Announcement of the next three themes (Dec 20-Feb 21)

[xiagan]

December, January, February - our next three themes

Dear writers and writing contest aficionados, here they are: The next three themes! *drum roll*
To cure Nora from her sickness, they will be Fanfic December, Fanfic January and Fanfic February.*
Each with a little twist to not make it too boring. The little twist for December's theme will be that it has nothing to do with fan fiction and, surprise, that's the same little twist we'll do for January and February. Okay, okay, I'll stop talking. Without further ado, here they are:


DECEMBER: WINTER IS NOT COMING



Did you know that overuse of magic is responsible for global warming of fairyland? (Unless you're a cryomancer, obviously.) No? Well, it is! Your challenge for this month is mashing up global warming and fantasy. Not in the way of adding magic to our world and our climate crisis, though. We want a real fantasy world that (suddenly) has to deal with global warming. Magic doesn't need to be the cause but it may be the solution (or not).[You may use an existing world because it may be more fun to add a climate crisis to something already known to writer and readers, like in this expertly fabricated picture by yours truly.]


JANUARY: SUPERNATURAL WILD WEST



Supernatural by eWKn

This month's theme wants you to write a story about gun slingers, saloons, the gold rush, cheap booze, card sharpers and native genocide - the usual wild west stories. But things happen nobody can explain. Who's the guy who can really shoot faster than his own shadow, what happened to the 7th cavalry division and how powerful can spirit animals become?


FEBRUARY: HISTORICAL EVENT + FANTASY



1912 - Truth or Myth by Ashravan

In February we want you to write about a historical event but things didn't happen as we believe or were told. No, the outcome (be it good or bad) was heavily influenced by magic or something magical. Time period or significance on a world wide scale are irrelevant, but of course a story gains by choosing something your readers recognize.**

Rules:

1. This must be prose or poetry.
2. The stories content must fit to the month's theme.
3. Prose must be 500-2000 words long
4. Poetry must be 100-750 words long.
5. One story per person or writing team (not per account).
6. You will be disqualified if you exceed the limits, full stop. That's why they're called limits.
7. Your entry can't be published somewhere else before.
8. This is a writing contest, not a "I have written something like this ten years ago" contest. So if you happen to have a story that fits one of the themes, I'd like it to have a mayor overhaul/edit. Work for it.
9. Please add your story's word count and, if you have, your twitter handle.
10. Please put your story in [ spoiler ] tags to make the thread easier to handle. You can find them above the smileys under the B.
Bonus rule: We consider voting in a contest you're taking part in a given. Others take time and effort to read the stories - you should do the same. A small community like ours lives from reciprocity and this contest needs stories as much as votes. 

If you want so submit your story anonymously you can do so by sending it in a personal message to @xiagan.

Entry will close at the first day of the month that comes after the month the theme was for and voting will begin somewhere around the same time too.

All members are eligible to join. If you are not a member you can join here. Sign up is free and all are welcome!

The winner will have their piece displayed on the main Fantasy Faction website sometime in the next months if we get this system running again - which I have high hopes for now that Bea is an admin here.

Submitting a story counts as published. The author retains all rights to their work.

Discussion or questions can be posted here [December], here [January] or here [February].

* While this was a weak joke, you may have noticed that all three themes share something: The underlying theme is the clash between magic/fantasy and our world.
** You could say (but of course we don't) that we want you to write some fan fiction on our own past.

[ScarletBea]

Guys, are they really awful? Nobody has said anything...

We can change, if no one likes them...

[Alex Hormann]

I must've missed the notification. 

January looks very fun, and I've got a few ideas. February too, though December nothing jumps out at me.

[hexa]

For December, I want to do angels and demons.  February should be easy.  January is my weak point, I shall probably not succeed, but it is doable

[Bender]

Absolutely awesome themes that resonate with me. Maybe if I get through my workload, I'll give this a shot.

[Magnus Hedén]

Fun themes. No promises cause I've just been able to get in my writing rut again, but a few of them give me some budding ideas.

[Nora]

They all sound good. I'm just bogged down writing every day for my fanfic. Doing 3 to 4k a week after a month of 7k weeks is still... Hard... And cyberpunk is coming out next week to boot so aye, I don't know if I'll manage but I will try.

[J.R. Darewood]

hahah the historical fiction theme made me think of the Hillary Clinton time travel story from days of olde.

[ScarletBea]

hahah the historical fiction theme made me think of the Hillary Clinton time travel story from days of olde.

Feel free to revisit... it's not as if we've been drowning in stories lately... or even swimming in stories

[J.R. Darewood]

hahah the historical fiction theme made me think of the Hillary Clinton time travel story from days of olde.

Feel free to revisit... it's not as if we've been drowning in stories lately... or even swimming in stories

It was so good. Always worth a reread!

I wish I could join in but I'm utterly slammed with work atm at least until March before I get a moment of free time