Challenge 18th Annual Non-Denominational Winter (for Some) Holiday Fic-Gift Exchange—Assignments Sent Dec. 1!

December is coming! That means it’s time for...

The 18th Annual Non-Denominational Winter (for Some of Us)
Holiday Fic-Gift Exchange!

​

Previous gift exchanges in the “three wishes” format: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023.

The Rules!
PM Findswoman with the following two (2) things:

1. The era(s) for which you are willing to write, based on the era tags list.

• Please let me know your preferred Saga era(s) (PT, OT, or ST—the reason will be clear below).
• Please include, if any, TV shows or games you are willing to write for as well.
• If there is a character or particular source material you really don’t want to write, let me know and I’ll do my best to avoid giving it to you.
• Please be willing to write in the era/category for which your wishes take place (so, for example, if you have a Rebels story, please be willing to write a Rebels story). Not having this makes it extra difficult!

2. Your three (3) wishes—story ideas you’d love for someone to write for you.

• One of them must be a PT, OT, or ST Saga film based wish, not requiring having seen or read any other material.
• It's helpful if you give an indication of where each story should belong timeline-wise. If you don’t specify, the author gets to choose.
• Your wishes can be as detailed as you’d like, but please keep it reasonable. Too much detail will make it harder to write. Feel free to indicate things you don't want as well as want. (If you’d like, you may write your wishes in the "three things I want, one thing I don’t" format used in previous years.)
• If you want, you can rank the wishes or specify if there's one you are most interested in receiving. If so, I'll use that information to try and pair you with someone able to write that wish, but please be aware that I can make no guarantees in this area.

Once I receive your requests, I’ll do my best to match up wishes with writers. Your Secret Author will then choose one of your wishes to write and post by the deadline (see "Timeline" below).

Here is an example of the PM you might write to sign up. To make it more fun, let’s write a letter to our Secret Author! (You don't have to use this format if you don’t want to, but it's kind of fun!)

Example PM:

​

Timeline
Please submit your wishes by 11:59pm (23:59) PST on November 30, 2024. (That means about ten days to get them in.)
I will try to have requests sent out on or about December 1, 2024.
Fic-gifts must be posted by 11:59pm (23:59) PST on January 12, 2025.

Other Info

• In the title bar of your story, please include “Fic-Gift for [NAME]” in the title.
• When you finish and post your story, please link to it in this thread, and I'll index it. It’s also fine to tag the person here in the thread using the @ sign.
• Please post the story in its own thread. This makes it easier to find and more like a gift. You may link to it in a short story thread if you have one, the Prolific Writers’ Index thread, or post it anywhere else you post your fanfics.
• There is no minimum word count, but please remember this is something people have wished for. Even if you can get all of their request into a mini-story, maybe take your time and try to add more.
• If you realize you aren’t going to be able to write your story, no worries! RL happens to all of us. But please let me know as soon as possible so I can find someone else to write it, as I don’t want anyone to be left out.
• On that note, I can always use pinch-writers to write stories others aren’t going to be able to do! If you'd like to help out in this way, please let me know.
• This is suppose to be a secret until the story is posted, so if you have any questions about the wish you receive, please PM me (Findswoman) rather than your assigned giftee. I'll ask that person your question (without naming your name) and get back to you.

​

Non-Star Wars Fanfic
If you would like to participate in the NSWFF Fic-gift exchange, please post in this thread saying which fandoms you are willing to participate in. If there is someone else who is willing to write in that fandom, they can reply directly to you that they are willing to do that exchange. Then via PM you two can either use the format described above or the previous “three things I want, one thing I don’t want” format.

Please link your Non-Star Wars Fic-gifts here in the thread as you would for the SW Fic-Gifts.

Note: I can’t guarantee everyone who wants a NSWFF fic-gift will get one, because I can’t know what fandoms will be picked. But I think most everyone who's applied for NSWFF exchanges in the last few years has received at least one story!

Example:

Q&A
Q. Do I have to submit three (3) wishes?
A. Yes, please. This is the most fair way to ensure every author gets the same number of wishes to pick from.

Q. What does “reasonable” mean with regard to the wishes?
A. I’m not going to put a hard line on it with this format, but just remember this isn’t the Dare Challenge. You want someone to be able to write the story you’ve wished for. If I think your wishes are too difficult, I may PM you back and ask that you adjust them.

Q. One of them HAS to be a movie request?
A. Yes. I know this might not be ideal for everyone, but because it’s gotten so hard to match people up with stories they are willing to write, we need a common ground. We can be reasonably sure that everyone has seen the Saga movies or are at least familiar enough with them that they could write for them. For material beyond that, we can't be sure.

Q. Are you still going to try and match people with like interests?
A. I will! As always, if you tell me you’d like to write for, say, The Mandalorian, and I have a wish that is Mandalorian-related, I’ll match the two up. Of course, I can’t guarantee that will happen, since it depends on what wishes come in. If you let me know your top wish, that's what I'll use to try and match you up with another writer. Again, though, I can make no promises.

Q. Do my wishes need to be holiday-related?
A. Nope! This is what you want, so it only needs to be holiday related if you want it to be.

Q. Can my wishes feature my original characters?
A. Yes, but with the following stipulations: (1) only one of your wishes can include your OCs, and (2) the mandatory movie-based wish can’t be it. If you have more than one movie-based request, only one of them can include OCs. This way writers have a choice.

Q. Can I request that my Star Wars gift story include characters or crossover elements from non-Star Wars fandoms?
A. No, sorry, not for the main Star Wars exchange. There are so many fandoms out there, and it's simply not possible to know who knows which fandoms and who doesn't. We’ve decided it’s safest to keep SW and non-SW elements separate for this exchange.

Q. Can I do both the Star Wars and NSWFF exchange?
A. Yes, you may do both exchanges, and you may do more than one exchange in NSWFF, but please do not volunteer to do more than you can reasonably deliver by the deadline.

Q. I missed the deadline to submit my wishes! Can I still participate?
A. No, sorry, not in the SW fic-gift exchange. Mav tried to allow this in the past, but it made things way too complicated. However, if you wanted, you could still do a NSWFF exchange. If you are in the giving mood, you could also volunteer to pinch-write, but I can’t say you’ll for sure get a story back.

Q. Can I write a multi-chapter fic?
A. Sure! But please make sure to include the elements requested by the giftee before the deadline.

Q. Can I write all three (or two) of the wishes?
A. This is difficult. It's great when people are inspired to write what other people would like, but I also don't want any author to feel like they have to write more than one story (because I know not everyone will have the time or interest to do so), nor do I want any recipients to feel bad if someone else received more than one story while they only received one. So here's the deal: it's fine to write more than one of the wishes, but any extra stories will not be counted as an officially part of the challenge, and you may not link to them here or label them as being part of the fic-gift exchange.

Q. I wasn’t able to finish my story on time and someone else wrote the wish. But I worked so hard on this story and I ended up finishing it, can I post it?
A. Please do! I’m sure the person would love to have your story to read as well!

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask here in the thread or via PM. Happy holidays and best greetings of the season to all!

Cheers,
Finds

​

 

Index of Gifts, Givers, and Giftees
A Contented Evening by WarmNyota_SweetAyesha for DarthIshtar
Blowing in the Storm by earlybird-obi-wan for ConservativeJedi321
The Black Box Survived by devilinthedetails for TherenAdarni
A Tuft of Stray Hair by Chyntuck for WarmNyota_SweetAyesha

 

OK, all requests so far have been responded to and catalogued in my master document! This is already shaping up to be a fun and stimulating challenge; love it!

 

It's the most wonderful time of the Fanfic year, and I'm so excited to see this sweet holiday gift fic exchange tradition continue for another year

I will most definitely be signing up for this gift exchange once I finish making my wish list and checking it twice

And a big thank you to the magnificent @Findswoman for hosting and organizing this event that brings so much joy to our corner of the boards

 

All PMs have been responded to; nice to see so many great signups! Now there’s just one week left to join in before assignments go out and the fun begins!

 

All right, everyone, looks like there are three (3) days left to sign up before I make and send assignments! Anyone else want to join in on the fun? Anyone? Anyone?

 

And now we’ve come to our last day for signups! Today, November 30, is the last day to sign up for this year’s Non-Denominational Gift Exchange! If you’re interested in joining, please get your requests in by 11:59 pm (23:59) PST today—that’s just under 20 hours from the time of this post. Please note, once again, that late signups for the main SW exchange cannot be accommodated, so now is the time.

Let’s get ’em in so the assignments can go out right away tomorrow and so the gifting fun can begin!

 

All righty doo, everyone! I am pleased to report that all the assignments have been sent to their writers, and that everyone who has signed up should have an assignment by now. If for some reason you don’t, please let me know by PM.

A few other reminders while I’m here:

• The due date for all gift stories is January 10.
• If you have questions about your assignment, please PM me instead of your recipient, and I shall pass the question on to them anonymously. That way all the gifters can be kept secret until the stories are posted.
• If something comes up and you won’t be able to finish your gift story on time, please PM me, and I’ll make what arrangements I can for a pinch writer. (An extra thank you to those who have volunteered to serve as pinch writers if needed! )

Thanks so much, everyone, and have fun!

 

You had me scared there for a second, Ish!

 

I think that one may be more Dare Challenge material than Gift Exchange material, but if we do the Dare Challenge again, I say go for it!

 

Yay! Congratulations on being our first participant to get a story in! It's in the index now; thanks so much.

Other gifters, how are we doing? Everything going all right with your assignments so far? I am here if you've got questions.