Summergen 2010 - The Rules

[briarwood.livejournal.com]

It's almost time! Sign-ups for this year's SPN Summergen will open on May 1st - that's less than a week away. Sign-ups will close on May 16 so if you want to wait until after the season finale to sign up, you can. Just don't forget!

For now, here's the boring slightly less exciting part: the obligatory rules post.

The Rules

spn_summergen is an anonymous gen gift exchange.

If you sign-up, you will be assigned to create something for another participant based on a selection of prompts, and somebody else will be assigned to create something for you. You must be willing and able to write a story, create art or create a vid based on somebody else's prompts and preferences as described in the sign-ups.

The identities of the creators will be kept secret at first, and we (the mods) will post all of the stories, art and vids. Note: this means you can't include a sig in your art, or credit yourself in your vid, if you sign up to offer one of those.

All offerings must be gen. By "gen" we simply mean stories that do not focus on romantic or sexual relationships, although those relationships may be a small component of the story. If you're not sure your idea fits, comment and ask, or take a look at last year's master list to get an idea about what's appropriate.

What you can create:

You must offer to create one or more of the following:

Fiction: This exchange will accept Supernatural gen fic only. RPF (real-person fic) is not allowed. All other types of stories and genres are welcome: angst, crack, past-fic and future-fic, case files, brotherly bonding, AUs, character studies, monster studies, monster-of-the-week adventures and character studies, comedies and tragedies and everything in between.

Art: Art must be gen, and can be line-art, cartoons, photo manips or blends, wallpapers, icons, headers and banners, a mood-theme...you get the idea. You must be prepared to produce more than one piece of art, and it must be in some way original art: taking a screencap and running it through a couple of filters really doesn't count. Picspams (a collection of unaltered images) are not eligible.

Vids: You will be asked to create one vid to someone else's prompt. Vids must be gen, and can be any genre: humour, angst, character studies and so on.

What you can request:

When you sign up you must give at least three fic prompts and a maximum of six prompts overall (i.e. if you give six prompts up to three of them can be for art or vids and at least three must be for fic).

You can include any canon characters in your prompts - not just Sam and Dean but minor and obscure characters too, if you like.

Prompts for fic can be as general or as specific as you like but remember that the purpose is to give your author an idea of what you enjoy while still leaving her some leeway to write a good story. And please do remember that prompts must be gen.

Prompts for art can be specific but you need to give the artist some leeway i.e. if you're very specific about genre/character then don't specify that it has to be an icon set or has to be a wallpaper. Similarly, if you know you want a journal header, then don't be overly specific about the content. Please note that the RPF rule applies to art prompts as well as fic (i.e. you can ask for Sam and Dean but not for Jared and Jensen).

Prompts for vids must follow similar guidelines to art: you can be specific, but you must give the vidder creative room. If you want a specific song you must supply a copy of it.

You can request a crossover for any of the three categories, but please limit yourself to one crossover prompt only. Ghostfacers is still not a crossover :)

Minimum requirements:

You will be required to create one gift from any of the categories below. Your gift should match up to one of the prompts assigned to you. Authors and artists are not required to follow the prompts to the last detail; there is always room for flexibility and interpretation.

Your creation must be new, created specifically for this exchange, not something you've posted anywhere before.

Fic: All stories must be at least 1000 words in length, and they must be spell-checked and proofread for grammar and punctuation. If you can't do that yourself, find a beta who can. A "willing to beta" post will be available when assignments are sent out. There is no maximum story length, but the story must be complete by the deadline. We reserve the right to send stories riddled with errors and mistakes back to the authors for cleaning up. This is an exchange, and we want to make sure everybody receives the best possible story.

Art:

• Line-art, cartoons, anything you've created from scratch without a photographic base, the minimum offering is one piece of at least 600x600 pixels.
   
• Large photo-based artworks such as wallpapers, headers, banners and manips, the minimum offering is three different pieces (by different we mean one wallpaper in three different sizes or colours counts as one not three). You could create a wallpaper, a header and a banner from the same base image each with different text and that would count as three.
   
• Icons the minimum offering is 12 different icons.
   
• You can mix-and-match these minimums (e.g. two headers and six icons) - please ask the mods if you are unsure about this.

Vids: all vids must be at least 75 seconds in length, excluding credits, and must be supplied in a downloadable format (i.e. as an .avi, .mov or .wmv file).

Submission guidelines for all of the above will be announced later.

If you need to withdraw/default:

You can cancel your sign-up at any time before 16th May by deleting your comment on the sign-up post.

If you need to withdraw after sign-ups close, but before assignments have gone out (please don't - that's my worst nightmare!) you must contact the mods - our contact info will be on the community profile page shortly.

Once assignments have been sent out, everyone who has signed up and received an assignment is expected to provide a fic, art or vid. because someone else is working hard to create something for you. But we understand that unexpected things happen and some people may be unable to finish their gift by the deadline. If this is you, please, please, please contact us sooner rather than later. We may be able to offer a limited extension and if that's not going to help then we need as much time as you can give us to find a pinch-hitter. Again, you must contact both mods, and one of us will get back to you as quickly as possible.

Schedule*:

• The sign-up post will go up on 1st May and sign-ups will be open until Sunday 16th May. You can sign-up by leaving a comment on the sign-up post with the information requested in that post.
   
• Assignments will be sent out in the first week of June. You must provide a working email address in order to receive your assignment.
   
• Stories and artworks will be due 31st July. That gives you about two months to create/write. When you're done you'll send your story, art or vid to us via e-mail. Exact submission guidelines will be posted closer to the deadline.
   
• We (the mods) will start posting the gifts anonymously on 7 August. We'll post one or two items per day until they're all up. When all the stories, vids and art have been posted, we'll reveal the creators' names, and creators will then be free to post and pimp their works elsewhere.

*As always, the schedule is subject to change if disaster strikes, but we're going to do our very best to stick to the above.

Any questions?

Last year's FAQ post is here - if that doesn't answer your question post a comment here and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.