Challenge Fifty Titles in Search of a Story | We have a winner! Congrats to divapilot :)

15 January 2017: This challenge is over and voting is now beginning. Please see this post for details.​

Welcome to the ‘Fifty Titles in Search of a Story’ Challenge!

The purpose of this challenge for those who have trouble with multi-post stories to write and finish one, for the prolific writers among us to become a little more prolific, and for everyone to share their experience when writing long!fics.

The principle is simple. I have a list of 50 titles*. You pick a number between 1 and 50, are allocated a title and must write an all-new story of minimum 4 posts/12,000 words for that title by the end of 2016. 12,000 words over one year is less than 33 words a day, anyone can do that, right?

Both Star Wars Fan Fiction and Non-Star Wars Fan Fiction are eligible for this challenge.

This thread will also host a monthly workshop/discussion on issues pertaining to long form fiction. There’s a proposed list of topics below, but it can be modified by popular demand. Writers who do not participate in the challenge are of course welcome to participate in the workshops.

Readers will vote in January 2017 to choose the two best stories. The winners get bragging rights, and I will think of a prize before the year is over.

If you are already a seasoned long!fic writer, you can participate out of competition. If so, please let everyone know when you sign up.

Note: What makes a 'seasoned long!fic writer' is a matter of self-perception -- it's not only about having already written one (or more) multi-chapter fics, but also about how easy or difficult it was for you and how confident you are about doing it again. At any rate, even if you are as seasoned as it gets, you don't have to remove yourself from the competition; it's just a suggestion, not a requirement.​

Have a look at the rules, and if you like the idea, just post in this thread to tell me the number you want! The titles will be posted in the sign-up sheet on 01 January 2016, and everyone will receive their title by PM as well.

Table of contents

The rules​

Reviews, discussions and concrit​

Sign-up sheet/Story index​

Proposed discussion and workshop topics/Workshop index​

@leiamoody was the first to reply, so she gets a link to her post here​

* The titles are borrowed from the works of 50 famous writers of world literature (sorted by language: 3 Arabic, 1 Czech, 1 Danish, 14 English, 9 French, 6 German, 4 Greek, 3 Italian, 1 Japanese, 2 Portuguese, 5 Russian, 1 Spanish). This does not reflect my view of the value of world literature – I just thought they were cool titles. We can do more Cypriot and less Greek next year if we decide to repeat the experience

For those who haven’t already guessed, this challenge was started by Chyntuck. I'm just running it under a sock in case DRL strikes and I have to hand over for a short while at some point during the year.

 

The rules

1. The title you picked must be the title of your story. You will receive it by PM on 01 January 2016.

2. Your story must be completed by 31 December 2016, 11:59 PST.

3. Sign-ups are open until 15 March (i.e. two weeks before the deadline to start posting your fic).

4. You may pick up to two titles, but if you do, your stories must be written in different eras for SWFF, or in different fandoms for NSWFF (or one SWFF, one NSWFF).

5. Any narrative format (prose, verse, theatre, script etc) is acceptable as long as your entry is a single, continuous story. This means that a series of drabbles telling one story from beginning to end is okay, but a series of vignettes that bear no relation to each other is not. In order not to compete with the Dear Diary Challenge, the diary format is excluded.

6. Your story must be at least 12,000 words in total by the end of the year. There is no upper word count limit. For the purposes of this challenge, we will be using this word counter.

7. Your story must consist of at least 4 posts: one posted in the first quarter (01 Jan - 31 March), one in the second quarter (01 Apr - 30 June), etc. There is no upper post count limit.

8. There must be at least one update per quarter (i.e. you can’t post 4 updates at once and be done with it). If you fail to update within the quarter, you drop out of the challenge. I’ll send a reminder to everyone two weeks before each deadline.

9. You may challenge yourself to posting more often than once per quarter, or to a total word count above 12,000. If you do, please state your ‘contract’ when you post the link to your fic. This is solely for the purpose of self-motivation, you won’t drop out of the challenge if you miss an extra update.

10. Start your story thread in the appropriate board (here for SWFF, here for NSWFF), including ‘Title challenge’ in the title bar. Please post a link in this thread once your story is up and signal every time you update, specifying your number of posts and your total word count.

11. You may also use this thread to discuss the progress you make, any difficulties you encounter, etc, to propose discussion/workshop topics and to participate in workshops/discussions (obviously).

12. With the exception of concrit (constructive criticism, see below), all the fanfic rules apply to this challenge. Please make sure you’ve read the Fanfic FAQ, especially if you are a new/returning user.

 

Reviews, discussions and concrit (constructive criticism)

1. Because this is a workshop as well as a challenge, this thread is concrit-friendly, meaning that your fellow participants can provide constructive criticism by PM only (this is an exception to the rule against unsolicited concrit, which you can read here). If you do not wish to receive concrit, please say so when you sign up.

2. Please specify when you sign up if you would accept that your fellow participants use excerpts from your story as an example in the monthly discussions.

3. This is not a requirement, but it would be nice if you could read and review the fics of your fellow participants.

4. You have the option to go back and edit a post if the concrit you received, or one of the discussions, gives you new ideas for how it could be improved. If you do, please signal it in this thread and update your word count.

5. Concrit is not bashing or flaming, nor is it about passing judgement on other people’s writing. If you’re going to critique your fellow writers’ stories, make sure you understand the difference.

Examples (borrowed from the Concrit Index):

Bashing:

Concrit:

 

31 March 2016: Sign-ups to this challenge are now closed. If you want to choose one of the remaining titles from an open list and use it as a prompt, please check out the list of available titles at the bottom of this post.

Story Index - In Competition
Stories still in competition as of 30 June 2016 are underlined.

Star Wars - Saga

Darthmagus970 – The Last Temptation
Stats: 2 posts/5037 words as of 30 June 2016
Notes: OC (Jango Fett clone)

KELIA – Time Regained
Stats: 1 post/1714 words as of 30 June 2016 (dropped out)
Notes: Drama, AU, PT characters

Star Wars – Saga PT

Cleo Jinn – The Trial
Stats: 1 post/160 words as of 30 June 2016 (dropped out)
Notes: between TPM and AOTC, Sieara Doterr (OC), Yoda, Sci-Fi, Youth, a young Jedi Padawan about to take her Trial to become a Jedi Knight.

jcgoble3 – A Season in Hell
Stats: 1 post/639 words as of 30 June 2016 (dropped out)
Notes: TPM AU, teamfic, OCs, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan

ZaraValinor – Perfume
Stats: 2 posts/1150 words as of 30 June 2016
Notes:

Star Wars – Saga OT

LadyPadme – Requiem for a Dream
Stats: 1 post/1176 words as of 30 June 2016 (dropped out)
Notes: Rey

mavjade – The End of Eternity
Stats: 2 posts/2033 words as of 30 June 2016
Notes: ~15 years before TFA with a long-ish timeframe, Rey, Luke, Han, Leia, other various canon and Legends characters

Star Wars – Saga ST

Glor – And Then There Were None
Stats: 2 posts/6691 words as of 30 June 2016
Notes: Episode VII, Phasma, Zeroes, Nines, OCs, military, drama, angst

Lazy K – Notes from Underground
Stats: 1 post/502 words as of 30 June 2016 (dropped out)
Notes: Post-TFA with OT and post-OT flashbacks, OCs, drama

WarmNyota_SweetAyesha – Much Ado about Nothing
Stats: 3 posts/1478 words as of 30 June 2016
Notes: Integrates TFA with Legends, characters are the usual suspects

Star Wars – Beyond the Saga

mute90 – Our Kind of Traitor
Stats: 1 post/1103 words as of 30 June 2016 (dropped out)
Notes: Star Wars/Stargate SG1/Harry Potter crossover, millions of years post-saga for Star Wars, post-series for Harry Potter, season 6 of Stargate SG1, diverse cast

Star Wars – Beyond – Legends

divapilot – Seasons of Migration to the North
Stats: 3 post/7924 words as of 30 June 2016
Notes: AU, drama, L/M, H/L

earlybird-obi-wan – The Flowers of Evil
Stats: 10 posts/12589 words as of 30 June 2016
Notes: 142 ABY, OCs

Irish_Jedi_Jade – Things Fall Apart
Stats: 4 posts/10271 words as of 30 June 2016
Notes: Post-TTT, Luke/Mara

Non-Star Wars

s_heffley – One Thousand and One Nights
Stats: 2 posts/5460 words as of 30 June 2016
Notes: Tolkien-verse, right before the War of the Last Alliance, OC

Tarsier – The Sound and the Fury
Stats: 1 post/1351 words as of 30 June 2016 (dropped out)
Notes: crossover of Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy X, friendship, adventure, post-game AU, sequel to Love Don't Die.

Story Index - Out of Competition

Star Wars - Before the Saga

Chyntuck – If This Is a Man
Stats: 2 posts/4998 words as of 30 June 2016
Notes: OCs, a scientist is on the run after a medical experiment goes terribly wrong.

Star Wars – Saga PT

Briannakin – Live and Let Die
Stats : 3 posts/5749 words as of 30 June 2016
Notes: Post-RotS AU, angst, family, philosophy, Anakin, Obi-Wan, other Jedi, Luke, Leia

Pending

yahiko -- Exile and the Kingdom (borrowed from Albert Camus)
Myriad_Daydreams -- Tremor of Intent (borrowed from Anthony Burgess)
SiouxFan -- Great Expectations (borrowed from Charles Dickens)
Katana_Sundancer -- The Trouble with Being Born (borrowed from Emil Cioran)
Admiral Volshe -- All Quiet on the Western Front (borrowed from Erich Maria Remarque)
pregnantpadme -- The Book of Disquiet (borrowed from Fernando Pessoa)
Shira A'dola -- The Invisible Company (borrowed from Iakovos Kambanellis)
SabyneAmberle -- Immortality (borrowed from Milan Kundera)
brodiew -- The Island of the Day Before (borrowed from Umberto Eco)
Snokers -- Z (borrowed from Vassilis Vassilikos)
Chewies_bandolier -- Vigil (borrowed from Yiannis Ritsos)

Available Titles out of Competition

Time Must Have a Stop (borrowed from Aldous Huxley)
The Forty-Five Guardsmen (borrowed from Alexandre Dumas)
Darkness at Noon (borrowed from Arthur Koestler)
The Sun Also Rises (borrowed from Ernest Hemingway)
The General in His Labyrinth (borrowed from Gabriel García Márquez)
Life: A User's Manual (borrowed from Georges Perec)
The League of Youth (borrowed from Henrik Ibsen)
Paradise Lost (borrowed from John Milton)
Blindness (borrowed from José Saramago)
The Shadow Line (borrowed from Joseph Conrad)
Death on Credit (borrowed from Louis-Ferdinand Céline)
Tonight We Improvise (borrowed from Luigi Pirandello)
The Fatal Eggs (borrowed from Mikhail Bulgakov)
Sugar Street (borrowed from Naguib Mahfouz)
Dead Souls (borrowed from Nikolai Gogol)
Mr Vertigo (borrowed from Paul Auster)
The Man Without Qualities (borrowed from Robert Musil)
The Red and the Black (borrowed from Stendhal)
The Child Prodigy (borrowed from Thomas Mann)
Invitation to a Beheading (borrowed from Vladimir Nabokov) -- TAKEN by Pandora
Confessions of a Mask (borrowed from Yukio Mishima) -- TAKEN by Briannakin and Chyntuck, but others are welcome to use it too.

 

Discussion and Workshop Index (the links will take you to the first post of the discussion)

Week 1 (01-07 January 2016): Your first reaction to your title​

Week 2 (08-14 January 2016): Outlining​

Week 3 (15-21 January 2016): Outlining exercise​

Week 4 (22-28 January 2016): Serialised storytelling​

Week 5 (29 January - 04 February): Free discussion​

Week 6 (05-11 February): Beginning a story​

Week 7 (12-18 February): Famous beginnings​

Week 8 (19-25 February): Continuing your story​

Week 9 (26 February - 3 March): Free discussion, status update, title swap week​

Week 10 (04-10 March): Narrative voices and POVs​

Week 11 (13-19 March): The POV exercise​

Week 12 (20-26 March): The voice exercise​

Week 13: Hiatus​

Week 14 (03-09 April): Canon characters​

Week 15 (10-16 April): Original characters​

Week 16 (17-23 April): Twenty things about your characters​

Week 17 (24-30 April): Characterisation and character development​

Weeks 18-22: Hiatus​

Week 23 (06-13 June): Dialogue​

Weeks 24-27: Introspection​

Week 28: Genres, tropes and clichés​

Week 29: Cannon, Lovely Cannon​

Week 30: AUs & Crossovers​

​

Proposed discussion & workshop topics

1. Outlining and serialised storytelling
2. Beginning a story
3. Genres, tropes and clichés
4. Canon vs fanon: how to enrich the fandom you’re writing in
4. Storylines: canon-compliant, AU, time-travel
5. Characterisation and character development
6. Dialogue, monologue, introspection
7. Narrative points of view
8. Description
9. Formatting and editing
10. Ending a story
11. Betas, reviews and constructive criticism

(#12 reserved for evaluation of this challenge in December 2016)

 

Do you respond in this thread or by PM?

 

In the thread, just give your number and/or your ideas. I'll edit the OP to reflect that.

 

I'll take 21. Since I've actually completed two longfics before (not in one year), I'll take myself out of competition. I just want to remember how to complete another longfic, because it's been awhile.

 

I'll take 13, that's what the magic number picker gave me.
Question: can we use the title to inspire us for an unposted or unfinished fic (that may need to be revamped), or should it be entirely original for this challenge? Either one works for me, I have eras and fandoms I do wish to write for.

 

I'll take my lucky number, 8.

 

#48 please.

 

I'll take #10. Man, I hope it's not a horrible title! I've done exactly ONE long story...does that make a me a 'seasoned' longfic writer? If so, I'll remove myself from the competition, but still try the challenge.

 

I added everyone's names to the sign-up sheet (and to my little Excel document).

I gave this some thought and I can see how an intriguing title could help you revamp a story that ran out of breath, but I'd rather we stick to all-new stuff for this challenge, since the idea is to go through all the steps of conceiving, outlining, writing and finishing a multi-post fic in one year. If there are leftover titles after sign-ups are over, they'll be up for grabs so you could ask for another one then. Is that okay?

I'd say that what makes a 'seasoned' writer is first and foremost a matter of self-perception. If you already wrote one or more longfics in a given timeframe and it didn't feel difficult at all, then you probably qualify as 'seasoned'. On the other hand, even if you already wrote one, but it took you several years, and/or you had been planning for it for years before you put pen to paper, and/or you kept dropping out and coming back to it later (these are just a few examples), then you probably don't. Does that make sense?

Just to clarify, you (as in, you the participant) don't have to remove yourself from the competition in any case. Maybe other aspects of this are a challenge to you, or maybe you just like competing, and that's fine too

I'll add notes to the OP to clarify these things. Thanks for asking!

 

Ah....gotcha. I think. It took me four years to finish, so I'm pretty sure that leaves me firmly in the 'unseasoned' camp. Thanks!

 

I'm terrible at long fics... the one I wrote took forever to write and was quite the pull, I certainly need all the help I can get in this matter. (Also, deadlines make things better for me.)

I'll take #24 please!

 

um. should I?
ah heck. sure. May I have 42 please? It's my dad's old classroom number, the first two digits of my classroom number, and the answer to everything.

 

9 please

 

I guess I'm missing something, or there's something missing from the rules, or, well, something:

When will the title for our selected number be sent to us?

 

The titles will be sent out on 01 January 2016. I highlighted the "important" sentences in the OP and added it to the "rules" post as well. That'll teach me for coming up with over-convoluted structures for my threads

 

Got it. I was hoping to have it in time to brainstorm a plot in December, but I'll figure out a way to work with that.

 

The story may barely meet the word minimum, but why not? This is precisely what it needs, a title.

Seven, please. I hope it sounds glorious, pathetic or both.

 

This sounds like a challenge I just may be able to handle so I will take #31

My history with long fics….so-so. I’ve finished some and not others but not for a long, long while so I’m not seasoned and I welcome all the help I can get!

 

Fate (or at least the random number generator) decrees that I take #27.

 

27 is always cool. All numbers with 7 in it are kinda...mysterious.

And I can totally see that whoever hosts the next pick-a-number challenge will have something that I totally don't know anything about under 7, just to see what happens when I pick it. But that's OK, I'm totally up to being framed like that and trying something absolutotally goat new.

 

Having abandoned far too many longfics (I'm going to finish them someday, I swear!) I'm participating in hopes of finding out what I'm doing wrong.

#17, please.