create a fanwork. To quote the
pod_together FAQ: "This should be an equal collaboration, although ultimately, the writer gets the final say over the words of the work and the podficcer gets the final say over the performance of it."
Remember, communicate and be flexible! This isn't an opportunity for a writer to demand that a podficcer podfic of specific fanwork, nor is it an opportunity for a podficcer to demand that a writer write a specific prompt. It's an opportunity for you to work together, explore your strengths and interests, and see what happens.
You can explore other people's answers to the question of how the collaborative process worked in the comments of the pod-together 2011 wrap-up post and the pod-aware posts linked at the Author/Podficcer Relationship Round-Up (2011) and the Collaboration! Round-Up (2012).
Possible ways to collaborate:
- The partners might develop an idea together, either a brief prompt or a detailed summary, which the writer would use as the basis of their text.
- The writer might sketch out different fanworks (perhaps a summary, notes on a scene or two, a bit of dialogue, or a few lines of a song) and the podficcer could choose one they connect to strongly for the writer to continue.
- The podficcer might record a short audio sample to inspire the writer's work.
- The podficcer might do a test read of the work, and the writer could adapt it in response.
You could send each other emails with text files and audio clips, work in gdocs or via skype, talk with each other through twitter or via instant message. We strongly recommend that you keep in contact during the creation period, discussing the fanwork as it's being written or podficced, keeping each other updated about progress, and talking with each other as questions arise.
Again, this is an equal partnership, although the writer has the final say over the words and the podficcer has the final say over the performance. Talk to your partner, be creative, and have fun!
Are there check-ins?
At the time of sign-up, you can opt-in to check-ins on the 15th and the 25th of the month. If you opt-in, we ask that one member of your partnership contact us on the 15th and on the 25th to affirm that you're still in contact and that your project is progressing.
What happens if I need to drop out?
Communicate! Tell your partner and the mods if you need to drop out.
Please, please, please don't just disappear into thin air, leaving your partner uncertain about what happened and if you're just having internet problems and will be back in two days or if you've disappeared. Maybe you need to step away completely, and the fanwork will never be. Maybe life has happened, but you and your partner are enthused about your fanwork and will come back to it later.
You don't have to give us reasons or explanations, just tell us and, more importantly, your partner that you need to step away. There is no penalty list for defaulting, and dropping out does not preclude your participation in a later round.
FAQ: Posting
How do we post our fanworks?
Fanworks are posted to the Pod Together Lightning AO3 Collection. Each round of the challenge will have its own sub-collection. You post the fanwork, listing both the writer and podficcer as creators, to the sub-collections, which will remain unrevealed until the 30th of the month.
Note: you must have an AO3 account to post. If you need an AO3 account, let a mod know and we can give you an invitation. Alternatively, you can request an account directly through AO3.
Remember, the form of the posted fanwork -- identical text and audio, divergent text and audio, audio only, some combination of the above -- is up to your partnership.
AO3 Information:
- AO3 Tutorial: Posting to a challenge
- Just Press Play! (Podfic Embedding on the AO3) (includes code that you can cut and paste)
- Community: pt-lightning and PT-Lightning Challenge: Round 1 are our canonical challenge tags at AO3; a new round tag will be created for each round
What if we need hosting?
If you have hosting available, that's awesome. Feel free to use whatever hosting service you prefer.
If you need hosting for your podfics, cover art, or other fanwork-related files, we can provide it at http://pt-lightning.parakaproductions.com. Just email us copies of the relevant files. We'll upload them and email you back a link; it will look something like http://pt-lightning.parakaproductions.com/username/filename.
What if the synergy is strong and we don't finish our Epic Fanwork?
If synergy occurs and you end up creating a fanwork that can't be finished within the timeline of the challenge, that's awesome and amazing! Post a teaser-excerpt to the challenge collection, if you wish, and we'll look forward to the final fanwork!
When do reveals happen?
Reveals will happen on the 30th of the month. Following reveals, the mods will post a master list of fanworks to the
pt_lightning, pt_lightning, and
pt-lightning.
Pod Together Lightning is a quickfire collaboration challenge for writers and podficcers. Inspired by
pod_together, writers and podficcers work together to create a fanwork of at least 100 words.
The challenge, from sign-ups to fanwork reveals, occurs over the course of a single month.
1st-3rd of the month: sign-ups
4th-6th of the month: matching and assignments
7th-28th of the month: creation
29th of the month: fanworks due
30th of the month: reveals
Sign ups will occur at
pt_lightning and pt_lightning, and posting will occur at the Pod Together Lightning AO3 collection. We can also be found at
pt_lightning and
pt-lightning.
Pod Together Lightning Year 1 ran Nov. 2013-May 2014. Year 2 will run every third month starting in November 2014. The schedule thus far:
Round 1: November 2014
Round 2: February 2015 [with reveals on Mar. 2]
Round 3: May 2015
fleurrochard and
somnolentblue are the challenge mods; pt_lightningmod is the official voice of the mod team. You can contact them with questions or comments by leaving a comment on this post, emailing them at pod.together.lightning at gmail dot com, or through the Page a Mod post.
FAQ: Sign-ups
What am I committing to if I sign up?
You are committing to creating a collaborative fanwork of at least 100 words as part of a writer-podficcer partnership by the end of the month. All other details about the final shape of the fanwork will be decided by you and your partner(s).
Perhaps you want to create something comforting, a petit four-sized fanwork featuring your favorite things, or perhaps you want to create something experimental, using a new narrative or performance technique. The fanwork might be a drabble or poem, a monologue or a radioplay. Maybe it will feature sound effects or multiple voices, wordplay or song. It is totally up to your partnership!
The form of the posted fanwork -- identical text and audio, divergent text and audio, audio only, some combination of the above -- is also totally up to your partnership.
Work with your partner to figure out what you'd like to do, and then work together to create it!
How do I sign up? What's the difference between an Individual Sign-up and a Group Sign-up?
Every round, we will create an Individual Sign-Up Post and a Group Sign-Up Post at
pt_lightning and pt_lightning. To sign up, comment at the appropriate sign-up post with the requested information.
There are two types of sign-ups: Individual and Group.
An Individual Sign-up is for someone signing up who needs a partner. A writer who does an Individual Sign-up will be matched with a podficcer partner; a podficcer who does an Individual Sign-up will be matched with a writer partner. The mod team will match partners based on the list of Fandoms and/or Content/Genre that you list in your sign-up. You can also opt-in to being matched randomly (more on random matches below; it is completely optional).
Individual Sign-ups will match people in groups of two, one writer and one podficcer. You can opt to be matched to two groups, and you can choose to be matched as a writer, a podficcer, or either.
A Group Sign-up is for groups who are signing up together, no matching required. There must be at least one writer and one podficcer per group, but the number of group members and division of duties is totally up to you! You could sign up in a group of three or more, any or all of the group members could be both writing and podficcing, you could write or podfic round robin style -- whatever suits your collaborative creative process!
Sign-ups are new for every round. If you do an Individual Sign-up to match on Coffee Prince, Teen Wolf, and filk and no random matching on Round One, you can then sign up to match on Avengers, Princess Bride, and poetry with a random match on Round Two. You can do an Individual Sign-up as a podficcer during Round One and a Group Sign-up as a writer during Round Three.
What's the difference between Fandom Matching and Content/Genre Matching? What's Random Matching?
Fandom Matching is based on common fandoms that are listed in the sign-up. For example, if Person P (podficcer) signs up with the fandoms Lord of the Rings (books), Princess Bride, and Princess Princess, and Person W (writer) signs up with the fandoms Princess Bride, Teen Wolf, and Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare), they would be matched on the fandom Princess Bride.
Content/Genre Matching is based on genres, tropes, kinks, etc. that are listed in the sign-up. Examples might include: 2nd person POV, filk, footnotes, kidfic, kink, poetry, women characters, etc. If you want to write or perform something specific but are a little more flexible on fandom, a Content/Genre match might work really well for you.
We're going to look for a reference list(s) for suggested terms for Content/Genre matching that we will link on the sign-up posts. They're not going to be required terms, for fandom is a varied and beautiful place, and we could never find a list that encompassed all the possibilities for all of fandom! Also, we may end up doing some behind-the-scenes wrangling so that "urophilia" is matched with "watersports", "five things" is matched with "5+1 things", or "poems" is matched with "poetry".
Note: if you put something in the Content/Genre to be matched on, you may get matched *only* on that and not on fandom. So if you enter, for example, "Fandoms: anthropomorfic (knitting); Anne of Green Gables (series); and Coffee Prince", "Content/Genres: breathplay; cuddling; filk; five things; poetry", you may match with someone based on "Content/Genres: breathplay; poetry".
A Random Match is an opt-in method of matching. It means that there may not be anything in common in a partnership's sign-ups, and it's up to you and your partner to figure out that you want to create that coffee/tea anthropomorphic fanwork or that you both feel fannish love for an obscure musical group. This is an optional feature, and you can choose to opt-in during one round and not opt-in during another round.
FAQ: Collaboration and Creation
What does a collaborative fanwork created by a writer and a podficcer look like?
What a collaborative fanwork created by a writer and a podficcer looks like varies greatly, and it's one of the things we hope challenge participants have fun exploring.
The most basic answer is that it is a fanwork created by at least one writer and at least one podficcer, and what it looks like depends on the writer-podficcer partnership. Every collaborative fanwork is going to look different because every partnership has a different energy and chemistry.
You can see some of the fanworks other writer-podficcer collaborations have done at the Pod Together Lightning Collection (AO3) and the Pod Together Collection (AO3). Fanworks include poetry and epistolary works, first person POV and 2nd person POV, the text posted as a script alongside the podfic and audio-only radioplays, dialogue-only works and five things fanworks.
What happens once I've been matched?
When the matching process is finished, we'll contact you and your partner, let you know you've been matched, and tell you what the basis of the match is. After that, collaboration and creation are in your hands.
We strongly recommend that the first thing you do is communicate! This may mean emails, skype chats, instant messaging, writing back and forth in gdocs, using twitter, sending each other semaphore gifs -- whatever works for you! Talk about what you'd like to get out of your project and what you'd like to do. Discuss mutual goals and expectations. The best way to get the most out of your partnership is to talk with each other, to clearly communicate your expectations and hopes to your partner from the very beginning.
What should we talk about?
There is no formal ice breaker week, and the challenge runs very quickly. However, here are a few things you might want to discuss:
- Favorite fandoms, characters, and tropes. Explore what things you have in common and might want to have in your fanwork. Squee over things you love, and discuss things you'd love to see.
- What do you love to do as a creator? What are your strengths and weaknesses? If you both love music and singing, perhaps you'd want to create a song. Perhaps you're awesome or awful at monologues or dialogue-only stories. Be honest with each other!
- Squicks and do not wants. Fandom is a fabulously varied place, and one person's enticement is another person's warning. You want to enjoy this process, not dread it with every bit of fannish energy you have! Discuss and respect each other's boundaries.
- What are you looking to get out of this collaboration? Is there anything in particularly you'd like to try, a narrative or performance technique that you love doing or that you'd like to experiment with for the first time? Be flexible: this is an equal partnership, and you're both bringing creative energy, time, and skills to the table.
- How long do you think the finished fanwork might be? The minimum is 100 words, and there is no maximum. However, the creation period about three weeks, so this may not be the time for the 100K epic! Talk about what you think you can complete during the creation period, which spans about three weeks. Be honest with each other.
- What will your timeline be? Each partnership will set its own internal schedule for writing and podficcing.
A suggested schedule:
6th of the month: assignments go out
7th-9th of the month: discussion and ice breaking period
10th-19th of the month: writing period
19th-28th of the month: podficcing period
29th of the month: posting and waiting for reveals
30th of the month: reveals!
We've talked, but now what? How does collaboration work?
Again, it's up to you! Each partnership will vary, depending on the energy and chemistry of the participants. You both bring strengths and skills to your partnership, and together you'll create a fanwork. To quote the
pod_together FAQ: "This should be an equal collaboration, although ultimately, the writer gets the final say over the words of the work and the podficcer gets the final say over the performance of it."
Remember, communicate and be flexible! This isn't an opportunity for a writer to demand that a podficcer podfic of specific fanwork, nor is it an opportunity for a podficcer to demand that a writer write a specific prompt. It's an opportunity for you to work together, explore your strengths and interests, and see what happens.
You can explore other people's answers to the question of how the collaborative process worked in the comments of the pod-together 2011 wrap-up post and the pod-aware posts linked at the Author/Podficcer Relationship Round-Up (2011) and the Collaboration! Round-Up (2012).
Possible ways to collaborate:
- The partners might develop an idea together, either a brief prompt or a detailed summary, which the writer would use as the basis of their text.
- The writer might sketch out different fanworks (perhaps a summary, notes on a scene or two, a bit of dialogue, or a few lines of a song) and the podficcer could choose one they connect to strongly for the writer to continue.
- The podficcer might record a short audio sample to inspire the writer's work.
- The podficcer might do a test read of the work, and the writer could adapt it in response.
You could send each other emails with text files and audio clips, work in gdocs or via skype, talk with each other through twitter or via instant message. We strongly recommend that you keep in contact during the creation period, discussing the fanwork as it's being written or podficced, keeping each other updated about progress, and talking with each other as questions arise.
Again, this is an equal partnership, although the writer has the final say over the words and the podficcer has the final say over the performance. Talk to your partner, be creative, and have fun!
Are there check-ins?
At the time of sign-up, you can opt-in to check-ins on the 15th and the 25th of the month. If you opt-in, we ask that one member of your partnership contact us on the 15th and on the 25th to affirm that you're still in contact and that your project is progressing.
What happens if I need to drop out?
Communicate! Tell your partner and the mods if you need to drop out.
Please, please, please don't just disappear into thin air, leaving your partner uncertain about what happened and if you're just having internet problems and will be back in two days or if you've disappeared. Maybe you need to step away completely, and the fanwork will never be. Maybe life has happened, but you and your partner are enthused about your fanwork and will come back to it later.
You don't have to give us reasons or explanations, just tell us and, more importantly, your partner that you need to step away. There is no penalty list for defaulting, and dropping out does not preclude your participation in a later round.
FAQ: Posting
How do we post our fanworks?
Fanworks are posted to the Pod Together Lightning AO3 Collection. Each round of the challenge will have its own sub-collection. You post the fanwork, listing both the writer and podficcer as creators, to the sub-collections, which will remain unrevealed until the 30th of the month.
Note: you must have an AO3 account to post. If you need an AO3 account, let a mod know and we can give you an invitation. Alternatively, you can request an account directly through AO3.
Remember, the form of the posted fanwork -- identical text and audio, divergent text and audio, audio only, some combination of the above -- is up to your partnership.
AO3 Information:
- AO3 Tutorial: Posting to a challenge
- Just Press Play! (Podfic Embedding on the AO3) (includes code that you can cut and paste)
- Community: pt-lightning and PT-Lightning Challenge: Round 1 are our canonical challenge tags at AO3; a new round tag will be created for each round
What if we need hosting?
If you have hosting available, that's awesome. Feel free to use whatever hosting service you prefer.
If you need hosting for your podfics, cover art, or other fanwork-related files, we can provide it at http://pt-lightning.parakaproductions.com. Just email us copies of the relevant files. We'll upload them and email you back a link; it will look something like http://pt-lightning.parakaproductions.com/username/filename.
What if the synergy is strong and we don't finish our Epic Fanwork?
If synergy occurs and you end up creating a fanwork that can't be finished within the timeline of the challenge, that's awesome and amazing! Post a teaser-excerpt to the challenge collection, if you wish, and we'll look forward to the final fanwork!
When do reveals happen?
Reveals will happen on the 30th of the month. Following reveals, the mods will post a master list of fanworks to the
pt_lightning, pt_lightning, and
pt-lightning.