POLL CLOSED.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

PLEASE NOTE THAT myriadwords IS THE NEW COMMUNITY FOR THIS CHALLENFE IN PARTICULAR, AND FOR POSTING ANY OTHER YOUNG WIZARDS FANFICTION. PLEASE JOIN IF YOU'RE PLANNING ON PARTICIPATING, OR EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT, AS FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE CHALLENGE IS GOING TO GO THERE, SO AS NOT TO SPAM youngwizards.

Okay, so the challenge poll is now closed- that is to say, the results I have as of now are the results I'm going to stick to, although I'm not going to take the poll down for reference purposes. If you haven't voted, feel free to, but, er, it won't count for much except beta offering.

So! From the poll results, this is what the challenge is going to look like:
Deadline: August 31
Minimum Word Count: 100-500, although entries above that would be more than welcomed, of course.
Challenge Format: "Suggest-A-Challenge."

We also have 20 people who may be willing to beta, which is practically a largesse so I'd like to add a big THANK YOU to those who said they'd be willing to do so, and there will be some more news specifically for you very soon.

Now that we have this information, all that's left to finalise before I start taking sign-ups is the specific format of the challenge, because most people said they'd participate depending on the challenge. So... this is what I'm thinking about.

The "Suggest-a-Challenge" idea is this: that we get as many challenge submissions from everyone, including those who aren't participating, as we possibly can. I collate these into one big post, put them up in the challenge community and everyone who's signed up has a chance to claim one challenge, the idea being that we have forty or fifty challenges and only between ten and twenty participants, so almost everyone should find something they can write (and if they can't, I think doubling up once or twice would be fine, as well.) People would not be able to pick their own challenges, though.

This is a fine idea, I think, because it allows a bunch of variety and will hopefully mean that there'll be enough freedom of choice for everyone to be amenable. However, in talking it over with some of the people I'm bullying into signing up, I realised that everyone needs different things from a challenge; if the format's too loose, a challenge runs the risk of not giving enough guidance to an author who hasn't got heaps of ideas of their own; if the format's too tight, it runs the risk of pushing out people who don't like any of the options and need more freedom. So some sort of more specific format is needed: something that will provide specific enough information while still leaving open ends.

I thought this over for a while, and this is what I came up with: still, I would really appreciate some input on this, because I would like as many signups as possible, and that means getting the seventeen people who said they'd write depending on the challenge. Anyway, my idea ran like this:

the challenge must contain at least one of either
1. a theme or thematic quotation
OR 2,a specific scenario.
There is also the option of two of the following:
3.character
4.pairing
5.setting
6.time period.
So the challenge must have either 1 or 2, and up to two of 3,4,5 and 6.

So, uh. What do you guys think of this? I personally have a bunch of ideas for challenges, but the kinds I like will not be the sort everyone likes, or maybe even anyone likes. For this to be successful, as many people as possible have to submit challenges, an as many people as possible have to be happy with this. So I really need your input, as I would like people to sign up before getting people to submit challenges, although if you have a problem with this I can change it.

X-posted to myriadwords. I know the layout is exceeding unattractive at the moment; this will be fixed ASAP. Don't forget, myriadwords is also going to be the comm for any and all YW fic people want to post. :)