Narnia Fic Challenge

THIS IS NOT A DRILL! Your stories must be posted tonight, September 7th, by 11:59 pm, unless you have previously contacted the mods for an extension.

In terms of the posting deadline, we're not too strict on that, timezone-wise. My timezone is Eastern, but I'll be asleep by midnight, so consider that and your own timezone when posting.

Just have your stories submitted by 9 am Eastern Time, Sunday, September 8th, when I wake up, and you're good.

~

Please remember that the story you post must be complete and ready to go! Yes, there is a week between the deadline and reveals during which you can make edits, but! Remember that your fic must pass the bus test: if you got hit by a bus after posting and couldn't edit, is this a complete story of at least 1000 words that will be a good gift for your recipient. If the answer is no, better get it up to those standards before midnight!

If you have any questions, you can ask them here, or send via email to the mods: narniaficexchange@gmail.com

I can't wait to read all the stories! :)

The first thing we do to get the NFE rolling is tag nominations. The tag set can be found HERE.

We’ve pre-loaded with tags (both character and additional) that are used yearly. Be sure to go over it, so if you see that some of your favorites are missing, you can add them, and to make sure you’re not adding duplicates.

Things about tags to remember:

* If you want a relationship, you have to nominate it as "Group: character A/character B." If you want romance or a sexual relation, use the /. If you want platonic or friendship in your grouping, use the &. This is also how you would nominate crossovers, and I put a couple of examples of those in the tag set so you can see how those work. Remember, we don’t use the “relationship” tag in this exchange.

* Additional Tags are not the same as Freeform tags. Think of additional tags as helping you request/prompt - they should be something that anyone in the exchange will clearly understand. Freeform tags are what you use when you're tagging your story when posting - these can be whatever you want to describe your story. We ran into a lot of confusion with this last year, so please feel free to leave a question here if you have any, or send to narniaficexchange@gmail.com.

* Use "Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis" as the fandom for all character/pairing nominations. Only nominations using this fandom will be accepted. That doesn’t mean that you can’t nominate a movie verse character (Oreus, for example), just that we’re not using multiple fandoms for the exchange.

* Individual Characters: Please nominate with the character's full name (as far as it is known).

* Character AND platonic or sexual/relationship nominations should go in the "Character" field of the tagset.

* Romantic/Sexual Ships: please put the word "Group:" in front of the pairing. Nominate using characters' full names, separated by a "/". Only nominate, request and offer using the / version if you want a sexual or romantic take. If you only intend to request ships, you do NOT need to nominate the individual characters as well. Signups for ship requests should only have the pairing, NOT the individual characters as well.

* Platonic Pairings or Groups: Please put the word "Group:" in front of the pairing. Please nominate using characters' full names, separated by a "&". Same note as above about not needing to nominate individual characters if you only intend to request gen groups.

* If you want a crossover, you should nominate your crossover characters as a group, with the Narnia character you want to see them interact with. Make sure you include the fandom for the crossover character. For example: Group: Susan Pevensie/Dream of the Endless (The Sandman)


This year, we’ve pre-approved several characters since in the past, people have assumed certain characters would be in the tagset. We’ve also pre-approved a few extra character options to optimize matching for people who want worldbuilding and/or who don't care much which specific characters appear in their fic. Ex. "Original Female Character", "Original Non-Binary Character", "Original Non-Human Character."

Additional Tags

We’ve also added several standard additional tags, such as time periods and worldbuilding. While the periods are defined by what happened in the country of Narnia, requests for these tags can be for anywhere in that world at that time.

Narnian World Time Periods (taken from the Narnia wiki)
— Age of Conquest: Birth of Narnia through right before White Witch seizes power
— Age of Winter: White Witch’s reign
— Golden Age: Pevensies’ reign
— Dark Age: Narnia in anarchy
— Telmarine Age: Telmarine conquest through right before Caspian X’s coronation
— Age of Exploration: Caspian X’s reign
— Later Ages: Rilian’s reign onwards
— Post-Canon - Earth: set on Earth after TLB

As usual, not all additional tags will get approved, since we want to keep the tagset small, focused on Narnia-specific concepts, and understandable to everyone without explanation.

Seriously, we know it’s fun to just throw out random additional tags, but they have to make sense in a Narnia-related context. For example:

Narnian Astrology (good, will be approved)
Shotgunning (bad, no idea what this means, will be rejected)


Remember, tags are there to help with your requests and offers. If a character or group hasn't been nominated, you can't be matched on it.

Hi all,

Authors were revealed yesterday, so the NFE 2023 is in the books. Thanks to vialethe for helping to run the show and for picking up a pinch hit. Thank you to wingedflight for always saying yes before I even ask. :)

I hope everyone had fun. See you all next summer!

~Snacky

The collection will open tomorrow, Sunday September 10th at 12 noon ET. Be prepared!

Hey. that deadline is sure creeping up on you, isn't it?

GUESS WHAT IT'S EXTENSION TIME! We've had a few requests for extensions and you know what that means! That's right, everyone gets an extension.

New deadline: Saturday, September 2 by midnight
New reveals date: Sunday, September 10
New author reveal date: Sunday, September 17.

Quick note on bus passes: they actually have to pass the bus test. Don't make me get a pinch hitter for you. :D

(that smiley is there to alleviate the menace inherent in that last sentence, but seriously don't make me get a pinch hitter for you because of a non-passing bus pass)

-Snacky

Hello all! Sign-ups have been extended to this Friday, July 14th. They'll close near midnight.

With that, we've changed the schedule a bit. Here's the updated version:

Signups close: July 14th

Assignments sent out: by July 19th

Fics due: any time before August 26th
Collection opens: September 3rd
Authors revealed: September 10th

Basically everything was pushed back a few days. Nothing earth-shattering.

Get your sign-ups in and let us know if you have any questions, here or at narniaficexchange@gmail.com

THE TIME TO SIGN UP HAS ARRIVED!

This is a pretty long post, but it answers questions and explains things, so please read the whole thing.


Here is a handy tutorial on how to sign up for an fic exchange on AO3:

Handy tutorial!

If you want to sign up, but don't have an AO3 account, email me at snacky8@gmail.com or narniaficexchange@gmail.com and I will get you an invite.

Here is the link to the signup form:

Sign-up form!

Here is the tagset:

Tagset!

Other handy links (beta post, pinch-hitter post, letters post, etc.) can be found here:

Info post with links!


THINGS OF NOTE:

1) Reminder: same as the last couple of years, you cannot request "any." We had too many problems with matching, and aurilly made the tags more specific for this reason. However, you can still offer "any," but only offer it if you're really open to writing anyone/thing.


2) Reminder: you can only request relationships as characters. You will see in the tag set characters groupings which are either platonic (e.g., "Group: Character A & Character B") or romantic/sexual (e.g., "Group: Character A/Character B").

This means if you want a specific combo of characters (either platonic or romantic/sexual), you have to specifically request that tag. So if you want a story about Edmund Pevensie/Bacchus, you need to request Group: Edmund Pevensie/Bacchus. If you simply request both characters, there is no guarantee that you will be matched with someone who wants to write those characters together.

This is also how you should request crossovers with specific characters. The crossover characters won't have individual character tags, but will be in a group with a Narnian character (e.g., Group: Lucy Pevensie/Aragon (Lord of The Rings)).

You can still request crossovers in your optional details, with something like, "I'd really like a Narnia/Star Wars crossover" but this does not guarantee a specific match.


3) For matching, you are matched primarily on characters (so individual characters and groups). If there is no match there, you can be matched on the additional tags.

But remember, because this is a small single fandom exchange, what tends to happen is that people are matched on one offer/request, but writers will also mix and match from the other requests.

For example, your recipient might have made request one with Aravis, and you offered Aravis in offer one, so that's what you matched on. But if they've also requested Zardeenah in another request, and you offered her in another offer, then you're certainly free (and encouraged) to use all the other characters/freeforms you have in common in your story (unless your recip says something like "DNW a story with these two characters, or in this situation").


4) About crossovers: as in previous years, you can request crossovers, but they can't be your only request. There's no way to guarantee that your writer will be familiar with the other fandom. Same with requests set in specific ficverses - you can, for example, request a story set in rthstewart's ficverse, but you must be considerate and have other requests, because not everyone knows that 'verse. Before you request a story set in someone else's ficverse, just make sure the original author is okay with that. That's on you -- the mods are not going to check with authors about this. As well, you should not set stories in someone else's ficverse, unless the person has specifically requested that ficverse.


5) There won't be a separate collection for treats this year, but after the assignments are sent out, all the requests will be open for treating. You can upload these treats to the main collection. Just tag them as treats.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in comments, or email to narniaficexchange@gmail.com

***

Whew, that was long. If you made it this far, congratulations, you can now claim to be my BFF! Now go sign up! :D