Ruminations on RatFest
Now that work reveals for RatFest (or alternatively, the /r/rational spin-off discord writing fest, which is a bit of a mouthful) have happened, I've got some thoughts about the fest itself, fests and exchanges in general, my own works, and my experience taking part.
Here's this year's collection (and last year's collection, for reference) for anyone who wants to follow along.
RatFest is a really fun event because ratfics are a niche style of story where no-one can quite agree on a definition, and the fest basically ends up having the theme of 'what do the people on this one server happen to like'. We're lucky in that we have a label we can use for that, and also that there's enough overlap in our tastes that we can make an event out of it (though I don't think we'd be able to rustle up enough writers to get a decent exchange going). RatFest is run by a popular server member who isn't involved in interpersonal drama, which is also a boon, and is a capable organiser who regularly takes part in other fests and events.
As with fests in general, the stakes are quite low. People can drop out or scale back the number of fics they're writing, no questions asked, and it makes for a more relaxed experience. I picked out five prompts that I liked, and ended up only having time to write for two of them, and that wasn't an issue at all. There's also less pressure to deliver something perfect for the recipient, as someone writing for a prompt doesn't prevent others from doing the same. Last year we had a couple of first-time writers and both years we had people write some last-minute stuff that turned out to be quite good. The 'two cakes' effect is really nice in events like these, and some prompts were fulfilled several times in very different ways.
I wrote two stories: Upstream, an original story about Xianxia cultivators who seek Buddhist enlightenment instead of wanting to ride swords around, and Phytozoology, a Pokemon fanfic about a young researcher who gets involved in white-collar crime under future Celadon Gym Leader Erika. I enjoyed writing the latter story a great deal more, and it's much longer, so naturally it was a bit less popular despite being written for a much larger fandom. Upstream was a bit of fun written mostly because I wasn't very familiar with the Xianxia genre and thought that distance meant I could come up with a different approach to the prompt. Phytozoology was an excuse to put a lot of worldbuilding around Pokemon research down on the page (which was the original request), and then a plot snuck its way in. I like both stories overall and credit RatFest with giving me the motivation to write them.
Compared to last year, there were roughly the same number of fics (16 versus last year's 14) and a slightly higher total wordcount, as well as a few more prompts. It's nice that the fest has grown a little, rather than stagnating and declining. I wrote more total wordcount, albeit the same number of fics, though one factor for me was that in an unfortunate quirk of timing I was running my own overlapping fest which is finishing in two weeks. If that hadn't been going on, I think I could have managed a third story for RatFest.
My takeaway as to why this event was successful at what it aimed to achieve, and enjoyable for the people who took part, is that it fit the community it was aimed at. The size and scope of the event, the duration, the way it was advertised, and so on, all did a good job at reaching the people most likely to want to take part and enjoy the process. There were also enough people familiar with AO3, which was hosting the event, that there weren't major technical hurdles for participants.
I'm really excited for next year!
