“Change one thing… change everything” the tagline from The Butterfly Effect (no doubt most Fulton/Elden fans know of this story). Well, Carla and I were talking, and as usual, we meandered off track and came to The Butterfly Effect. Almost simultaneously we had the same idea. Chose one aspect of a fic, and see how it changes the whole story.
The rules (below) state that you can’t change a character’s sexual preference, but you can change anything else. Imagine the possibilities! Had Adam not kissed Maya in the original Queertet series, Terri and Maya wouldn’t have gotten detention and ended up meeting Adam and Charlie. So how much impact would that have on the story? That’s up to you.
But you’re not revisiting and remixing your own stories. No. You’ll be remixing someone else’s.
No, you can’t chose your person. Carla and I will randomly assign stories to authors.
Sound fun? It did to us at least. Read the rules and sign up.
The Information
A “safe story” is the one story you mark as untouchable, and all participants of the ficathon will respect that. You can only have one safe story, so chose well! You may also make a note on the application form of any other stories that are off-limits for various reasons – the most common or likely being that it was a co-write and your co-writer does not want the story involved in this project, or maybe that you are working like a dervish on your story at the moment, and you don’t want to hand it over while you’re still busy with it.
A “pinch hit writer” is someone who is willing to fill in for anyone who might drop out.
The automated archive at this site will have a new category from 1 August 2005 – called “Butterfly Ficathon 2005”. In this you can post your new stories – I will ask now that anyone not involved in this does not post in there. The category will be live and you can add your stories to it, but they will not be approved by Carla and myself until 15 October 2005. Do not think you’re being ignored.
When posting your ficathon story to the archive make sure you post to the right category and chose “Butterfly Ficathon 2005” from the drop-down list of the “Warnings” section.
Important Note for those already using the Automated Archive:
If you are already a member of the automated archive, I will have to set your status back to “unvalidated” – this is simply to make sure your remix doesn’t hit the net before anyone else.
Anything else you post will be authorised and on the site quickly. Again, I have to state, make sure you chose “Butterfly Ficathon 2005” in the warning box – if you upload a fic that doesn’t have this warning, Carla or I will validate it, not knowing it’s part of the ficathon.
The Rules
- You must meet your deadlines. Sign-ups run until July 31, 2005 (now closed). Stories are due October 15, 2005. THE STORY ARCHIVE WILL NOT BE RELEASED UNTIL EVERYONE HAS A STORY TO READ.
- Please keep your assignment secret until after the stories are posted. Don’t talk about them in public forums. Remember, for many of you, any online journals are public forums.
- Co-written stories can be included in this, but you must have permission from both of the co-writers in order to participate.
- Please create a link page which includes links to all your stories, with the stories separated into sections (these are my slash stories, these are my het stories, this is my safe story). If you need some place to host it, ask either Sarah or Carla and we’ll work something out - an entry at an livejournal or similar would do nicely (if you want an example, Star's looks like this). We will not hunt down your writing if you do not provide this; you simply will not participate.
- Please have the stories beta read. Please.
- If your assignment has listed a safe story, DO NOT TOUCH IT. Respect the safe story, people.
- You can only have ONE safe story. If you only have two stories in this fandom, then you do not get a safe story.
- The story you write must be at least 1000 words, but feel free to write more.
- Though this is a “what if” challenge, some things must remain the same as in the original story. Slash stories must remain slash; het stories must remain het. The main characters must remain the same, even though they won’t interact the same way. The story rating must remain the same. Don’t forget to tie in the source material, the original story. This isn’t something you’re writing all on your own, you should take much of your inspiration from the first story.
- We know real life problems pop up. If you are going to be late or have to drop out entirely, please let us know as soon as possible so we can arrange for a pinch hit writer. Also, if you’re willing to pinch hit, please let us know.
Participants
A list (small at the moment!) of participants linking to their list of fics. Safe fics in [square brackets]Carla
Hannah
Meme [A Perfect Family]
Quimby [The Blair Duck]
Schiz [Games & Dating]
Star [Queertet Revisited]
