☆ 1st check-in (1,000 words): July 19
☆ 2nd check-in (2,000 words): August 17
☆ Final deadline (3,000 words): September 10
☆ Posting: September 14


THE TEAMS

Participants will have four choices of teams to join, each team writing a specific genre as described.

TEAM SCI-FI - Scifi is short for “science fiction”, a sub-genre of fantasy dealing with seemingly impossible technological advances, often futuristic - such as space travel, time travel, extraterrestrial life etc. These technological advances affect the universe in a large scale, and scifi often explores the consequences. Here is the wikipedia article for further reading and understanding. The writing from this team will ideally be about the interactions of characters within a definite scifi world setting.

TEAM DYSTOPIA - Though there are overlaps between scifi and dystopia, dystopia has a few distinctive attributes to help its identification. Dystopia, by definition, is the opposite of an utopia. It’s characterized by an undesirable or frightening world where exists a totalitarian government, dehumanization and caste system, or similarly oppressing forms of social construct. Dystopian works often dramatize and highlight issues which already exists in our societies. While the writing in Scifi focuses on technologies, Dystopia focuses on more humanitarian issues. Here is the wikipedia article for further reading and understanding. The writing from this team will ideally be about the interactions of characters within a definite dystopian world setting.

TEAM SUPERNATURAL - For the purpose of this competition, “supernatural” stories will have their focus on legendary and mythical creatures. Common examples are vampires, werewolves, mermaids, angels and demons etc. In more compassing terms, any story focusing on a society containing creatures with a different genetic make-up and biological functions to humans will be accepted. The characters could be the creatures themselves, or humans cohabiting with them. Here is the comprehensive wikipedia list of creatures and another list for reference and further understanding. A/B/O stories are accepted in this category, though the social construct must be different from our own universe to qualify as AU.

TEAM FANTASY - Any other fantasy works which do not fit within the three specific sub genres above will be accepted in this category. Common examples are high fantasy (Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings), contemporary fantasy (Percy Jackson, The Mortal Instruments, Harry Potter), magical realism, mythological fantasy, historical fantasy, etc. The setting can be from any universe constructed by an author, but the work must contain at least one magical, fantastic, supernatural or mythical element.

We have noticed some confusions when it comes to the team supernatural and fantasy and we are hoping to clarify the matter once and for all. How to know if your plot belongs to supernatural or fantasy?
If your universe has a large human population, with a similar structure to our world and magic is confined to a few species (e.g. vampires, wolves and witches), supernatural is the team for you, whether your main character is a human or a supernatural being.
On the contrary, any universe heavily relying on magic and no human presence or it being minimized and considered as another specie that isn’t dominant will be seen as fantasy.

Please keep in mind that the genre descriptions are only a guideline for you to choose a team. We will allow as much flexibility as we can to accommodate your writings. As long as the work produced carries the main theme of the team, the work will be accepted. 

You can direct further genre-related question to extrafictionary@gmail.com or the genre Q&A post.

Mods will be picking a representative from each team to serve as the single point of contact and to make sure that things are going smoothly.

While writing, we hope to be able to provide a support system for each team. The team assignment is there to help each writers have a circle of people to talk to about the competition, to cheer each other on, and to bounce ideas off of each other. But we mods won't be around all the time to oversee all four teams, and this is where the team representatives come in. The team representatives are there to help us organize certain team activities, encourage team bonding and bring forth problems encountered by the team. Except for the representatives appointed by us, the team are free to conduct their team bonding however they like (and we do hope you bond!). So if you find that you could be a representative and have time to spare from writing while the competition is going on, please let us know in the sign-up form below!



HOW IT WORKS

SIGN-UPS: Two rounds of sign-ups will happen, both having a duration of a week. The first one follows a “free for all” basis where every participant will pick a team.
The second one will be there to even out the number of participants in each team and the amount of participants needed will be stipulated, with sign-ups closing once these numbers have been reached. To sign-up, please fill the form you will find below.


PROMPTS: While signing up, participants are required to submit three prompts: one quote, one picture and one song.

• A quote: a quote from a book, poem, any previously published work of any medium; or a saying from an author of your choice. Please provide the name of the work it is derived from (if applicable) and the name of the author, as well as provide a link to where you found the quote.
• A picture: please provide a link to your picture prompt (flickr, imgur, etc.) and make sure the link doesn’t die for the duration of the competition. It is advisable that you provide two links, one of the original and one mirror, hosting the image on an image hosting site that you trust, and keep a copy of it as well. Please be mindful of copyrights and credits.
• A song: please provide the name of the artist and the song, as well as a link to your song prompt (youtube, soundcloud, etc.). Please be mindful of copyrights and credits.

These will be used as prompts for other teams’ participants, one each. People from the same round will receive each others’ prompts. This is to ensure that each of you will receive three prompts in return – one quote, one picture and one song. For example, if you are from Team Scifi and participating in Round 3, then the other three participants of Round 3 will receive your prompts: one given to the Dystopia writer, one given to the Supernatural writer, and one given to the Fantasy writer. In exchange, you’ll receive three prompts, one from Dystopia, one from Supernatural, and last one from Fantasy.

The matching of rounds and prompts will be completely randomized. We will only facilitate the process to ensure each writer has three different types of prompts. As you will be competing with people writing the prompts you have given, please be creative with the prompts to provide a challenge for them. The usage of prompts can be to your liking. You can choose one, two among the three prompts, or combine all of them together.


WRITING: The minimum word count is 3,000 words. Due to the fact that this is an AU writing competition, we mods have decided to have a higher word count requirement than the usual kpop challenges and exchanges. Firstly, as many writers have learnt during the writing of an AU fanfiction, a certain degree of world building and world exploration is needed, so that your readers could understand and appreciate this alternative universe you've spent hours on creating. We found that it is an essential element of writing AUs, and will include it in the voting criteria. Of course, we're not expecting you to describe every details in your newly built world, and we are certainly not forcing you to. This word count requirement is there to put everyone on a level playing field when it comes to writing a great AU story and attracting readers. We hope for your understanding, and look forward to what you have in store for 3,000 words and more.


VOTING: Each submission will be scored by readers in three aspects - ‘accuracy to designated genre’; ‘interpretation of prompts’ and ‘enjoyment’. The score of individual works will be tallied for a final team score. Since this is a team competition, the goal is for your team to score the highest combined score.



 SIGN-UPS

Please post copy/paste and fill this form in the comments below: 

<b>DW/LJ Username:</b> <br /><b>Email address: </b> <br /><b>Team: </b> (The team you want to join)<br /><b>Fandoms you consider writing for:</b> (All the fandoms you think you could potentially write for, it's only for statistics and strategic promotional moves for this event)<br /><b>Prompts:</b> (Please, respect the guideline when providing your prompts)<br />Quote<br />Image<br />Song<br /><b>Pinch-hit:</b> (Are you willing to pinch-hit? Y/N/M) <br /><b>Willing to be a point of contact?</b> Y/N


Please sign-up here (we're in our second round of sign-up). Use the General Q&A and the Genre Q&A for any question you may have regarding this event.