Zombie Fic

[zerohour]

So a few days ago, I got to thinking. We've got Iron Fic in Summer, Original Fic ins Fall/Winter, so we have an open space in Spring for another competition.

Now, we already have one for original fiction, and fanfiction, and I really doubted that we wanted to start writing nonfiction, so what could we possibly use? Then I realized that we had way, WAY more ideas than fics. We've got threads with thousands of posts dedicated to ideas that never get realized.

So I cam up with Zombie Fic. Rather than a prompt to kick things off, the participants would go through the site, find an old idea that they like, and write something for it. It could be a brief one shot, or the start of an epic adventure, as long as it gets started.

I PMed Watashiwa about it, and he seemed interested. That brings us to this thread, to discuss to possibility of Zombie Fic, see if anyone is interested, and work out any issues that could pop up.

One of the issues we discussed was abandoned fics. A good number of stories, awesome and not awesome, have been discontinued. I'd like to get them involved, but Watashiwa rightly pointed out that some peopel can get touchy about it. He said that any continued fic should have the original author's permission, but that could be difficult on its own, since some of them have disappeared off the face of the earth. I'd like to have other people weigh in on this.


So, overall, what do you guys think?

 

[whitewhiskey]

Story idea necromancy? Sounds interesting, but I'm not sure if we've been having enough thunder storms around here to get a good bolt to bring the beast to life.

But, it does seem like an interesting idea, and while we have plenty of stories, we also have lots of idea threads we could use if we didn't want to step on any toes, but we may want to set an age minimum, like it has to have been so long since the idea was originally posted.

 

[PCHeintz72]

So I cam up with Zombie Fic. Rather than a prompt to kick things off, the participants would go through the site, find an old idea that they like, and write something for it. It could be a brief one shot, or the start of an epic adventure, as long as it gets started.

I PMed Watashiwa about it, and he seemed interested. That brings us to this thread, to discuss to possibility of Zombie Fic, see if anyone is interested, and work out any issues that could pop up.

One of the issues we discussed was abandoned fics. A good number of stories, awesome and not awesome, have been discontinued. I'd like to get them involved, but Watashiwa rightly pointed out that some peopel can get touchy about it. He said that any continued fic should have the original author's permission, but that could be difficult on its own, since some of them have disappeared off the face of the earth. I'd like to have other people weigh in on this.

Heh... here when opening the thread thought it might be about Hellsing, or High School of the Dead, or Sukibane Hime (Corpse Princess)...

In any case, the idea of taking old or abandoned ideas and turning them into stories does not bother me in the least, since they were never full fledged stories anyway... but I really have to question the idea of taking abandoned realized stories and doing such.

With stories, detractors of the story would not be interested, and for those that liked such stories would probably not like someone else taking over the reins as it will likely result in a different feel for the characters.

I can think of tons of stories over the years I'd love to see continued by their respective authors, that I am certain by this point will not be.

Take for example the following:

B5-WC 'A strange twist of fate' by Lucas43
ITC 'Irresponsible Captain Tylor- Tylor's Fury' by Desaix
LH 'The Kiss That Never Was' by Paul T1
LH 'Book 3 A lack of faith brings insecurities' by Turbanator
LH 'Comfort' by Little Tart
LH 'Some Tea Between Friends' by SecondSeraphim
NGE 'The Power Of Pain Alternate' by Izcer4
NGE 'Everlasting Coda' by ArchangelUK
NGE 'Tainted Love' by AnAngryAngryMan
NGE 'Tear' by Legato Deathscythe
NGE-MULTI 'Evangelion The Death God War' by zidaneace
PTEACH 'Battleground' by Will the Golem
RANMA 'Way of the Ninjitsu' by Jason Wong
RANMA 'Will You Be My Fiance' by Ammadeau
RANMA 'Melted Hearts' by WING Higley
RANMA 'Nameless Face' by NiteSkyStar
RANMA-MULTI 'On A Clear Day You Can See Forever' by M MacKinnon
RANMA-OMG 'When Bakas Learn' by Bluefurball
RANMA-ST 'To Stop a Changing River' by Delphidelion
RANMA-SM 'Warriors of Light and Shadow' by Storm Bringer
RANMA-SM 'Earth Mother' by PurpleMoon3
RANMA-SM 'Ranma, Mage of the Darkness' by HistorianoftheKais
RANMA-SM 'Ripples of a Chaotic Pebble' by Gaming Ikari
RANMA-TM 'Ryoko's Apartment' by E-Type
TMOHS 'Kyon Big Damn Hero' by Brian Randall aka Durandall
TMNI 'Of Science and Magics' by Stormwolfex

I could name hundreds of other good stories, the above was merely meant as a cross section of types.

Some of the above are long, some short, some well known, some not, some ended on cliffhangers, at least one was abandoned for a rewrite, at least one has a dead author, one ended in the middle of a sentence... but while I would not mind continuations, I doubt any other author would be able to do it the way the original would.

A continuation or new arc of a completed story or completed one shot might be a bit more acceptable. since it does not really conflict with what the author wrote. But to find a completed one shot that ends on a continuation is not that easy even if they exist. An example might well be:

RANMA 'The Price' by Miriani

 

[zerohour]

The minimum age is a good idea, and we discussed keeping it a one year* or older. One year means that it had plenty of time to be puttered around and toyed with, without worrying about it becoming obsolete. You can go older if you like, but I think one year is the appropriate amount of time to wait.

* Probably One year, X months, just to keep things simple. So if the contest is run any time during 2015, the idea must have "died" in 2013 for it to qualify. Hopefully won't be an issue.


As for continuing stories, it seems that pretty much everyone is in agreement about it. I put it out there as a possibility, but it would be exceedingly difficult to find some of the authors, and probably even more difficult to match their style. Basically, everything about it would be an uphill battle, from contacting the author all the way through judging, but it they could pull it off... Well, people would still bitch about it, so no point thinking about it unless there's an overwhelming response to include abandoned fics.

...Does anyone else find it kind of weird that we violate the hell out of people's intellectual property that could get us in trouble, but get all leery when the target is a fanfic?

 

[da_fox2279]

...Does anyone else find it kind of weird that we violate the hell out of people's intellectual property that could get us in trouble, but get all leery when the target is a fanfic?

Irony's a bitch.

 

[Watashiwa]

We're not talking about continuing the original author's story with their publisher though, while we are with the fanfic author, since the publisher is the internet.

Anyway, I'm certainly interested in the concept at hand. We'll see about prizes of some kind, maybe.

 

[Herdo]

Are only ideas with a whole thread dedicated to the specific idea allowed in the contest or are we allowed to use all ideas in the various 'random ideas' threads as well?

 

[Watashiwa]

The latter, as I understand it.

 

[zerohour]

Yes, any an all ideas, dedicated thread or not, are considered viable. There are just too many ideas in the random threads to discount.

 

[whitewhiskey]

...Does anyone else find it kind of weird that we violate the hell out of people's intellectual property that could get us in trouble, but get all leery when the target is a fanfic?

Irony's a bitch.

I think it may be because these are people we may have to deal with. We may joke, but there's not even a snowball's chance in hell Kishimoto, Oda Rowling or Faust will be looking around here.

 

[Schema]

Oh, Hai!

 

[zerohour]

Here's another thought: Should we be allowed to zombify our own stories?

It eliminates the permission problem, but I think it could give some participants an unfair advantage, especially if their story was really popular before it died for whatever reason.

 

[Hardcore Heathen]

Nah, no self-zombification. Jesus already pulled that trick.

Do you even want people picking their own dead idea? Or do you want to assign dead ideas? I'd prefer to pick my own, but in the spirit of a challenge we normally assign prompts.

 

[whitewhiskey]

Nah, no self-zombification. Jesus already pulled that trick.

Do you even want people picking their own dead idea? Or do you want to assign dead ideas? I'd prefer to pick my own, but in the spirit of a challenge we normally assign prompts.

Should we have different rules between ideas and stories that are already written? And maybe, instead of assigning prompts, we could assign a subforum to pick from

 

[Fellgrave]

That's not a good idea, since not everyone is familiar with every series. For example, I know Naruto and Ranma, but stopped following Bleach years ago and know nothing about Nanoha or Digimon.

Maybe pick an idea, or some idea from a story, such as say from story X you pick Divergence Y or Concept Z, and have everyone write their own variations on that idea.

 

[Hardcore Heathen]

That's not a good idea, since not everyone is familiar with every series. For example, I know Naruto and Ranma, but stopped following Bleach years ago and know nothing about Nanoha or Digimon.

Maybe pick an idea, or some idea from a story, such as say from story X you pick Divergence Y or Concept Z, and have everyone write their own variations on that idea.

I'm personally cool with everybody just grabbing an idea out of a year+ old thread and running with it; I just wanted to propose the alternative.

What do we want to do for length of fic, timing of challenge, etc? Given the nature of the idea, I think we might just set a deadline (say, a week from X) and have people submit their stuff whenever they want to, with like a 5 or 10k word cap so that judging doesn't get impossible if somebody goes nuts.

 

[zerohour]

My current plan is to run it similar to Iron Fic.

Contest begins on X Day. Participants have 7 days to write a chapter for whatever idea catches their fancy. No assigned prompts, but they do need to post a link to the relevant idea.

Depending on participation of the first iteration, I may hold a second contest one week later, with the same rules. People can continue whatever they wrote , or choose a new prompt.

Currently planning to judge each entry on its own, so continuing a story you started the week before does not affect judging for that particular week. Scoring a perfect 100 the week before doesn't prevent you from getting a 0 the next week, or vice versa.

Currently planning that zombifying any story is not allowed. Even self zombification. This is to keep things simple and to reduce bias for favored authors. If enough people protest or express an interest in resurrecting their own fics, then we might revise the rules or institute Jesus Fic, but that is sometime in the future after Zombie Fic.

On a side note: When does Iron Fic start this year?

 

[zerohour]

Do prologues count as stories? There are a number of blurbs or ideas put forth in the form of a snippet, so would those be eligible?

This seems like it could be a gray area, so I'd rather hammer it out now than when we actually run this.

I'm currently leaning towards one thousand words or less. if it's under 1000 words, it probably doesn't count as a story.

Thoughts?