Frequently Asked Questions• Fest users guide •
General questions •
Questions about the rules •
Questions about the sign ups •
- Users guide: How to find things in the fest -Sylvana's Disclaimer: If, for some reason, your entry is missing, then it’s because sylvanawood's mind resembles chaos and not because your entry isn't good enough or important enough for the fest. We've checked our mails several times, but since we're only human, mistakes happen. If I’ve misplaced your work and it's not on the fest, please comment here or write to us, and we'll hunt your entry down and put it up immediately. This only applies to final entries, not the drafts you sent us, some of which were never followed up with a final version.
Our journals are set for public viewing. If you're over 18, you can read either on insanejournal or livejournal. You don't have to be a member of either to leave a comment. Reviewers who aren't LJ- or IJ- members will show up as anonymous posters. To be able to keep you all apart, please sign your posts with a handle/name or initials.
Artists, artisans and authors: please keep in mind that people review your work on both LJ and IJ. If you want to reply to reviews and aren't a member on both communities, please use the tracking function or check your own threads regularly.
On the masterlists, we’ve given you suggestions on how to find things. But you can also look at the tags, check a tag that interests you and look at what’s posted under that category. We have tags that sort for: participants names, if it is bang or bigbang, art, fic, craft, genres, pairings and if there are warnings to be heeded.
We've put up warnings and made it very easy for you to spot them. If you have any squicks or are triggered by something, it is your own responsibility to actually check the warnings before you read. In the authors' notes and summaries, these warnings are often explained in more detail. Please read these as well before you proceed to the story or art. ~8 January 2010
Up ∆- General questions -1. Can I help? How can I help with the big bang?
- Beta readers and cheer leaders will be part of the sign ups. If we need more help, we will announce that separately.
2. Why can't I post?
- Only moderators can post. Everybody else, LJ/IJ member or not, can comment everywhere. The sign ups will be open for everyone by commenting on the sign up posts.
3. What are the rules?
- They tell you what the Big Bang is about and what is acceptable and can be
found here.
4. Can I write/draw/craft what I want or will there be prompts?
- Basically everyone can do what they want, within the rules, but there is an open
prompt list to give you ideas. These prompts won't be binding, and if something gets produced for one of these prompts, it will not be a gift.
5. Where it says e.g. 10 x 100 word drabbles, does this mean they need to be linked in some way?
- The usual format is to produce a drabble-series story, where the drabbles are linked by plot but the story is written in 100 word sections. However, e.g. 10 drabbles featuring 10 different Snape ships would have an overall theme. Or 10 different characters' POV of Snape. The point is that you have to produce a minimum of 1000 words, strictly in 100 word sections, there is an overall theme, and they will all be posted together.
6. What are the word-count rules for drabbles?
- A drabble should be exactly 100 words. Word count is checked using MS Word or similar, where hyphenated words count as one word. This is fine for words that are normally hyphenated, such as "year-old" or "up-to-date" but please don't use hyphenation as a tool to expand length.
7. What do you mean by "Craft"?
- As well as traditional and digital artwork, there are loads of other media that people use creatively. Ceramics and model-making, jewellery, knitting, embroidery, plushie-making, book-binding to name but a few. If you design and make something Snapey with your own hands this is craft!
8. Where does filk go? Does it count as "fic," and therefore needs to be a whomping big song or set of songs to qualify as a "bang," or does it count as a drabble? (Set of drabbles?) Or something else?
- Filk would go to the short fic, a minimum of 2000 words. That would either mean a collection of songs until you reach the word limit, or you write a short accompanying story around it. You could also write a short filk musical.
9. Where does illustrated fic go? Or gaphic novellas? Fic or art?
- Illustrated fic would go under fiction (more words than pictures). Graphic novellas would go under art (more pictures than words).
10. I understand from the rules posted on the community that the moderators do the posting when the fest is open, but I wasn't sure if fics and art would be posted anonymously or not.
- We won't post anything anonymously. Everything will be posted with name and credits as soon as we can post it. Depending on how many entries we get, this will either be on January 9 or spread out over the week following Severus’ birthday. After that, we ask participants to not post their work on other archives until February 15, to keep a bit of reader/reviewer activity at the Big Bang community.
Up ∆- Questions about the rules -1. What do you mean by 'Severus has to be the center of everything'?
- It means that he is in the center of things, be they fic, art, crafts, music or whatever else it is you create for him and about him. While he may have central figures besides him, he cannot be pushed to the sidelines or be an alibi when the work actually focuses on someone else. Don’t hesitate to ask any of us if you aren’t sure about this.
2. Why can't I talk about why my OTP is the best?
- People like their ships and this is a multi-ship/gen event. Please be respectful of other people’s tastes. No one forces you to read/view a ship/genre/kink you don’t like. We’ll make sure that we put up the appropriate information, tagging and warnings with each entry. If you don’t like it, don’t look. In this case, as always, your back button is your best friend. Ship-bashing will not be tolerated, neither among participants, on the help forums, nor among readers and reviewers on the public forums. Keep these things to your private journals, but keep in mind that you might alienate potential fans who come from other ships and check you out. Tolerance is the key. We all have our love/interest/obsession with Severus in common.
3. Why can't I leave constructive criticism?
- Concrit can be helpful, but only if the author/artists welcomes it and asks for it. On large fests and events, it can get awkward and embarrassing and will almost always lead to wank. If you think you can help writers to be better writers, or artists be better artists, sign up as a cheerleader/art beta/plot beta/beta reader and help people who ask for help. Otherwise, be nice, or use the back button.
4. Does "concrit" mean saying anything that isn't glowing? For example, I wrote in a comment how much I liked the artwork with a fic (done by the author), the IC handling of two characters, and the descriptions, but also that "the ending felt a bit abrupt, to me." Is that concrit? The author was offended, and didn't even seem to "hear" the positives.
- Praise or comments don't have to be glowing, focusing on the parts you liked should always be fine. It's difficult with criticism, even if it is mild, though. We cannot make distinctions about whether a certain type of criticism is still inoffensive and another isn't, and so we ask you all to not write any criticism at all, and rather not comment if you really dislike something. We just don't have the resources to deal with disagreements of that kind.
5. I have a question about the rules for crafts. I made a "Beary Potter" teddy bear for a fandom meet-up and always planned to make him a companion Snape. However, "Beary" was made with a pre-made bear and I used premade plastic Harry Potter glasses. So all I did make was the robes, add the scar, and put it all together.
I was thinking of making a companion Snape. But if I'm reading the rules correctly, I probably need to make the stuffed toy, too, right? Or can I use a pre-made stuffed toy as long as I make Snape's robes and hair? It would probably look better if I used a pre-made stuffed toy as a base. And could Snape be holding a pre-made little black plastic cauldron? And can I pose the two together in one picture even though Beary wasn't completely homemade so long as Snape was?
- In terms of the bigbang, remember that you have until November, so you could challenge yourself by trying to make the stuffed toy base. It does push our rules a little bit because we really want to make everything as original as possible, but I do understand where you're coming from.
Hmm. Let me put it this way. If you must use a premade, then make sure you credit the original makers. But take this as a challenge to see if you can make one yourself. :] I think on a personal level you would be a lot prouder with something you'd made right from scratch. Either way you should definitely go ahead with the idea!
6. A related question: how about Barbie dolls? If someone put a nose and wig on a Ken doll and made robes and accessories, for instance?
- This is more problematic because Ken is such a recognisable pop culture symbol. it would be like passing barbie off as hermione. it would be brilliant in terms of what i like to call the lol factor because the irony. but using such a well known doll would present a lot of problems. and that would definitely directly challenge our originality only rule.
7. Does this mean I'd have to make my own music to do a video?
- If you can, that would he brilliant! If not, make sure the music you're using is allowed to be used i.e. stock music or anything unlicensed. Basically, we're going on a blanket avoidance of copyright/royalty issues by asking people to use creative commons/royalty free imagery and music. So you could find some stock music or create your own. Video should also be original in terms of imagery - live action cosplay/animation/etc rather than Warner Bros film clips.
8. Do you know what you're talking about? I've seen so many wonderful videos and photomanips on youtube that use movie images and popular songs. Writing fanfic is copyright infringement after all.
- The arts team consists of artists and musicians, and they are very aware of copyright issues, especially in the arts sector. You only could compare fanfic if you copied large passages of canon and added a few modifications, reshuffled it and presented it as your own. Which would cause as many problems as copyrighted movie and music material. We love vids and photomanips created that way, too, and we know how much effort and creativity goes into making these, but for this fest, we don't want to risk to have entries pulled because of infringement accusations. The choice we had was either no manips/videos at all or to challenge you to create original videos and manips. We chose to go with the challenge.
9. A fic written over the past year, never posted, still in development is fair game for this, yes?
- Absolutely
Up ∆- Questions about the sign ups -1. What can I sign up for?
- You can sign up for The Bang or The Big Bang, see our
categories:
You can sign up doing
fic, art, crafts, beta reading or cheer leading.
2. How will the sign ups work?
- When sign ups start, we will post a template for atists, writers, betas and cheer leaders. You can fill that template and post it as a comment to the sign up post.
3. Is it okay to do two projects?
- It is perfectly all right to do two, or three, or as many as you want, but please sign up for each of your projects in a separate comment. It is easier for us to keep track that way.
4. Can I write/do art with a co-author/co-artist?
- Yes, you can. But in that case, we’d ask you to give us a username and email address for both of you (or all participants if you think about a group project), that way we can invite you all to our help forum.
5. Who will help me when I’m stuck?
- We will invite every participant to a private help forum that was kindly provided by
The Masque. There you can ask questions, meet beta readers and cheerleaders, discuss plot points, vent frustrations – you name it.
6. What do you mean, private? Aren’t all forums private in a sense?
- Most forums are only visible to their members, but in most cases anyone can become a member who registers. The private Snape-forum on
The Masque, however, is only accessible to participants of the Birthday Bash. We register you and send you the details. You can then log on and are only among other participants, the mods, and the forum admins. Of course you can venture outside and take part in the other discussions of the general forum, too. In fact, we encourage you to look around.
7. I signed up, what happens now?
- First of all: Yay and thanks for signing up! As soon as one of the mods processes your sign up post, you'll get that slightly impersonal reply, 'Welcome to … ' - which is basically the mod code for: this participant is checked, now go register her/him on our help forum. You then get a confirmation mail that also gives you details how to access our help forum on The Masque.
When sylvanawood goes through the sign up list, she registers the new participants on the forum and sends you another confirmation mail that tells you that you now can access the forum.
We don't want to spam you, but since different people do different things with the sign up posts at different times, it can take a few days between sign up and your access to the forum. We try to keep this time short, not longer than three or four days at the most. In the meantime we try to keep
On the help forum, you can meet other people and chat, talk about your projects, make arrangements with beta readers and cheer leaders or people who need your help. If you don't wish to go to the forum, we'll get back to you privately after the sign ups to provide the help you wanted.
If you've signed up more than four days ago and didn't get access to the forum, please write to severusbigbang AT googlemail.com or sylvanawood AT googlemail.comUp ∆
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