check in 1: summaries due* (5-10k recommended): december 10-17
artist claims: december 20-january 3 (anticipated)
check in 2: collaboration timeline due* (10-20k recommended): january 21-28
check in 3: 20k rough drafts & artist first drafts due*: february 25 LATEST
final drafts of fic due: march 25 LATEST
final drafts of art due: april 1 LATEST
posting schedule goes up: april 8 LATEST
posting begins: april 11
posting ends: late may-mid june (anticipated)
*You are welcome to submit any requested information (summaries, timelines, drafts) in advance of the scheduled check-ins, but will begin to receive reminder notifications on the first listed date of official check-in week. Reminders for rough & final draft submissions will begin one month prior to the final deadline.
Greetings, and welcome to your local One Direction Big Bang challenge! You may remember us from the last five years - or not - but in either case, we're back, bigger and better than ever before, with a brand new set of rules following your feedback! Rules that have changed since last year are marked with a star (★). If you have any questions about these changes, or the rules overall, please let us know!
You know that 1D fic you've been dying to write? The one about what would have happened in the bungalow if there really had been a mad cow murderer outside, or the one where only your ship stands between humanity and total apocalyptic extinction, or perhaps the one where One Direction are the stars of hit new show The Real Housewives Of The On The Road Again Tour and have to deal with even more publicity? Maybe you've been dying to write an epic about your OTP (or OT3… or OT5), or even just a fic about one member and his girlfriend.
In any case, this is the place for you!
A Big Bang challenge - for those of you who don't know - is a certain sort of ficwriting challenge that combines long fic with artwork/media. Writers and artists sign up, independently of each other. Writers write the fic, and artists pick a fic to work with based on premise, whereupon they will draw, vid, and/or mix a work to accompany the fic upon posting.
Here is the Round Six schedule:
author sign-ups: october 1-november 5
artist sign-ups: october 1-december 3
beta/brit pick/cheerleader sign-ups: ongoing
author confirmation email: november 6
check in 1: summaries due* (5-10k recommended): december 10-17
artist claims: december 20-january 3 (anticipated)
check in 2: collaboration timeline due (10-20k recommended): january 21-28
check in 3: 20k rough drafts & artist first drafts due: february 25 LATEST
final drafts of fic due: march 25 LATEST
final drafts of art due: april 1 LATEST
posting schedule goes up: april 8 LATEST
posting begins: april 11
posting ends: late may-mid june (anticipated)
Specifics:
Writers:
+In this specific Big Bang challenge, there is a minimum wordcount requirement, for writers, ★ of 20,000 words (no maximum). Fics can be gen, het, or (fem)slash. They can be as explicit as you want them to be. They can be AUs, crossovers, fusion fics, or completely ~canonical. The only requirement is that they include at least one (but preferably more) current and/or former member(s) of One Direction. If you want to see your favorite ship represented in this year's big bang, we recommend you sign up and encourage your friends to do the same! ★ Please note: current and/or former member(s) of One Direction INCLUDES their Best Song Ever alter egos; as such, we will also permit fic about Alex-from-Dunkirk.
+Your fic must be posted on your scheduled posting date in one fell swoop (i.e., it can be chaptered, but the chapters must all be posted at once). Your fic can be part of a broader arc or series, or function as a stand-alone. You may sign up with fics that you have already started working on; however, you may not sign up with fics that have already been in-part published (such as chapters or shorter versions).
+ You may co-write if you like. You may write more than one fic if you like. If, at any point in the process, you cannot complete the challenge, please let us know. You may drop out without penalty up until summary submission ★ during the first check-in. At this point, you must send in a summary of 1-3 paragraphs that will be posted anonymously by mods so that artists can claim your work. By sending in your summaries early enough for artist to have ample time to contribute to your fic, you are indicating that you have committed to completing your fic by the final draft date. If you drop out after submitting summaries, your artist claimant is affected as well. As such, if you drop out after this point, you will be ineligible to participate in Big Bang Round 7 and will have to wait for Round 8.
+ ★As an addendum: If you dropped out after submitting your summary last year and were told you would be ineligible to participate this year, that rule NO LONGER APPLIES for Round 6 only – you will be permitted to participate this year after all. If you have questions about what this means for you, please email us (1d.bigbang.mods at gmail) for clarification.
+ ★ The Challenge will be conducted through Tumblr and Google Drive this year. ★ Check-ins are mandatory; you will be reminded of the final deadline one week prior to said deadline. To check in, you will ★ submit the requested document at that time (★ Check-in 1: Summary. ★ Check-in 2: Collaboration timeline. ★ Check-in 3: Rough draft). ★ Additional information will be posted to this tumblr account (1dbigbang @tumblr) and ★ crossposted to the twitter account (@1dbigbangmods) at the start of check-in periods as well as emailed to participants.
+ As soon as authors have finalized the plot for their fic, they are welcome to submit their fic summary to the mod email (★final deadline: December 17). Doing so indicates commitment to complete the Big Bang challenge and dropping out after this point will result in being banned from participation in Round 7. The same goes for completing rough drafts (★ final deadline February 25) and final drafts (★ final deadline March 25; minimum 20k). ★ Authors may submit their summaries and drafts at any point after sign-ups close on November 5 until the final due date for each item. Details regarding formatting for the summary submission email will be sent to all participants the day after sign-ups close, on November 6; this email will also serve to confirm that your sign-up was processed.
+ Authors are required to share their working drafts of their fics with their artist within a week of author-artist match reveals. Failure to do so, outside of extenuating circumstances cleared with mods in advance, will be considered a drop-out, and authors who do so will be ineligible to participate in Round 7. ★ Authors and artists are required to remain in regular (i.e., at LEAST 1x/week) communication between sharing drafts and submitting final drafts.
+ Once you send in your final draft, due March 25, you will be assigned a posting date. Authors will receive a tentative posting schedule via Google Drive during the week of April 1 for date confirmation and finalization. The final schedule will be posted publicly on or by April 8th. Closer to posting time, posting guidelines will be published.
Artists:
+Artists, in this Big Bang, refers to mixers, vidders, and any other kind of traditional art medium (drawing, painting, manips, you name it!). Artists may work individually or with another artist friend. Individual artists or artist teams may claim ★ two fics per claim round; however, if you are working individually on two fics and with a partner on (an)other(s), you may claim two fics on your own and two with your partner.
+ If you are a mixer: your fanmix for the fic you choose should have at least 12 songs, though no more than would fit on a CD (★ You can, however, create a “multi-disc sets”). Fanmixes must include album art of some variety. ★We recommend using Spotify to host your mixes, but if you have a different preferred site accessible worldwide, you are welcome to use that as well.
+ If you are a vidder: videos (or trailers) should be between two and five minutes long - think the length of a song. Either host privately or on youtube. ★ You may create more than one vid per fic if you like.
+If you do not fall under these two categories: Drawing, sketching, painting, manips - all of these are great! Create at least one work of art for the fic, and include appropriate ratings. You will need to find a host yourself - any image hosting site that does not take down images regularly will do, but make sure that, if the artwork is NSFW, you do not host it on a site that deletes NSFW images.
+ ★ Artists will sign up in the months leading up to artist claims. ★ The claims will ONLY be accessible to people who have signed up as an artist or author. If not all claims are filled in round one, artist sign-ups will re-open for round two so that additional artists may join the fest. Artists may withdraw from participation prior to summary claims; however, once an artist claims a summary, they have committed to completing the challenge. As an artist, we ask that you only claim fics that you will absolutely complete art for. If you drop out last minute, this affects your author. As such, if you drop out after claiming a fic, you will be ineligible to participate in Big Bang Round 7 and will have to wait for Round 8.
+ Each fic in the challenge must be claimed by one artist or one artist team before second-artist claims for all fics are considered.
All:
+You may choose to be both a writer and an artist; however, you may not create art for your own fic.
+ ★ Unlike in previous years, artist claims will occur after the first fic check-in, to provide ample time for both/all team members to collaboratively create works. Authors are expected to share their drafts with their collaborating artist within a week of author-artist pair reveals and ★ maintain open access to said drafts so that artists can complete the best work possible to accompany their claimed fic. As indicated above, failure to do so will be considered dropping out. Further, if you, as an author or an artist, try to contact your partner (the author or artist of the work you are collaborating on) at any other point during the challenge, and they do not respond within 3 business days, please let a mod know. If the mod is unable to get hold of the participant in a timely manner (i.e., three business days), that participant will be considered a dropout and will be ineligible to participate in Round 7.
+ A resource signups post will open ★ on Google Forms the same day as author sign-ups for betas, britpicks, cheerleaders, and the like to volunteer to aid authors who may need help the assistance, and will remain open until final drafts are due. We strongly suggest that those who sign up as a resource make a presence in the encouragement check-in post as well. Authors and artists may also sign up to be resources.
+ If, for some reason, you cannot complete your submission, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can adjust our records accordingly/find an pinch-hitter if need be.
xoxoxoxo,
your mods
Love the works authors and artists create for Big Bang every year, but wish that your OTP and/or favorite genre or trope had better representation? Love to participate in fandom in any way (creating art, cheerleading, beta-ing, making reclists, etc) besides writing fic, but want to encourage more people to write fic? If you make a promo post (geared toward specific ships, genres, tropes... or the fandom at large) between now and when sign-ups close on November 4, and tag us in it, we’ll reblog it!
In an effort to be more accessible to you this Round, we have created a twitter account (@1dbigbangmods); feel free to follow us and interact with us there! All content will be cross-posted there, for participants who use twitter more frequently than tumblr.
While we will still rely on email as the primary/most reliable mode of communication, we will post to this tumblr (and tweet about the posts!) when emails are sent to participants, for participants who do not rely on email as their primary mode of fandom-related communication.
We do still caution that this account has a history of “eating” tumblr asks, so if we haven’t responded within 48 hours, hit us up again.
