megaflare_ff | Apr. 13th, 2010

Welcome to Mega Flare 2010, the Final Fantasy Big Bang!

The Rules

Schedule! All closing times and due dates are midnight Pacific Time (UTC -7).
Sun Jun 6: Sign-ups Open
Fri Jul 2: Author Sign-ups Close
Fri Sep 3: Artist Sign-ups Close
Sun Sep 5: Story Summaries Due
Mon Sep 6: Story Selection Begins
Sun Sep 12: Story Selection Closes
Fri Oct 1: Rough Drafts Due
Fri Oct 29: Posting Begins!
Sun Nov 14: Posting Ends - All stories due

We will have announcement communities on LJ and DW both! However, for ease of modding and communication, comments will be allowed only on the Dreamwidth community. Anonymous and OpenID commenting will be open for those who neither have nor want DW accounts. (But if you don't have a DW account and want one, let us know!) Come check us out at megaflare_ff or megaflare_ff!

All stories must be posted to the AO3 Mega Flare collection.
- If you don't already have an AO3 account, let us know! It's a good idea to do this as soon as possible.
- Stories may be broken into chapters, but you must post the entire story at one time -- no spreading it out over several days or weeks.
- You are totally welcome to cross-post as you wish!

Expectations for authors
- If you would like artwork, a summary of the story must be completed and sent to the mods by Sunday, September 5th.
- A rough draft of at least 17,500 words will be due to your artist on October 1st.
- WIPs are allowed, with a maximum of 3,000 draft words already written.
- We will open story posting on October 29th, and it will stay open for approximately two weeks. All stories must be at least 20,000 words. Sunday, November 14th is the final deadline!

Expectations for artists
- Be available the week of September 6th for story selection. (More details on how that will work are forthcoming.)
- If you don't receive your rough draft by October 2nd, let the mods know right away!
- Post one or two high-quality fanart pieces inspired by the story you have chosen. You should work with the author to embed the artwork in the story as posted on AO3. Although AO3 doesn't offer image hosting, we will! Watch the community for more information about how to upload your artwork.
- Anyone is welcome to sign up as both an author and an artist, but you must select someone else's story to illustrate.

Collaboration!
- We definitely encourage artists and authors to sign up as a team! This suggests that you will work on the project together from the beginning. When you sign up, please let us know that you are going in together so that we know that you don't need to participate in story selection.
- Authors who sign up with an artist do not need to turn in a summary. However, please check in with us at the rough draft stage to let us know how it's going.
- Interested in collaborating but don't have anyone to collaborate with? We will give you the opportunity to post a "personal ad" in the Mega Flare community! Just comment here. We will be closing comments to this post on August 27th, one week before artist sign-ups close.

Betas
- Although we won't be doing official beta sign-ups, anyone is welcome to advertise their services as a beta in this post.
- Betas are not required, but they are strongly recommended.

Other stuff
- Defaulting: In life, things happen. You may get to a point where you realize that you just aren't going to be able to finish your story or your artwork -- maybe not on time, maybe not at all. Either way, please feel free to contact the mods at any time, either by email or by leaving a comment on the DW community. No worries! Whatever it is, we would rather know and have the opportunity help you out.

That's all for now! But watch this space for more goodies, like reminders and a FAQ.

Thanks for all your enthusiasm as we've been putting this together. It's really kept us excited about the project. :D We look forward to working with you over the next several months as we produce awesome Final Fantasy artwork and longfic together!

Your loving mods,