Entry tags:

mod post, rules

Fest rules
Welcome to HP-Crackdealers, where we adore the absurd and revel in the ridiculous! We are a prompt-claiming fest for crack-fic in the Harry Potter universe. All pairings (or none), all ratings -- so long as it's wacky but wonderful.

We are also on LiveJournal: hp_crackdealers. You can submit and/or claim prompts on either site. Each claiming post will reflect consolidated activity from both sites, and all stories will be cross-posted.


The schedule for our first fest is:

Prompt submissions: October 27th to November 28th
Prompt claiming: You may claim a prompt at any time as long as you have your story in by the deadline.
Submission deadline: January 11th
Posting begins: January 16th


How do I submit a prompt? Do I have to write something if I give a prompt?

You are not required to claim anything if you submit a prompt. To submit something, make a comment on this post. (The comment will be screened.) You may submit more than one prompt, up to a limit of ten, if you are feeling inspired. (We don't expect everyone to do so; it's just a cap.)

Your prompt can be:

• Up to five words or short phrases, such as "forest, dark chocolate, Hebrew, computers, school holidays"


• A brief (1-2 sentences) description of a scenario/setup


• Up to three quotes from stories/summaries, poems, songs, speeches, quips, sayings, etc. You must give the source of the quote. (Quoting yourself is OK.)


• Up to three images, either free of copyright, belonging to you, or from whose owner you have gotten permission to use the image as a prompt. You must provide a link to the page where the image is used, as well as either a direct link to the image location or embed the image in your comment with an <img src="http://...."> tag.


• Optionally, you may include a pairing or character(s) you want to see included in the story.

If you have any questions about how to submit a prompt or what is allowable, drop us a line at hpcrackfest(at)gmail.com.


How do I claim a prompt? How many can I claim?

To claim a prompt, make a comment on this post with the number(s) of the prompt(s) you are claiming. (The comment will be screened.) First-come, first-served. You should receive a confirmation within two days. (If you think we missed you, please email hpcrackfest(at)gmail.com and rattle our cages.)

Up to three people may claim a single prompt, and any one person may claim up to three prompts at once. Once you have finished a story and submitted it for posting, you may claim another prompt if you want to (no total limit).

If you decide you want to drop a prompt, please reply to your claim comment and say so.


What are the story length limits?

No less than 500 and no more than 5,000 words. (Even a good joke can get old!)


Does my story need to be beta-read?

Yes, at least to make sure it's presentable. Checking for coherent plot or proper characterization may not be appropriate for this fest, but even a great story is less enjoyable if it's full of grammar and punctuation errors.


How do I submit my story?

Put in your own HTML formatting tags for any bold <b> </b>, italics <i> </i>, or centering <center> </center> you wish to do. (Please don't use any other tags.)

Place the following header at the top:
<b>Title:</b> <b>Author:</b> <b>Pairing/Characters:</b> <b>Rating:</b> <b>Words:</b> <b>Warnings:</b> <b>Prompt:</b> <b>A/N:</b>

Include your LJ/IJ username in "Author" even if you also want to use another name, so we can keep track of who did what. For "Rating", please use the MPAA system (G/PG/PG-13/R/NC-17). If you used an image prompt, for "Prompt", give the link(s) to the image(s) from the claiming post. Author's note is optional and you may leave it out.

Email your story as an attachment in Word (.doc/.docx), rich text (.rtf), or plain text (.txt) format to hpcrackfest(at)gmail.com.

If you need any help with formatting your story or the header, just drop us a line!


So what do you mean by "crack"? How is that different than humour? Can I write badfic?

"Crack" is so-called because it makes one wonder, "Was the author smoking crack when they wrote this?" Humour is definitely part of it, but crack takes it a step further, using bizarre setups, characterizations, or plot elements to enter the realm of the very silly indeed. Your story doesn't have to be unrelenting craziness all the way through, though. It just needs to contain crack elements.

Badfic, of itself, is not crack; it's just bad. It is quite possible to write on-purpose badfic parody that is crack (and hilarious), but it's a fine line to tread. You're welcome to write such a fic, but as a rule of thumb, if the story is so "WTF?" that you'd wonder if it was a troll if you hadn't written it yourself, you might need to scale it back a bit.

See this post by emmagrant01 for further enlightenment and some examples; and below for a few more:

-----

Humour:

The Hogwarts Breakfast Club

The &^%$#@! Profanity Jar

The Most Popular Halloween Costumes of 1998 (this treads close to crack)

-----

Crack:

9 Ways Draco Malfoy Never Went Insane

Harry Potter and the Crack That Follows

Thinking of England

The 500 Socks of Severus Snape

-----

Bad:

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (this is crack all right, but takes it too far)