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interesting_times_gangIt is a truth, universally acknowledged, that there is Not Enough Culture Fic.
Or if it isn't universally acknowledged, it's certainly the consensus among a significant number of us who love the series, and who read fic for it, write fic for it, and just talk about the books. For proof, I give you the fact that when the fandom came up in discussions around this past Yuletide, people began to try to arrange a single-fandom exchange for it on the spot.
It's a fabulous idea. We've got enthusiasm, we've got a gloriously complex canon that's a joy to work with; we've got a lot of really good writers. All we need is to get together and figure out a schedule and details that will work for everyone (or for a critical mass of everyone).
This post is intended as an initial get-together and brainstorming venue. Some of the discussion around this has taken place in anonymous spaces, which aren't exactly an ideal place for doing this sort of organizing;* so this is a place to meet up in namespace (or, okay, in pseud space), to get acquainted, and to start thinking about what we want to see in this kind of exchange.
Since we'll be running this for the first time ever, we should probably start by talking about the basics. To wit:
1. What's the best timing and schedule for everybody? The exchange calendar has gotten fairly crowded in recent years, and ideally we should time this so that it doesn't interfere with other exchanges people want to take part in. And questions of timing include not only the due date for the exchange, but when signups, etc. should open and when assignments should go out -- i.e., how long participants feel would work best for writing.
(As an initial guess, we were thinking that a March due date might be the most practical -- after Chocolate Box, but before SpaceSwap. But that was just a rough guesstimate, and totally up for discussion.)
2. What kind of minimum word count would participants be most comfortable with? 1K seems to have become something of a standard for most exchanges, but is there an argument for a longer or shorter minimum?
3. Given that this is a single-fandom exchange, and for a small fandom, do we need to concern ourselves about any more granular matching? (Remix Redux used to match only by fandom, in its pre-AO3 days at least, and that was part of what made assignments interesting; on the other hand, Remix isn't and wasn't intended as a gift exchange.)
4. What obvious, basic questions am I forgetting even to ask? I feel sure that there's at least one. Whatever it is/they are, if we think about them now, they won't come back to bite us later. Right?
So, welcome! And let the discussion in comments commence.
______________________
*The Bad Bang mod somehow managed to put together an entire exchange via F_FA and AO3, but Bad Bang by its nature enjoyed, well, special circumstances.
Or if it isn't universally acknowledged, it's certainly the consensus among a significant number of us who love the series, and who read fic for it, write fic for it, and just talk about the books. For proof, I give you the fact that when the fandom came up in discussions around this past Yuletide, people began to try to arrange a single-fandom exchange for it on the spot.
It's a fabulous idea. We've got enthusiasm, we've got a gloriously complex canon that's a joy to work with; we've got a lot of really good writers. All we need is to get together and figure out a schedule and details that will work for everyone (or for a critical mass of everyone).
This post is intended as an initial get-together and brainstorming venue. Some of the discussion around this has taken place in anonymous spaces, which aren't exactly an ideal place for doing this sort of organizing;* so this is a place to meet up in namespace (or, okay, in pseud space), to get acquainted, and to start thinking about what we want to see in this kind of exchange.
Since we'll be running this for the first time ever, we should probably start by talking about the basics. To wit:
1. What's the best timing and schedule for everybody? The exchange calendar has gotten fairly crowded in recent years, and ideally we should time this so that it doesn't interfere with other exchanges people want to take part in. And questions of timing include not only the due date for the exchange, but when signups, etc. should open and when assignments should go out -- i.e., how long participants feel would work best for writing.
(As an initial guess, we were thinking that a March due date might be the most practical -- after Chocolate Box, but before SpaceSwap. But that was just a rough guesstimate, and totally up for discussion.)
2. What kind of minimum word count would participants be most comfortable with? 1K seems to have become something of a standard for most exchanges, but is there an argument for a longer or shorter minimum?
3. Given that this is a single-fandom exchange, and for a small fandom, do we need to concern ourselves about any more granular matching? (Remix Redux used to match only by fandom, in its pre-AO3 days at least, and that was part of what made assignments interesting; on the other hand, Remix isn't and wasn't intended as a gift exchange.)
4. What obvious, basic questions am I forgetting even to ask? I feel sure that there's at least one. Whatever it is/they are, if we think about them now, they won't come back to bite us later. Right?
So, welcome! And let the discussion in comments commence.
______________________
*The Bad Bang mod somehow managed to put together an entire exchange via F_FA and AO3, but Bad Bang by its nature enjoyed, well, special circumstances.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-02 04:48 am (UTC)But I too wonder how good a fit it is for the Culture, where there are so few continuing characters (and the aesthetic and worldbuilding to some extent depend on that sense of vastness you get from the way no character or set of characters is central to anything like every important event in the Culture's space). All these suggested modifications strike me as directions we should consider.
However we do this, I definitely vote for allowing (and even inviting) original characters, human and not. It wouldn't be the Culture without a cast of thousands available, and relatively few continuing characters: it's part of the way Banks conveys the sheer scale of the civilization. And after all, if there are 2000 Abominators, you'd expect that every so often we'd see more than just the FONMC, right?
I also agree that at least a month makes sense for the thinking/writing period. Which, okay, I have a personal interest as the World's Slowest Writer; but it's a complex canon, and yeah, there's no fast way to do the review.
. . . and ack, there was going to be more, but I need to be a bit more coherent before I start free-associating about whether it makes any sense to try to match on books or time period rather than, or in addition to, on characters.