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Hope everyone's doing well with their Soup fics! We've got 10 days left until we go live next Tuesday, on July 28th. Three fics have already been sent to me (MUCH YAY) and I look forward to getting the rest of them. If you've sent me your fic and I haven't acknowledged it, please get in touch with me again.
A little Soup history, for those who don't realize how long we've been doing this:
Back in March of 2008, the very first Soup was called "Defining Sam from A to Z," and served as a birthday fic for Abyssinia. (Er. That was actually an unintended pun.) Because we put the whole thing together in just three days, we stipulated a maximum of 200 words per fic. Some people went over that limit, but the entire anthology was easily contained within a single LJ entry.
Response was wildly enthusiastic and four days later (SG-1 fandom was really, really active then!) we more or less decided to try again. This time the subject was Daniel, and I tied it to SG-1 Gen Fic Day, which I'd already organized twice before at that point. I was incredibly generous and allowed nine whole days to sign up and write about Daniel (wow, things have changed...). There was no "only one letter per author" rule back then, so a few major Daniel-fans were able to take up the slack. Fifteen authors contributed altogether. The Daniel Alphabet Soup went up in early April; Teal'c Alphabet Soup helped celebrate Daniel's birthday in July. With the passing of Don S. Davis, we put together another Soup to have General Hammond featured in time for what would have been his 66th birthday in early August. Believe it or not, we squeezed in a fifth Soup that same year, with Jack Alpha-Bits in October!
...Wow. I miss the days when I was so prolific.
By the time we wrote Janet Alphabet Soup in May of 2009, Dreamwidth was also around, which was a good thing as the lengths of the Soups continued to increase. The first Soup was less than 6,000 words in total; some of the Soups were clocking in at six or seven times that amount! I certainly wasn't complaining about more and longer gen fic :) but it did make it more difficult to compile the complete anthologies. We've been averaging about two or three a year since then. Two of our Soups, Crossover and Time Travel, were so long that they exceeded even DW's entry limit...
...and that brings us to now, when we're ten days away from celebrating Gen Fic Day with our twentieth Alphabet Soup.
I'm no longer going to try to make an abridged version of the anthology, as I've been doing since our second Soup. Instead, the complete anthology, whether in one entry or two (depending on how long it will ultimately be), will be solely on Dreamwidth. What we will have, both on LJ and on DW, is a detailed table of contents, complete with summary, details of characters and era, and a snippet of fic. This is asking a bit more of the Soup authors, I know, but I've created a template and included an example that I hope will make the process as easy as possible. Since the template will be sent to me via e-mail, I'll be dealing with any HTML tweaks that might be necessary and I'll also be able to help anyone who needs a little coaching along the way.
The template and example are below the cut. If you've got any questions or comments, please let me know here or by emailing me at sg1.fig at gmail.
First of all, here's the template that you copy-and-paste. Delete the words in brackets and insert your own details, leaving out the brackets completely.
Next, here's an example, taken from one of my own fics at random:
_______
Well Met at Midnight, by Fig Newton (PG)
Summary: Jonas Quinn dreams of Daniel Jackson, or maybe he doesn't.
Word count: 1,350 words
Characters: Jonas Quinn, Daniel Jackson
Era: between S5 and S6
Categories: angst, character study
Author's notes: Set just before Redemption.
Excerpt: "I'm sorry for what you've lost," Jackson says some undefined time later.
"I think you've lost more," Jonas replies without turning to face him.
"It's not death, you know."
"Close enough," Jonas points out, and though he doesn't choose to say so, the words seem to echo in the cavernous room: You're not here because of me.
Link: Well Met at Midnight
________
These entries to the table of contents will allow readers to skim through the list, get a general idea of what a story is like, and choose what they want to read. Obviously, they are still more than welcome to go to the complete anthology and simply read their way all the through. :)
Soup authors, please send in a completed template together with your Soup when you e-mail it to me. Include it within the body of the e-mail, as that is probably easiest for everyone involved. It will save a lot of time if I don't have to ask/remind people to do this. If you're unsure what excerpt to use, either simply include the first paragraph or so or leave that section blank.
I would like a general opinion from readers/authors if you think the links should be not only to the author's LJ/DW/AO3/webpage, but also a link to jump to the story in the anthology. The anthology, of course, includes links to the author's own journal/whatever, but perhaps the TOC should only go to the author's journals directly. What do you think? And let me know, too, if you have any comments or suggestions for improvements for this new method.
A little Soup history, for those who don't realize how long we've been doing this:
Back in March of 2008, the very first Soup was called "Defining Sam from A to Z," and served as a birthday fic for Abyssinia. (Er. That was actually an unintended pun.) Because we put the whole thing together in just three days, we stipulated a maximum of 200 words per fic. Some people went over that limit, but the entire anthology was easily contained within a single LJ entry.
Response was wildly enthusiastic and four days later (SG-1 fandom was really, really active then!) we more or less decided to try again. This time the subject was Daniel, and I tied it to SG-1 Gen Fic Day, which I'd already organized twice before at that point. I was incredibly generous and allowed nine whole days to sign up and write about Daniel (wow, things have changed...). There was no "only one letter per author" rule back then, so a few major Daniel-fans were able to take up the slack. Fifteen authors contributed altogether. The Daniel Alphabet Soup went up in early April; Teal'c Alphabet Soup helped celebrate Daniel's birthday in July. With the passing of Don S. Davis, we put together another Soup to have General Hammond featured in time for what would have been his 66th birthday in early August. Believe it or not, we squeezed in a fifth Soup that same year, with Jack Alpha-Bits in October!
...Wow. I miss the days when I was so prolific.
By the time we wrote Janet Alphabet Soup in May of 2009, Dreamwidth was also around, which was a good thing as the lengths of the Soups continued to increase. The first Soup was less than 6,000 words in total; some of the Soups were clocking in at six or seven times that amount! I certainly wasn't complaining about more and longer gen fic :) but it did make it more difficult to compile the complete anthologies. We've been averaging about two or three a year since then. Two of our Soups, Crossover and Time Travel, were so long that they exceeded even DW's entry limit...
...and that brings us to now, when we're ten days away from celebrating Gen Fic Day with our twentieth Alphabet Soup.
I'm no longer going to try to make an abridged version of the anthology, as I've been doing since our second Soup. Instead, the complete anthology, whether in one entry or two (depending on how long it will ultimately be), will be solely on Dreamwidth. What we will have, both on LJ and on DW, is a detailed table of contents, complete with summary, details of characters and era, and a snippet of fic. This is asking a bit more of the Soup authors, I know, but I've created a template and included an example that I hope will make the process as easy as possible. Since the template will be sent to me via e-mail, I'll be dealing with any HTML tweaks that might be necessary and I'll also be able to help anyone who needs a little coaching along the way.
The template and example are below the cut. If you've got any questions or comments, please let me know here or by emailing me at sg1.fig at gmail.
First of all, here's the template that you copy-and-paste. Delete the words in brackets and insert your own details, leaving out the brackets completely.
Next, here's an example, taken from one of my own fics at random:
_______
Well Met at Midnight, by Fig Newton (PG)
Summary: Jonas Quinn dreams of Daniel Jackson, or maybe he doesn't.
Word count: 1,350 words
Characters: Jonas Quinn, Daniel Jackson
Era: between S5 and S6
Categories: angst, character study
Author's notes: Set just before Redemption.
Excerpt: "I'm sorry for what you've lost," Jackson says some undefined time later.
"I think you've lost more," Jonas replies without turning to face him.
"It's not death, you know."
"Close enough," Jonas points out, and though he doesn't choose to say so, the words seem to echo in the cavernous room: You're not here because of me.
Link: Well Met at Midnight
________
These entries to the table of contents will allow readers to skim through the list, get a general idea of what a story is like, and choose what they want to read. Obviously, they are still more than welcome to go to the complete anthology and simply read their way all the through. :)
Soup authors, please send in a completed template together with your Soup when you e-mail it to me. Include it within the body of the e-mail, as that is probably easiest for everyone involved. It will save a lot of time if I don't have to ask/remind people to do this. If you're unsure what excerpt to use, either simply include the first paragraph or so or leave that section blank.
I would like a general opinion from readers/authors if you think the links should be not only to the author's LJ/DW/AO3/webpage, but also a link to jump to the story in the anthology. The anthology, of course, includes links to the author's own journal/whatever, but perhaps the TOC should only go to the author's journals directly. What do you think? And let me know, too, if you have any comments or suggestions for improvements for this new method.
Tags:
no subject
The template is a great idea. Now I just have to, you know, write something. Let's see, what letter did I pick? :D
Thanks, Fig!
no subject
no subject
As a new Soup cook, I have a couple of questions. You requested the url of the story when we post it to a site like DW or AO3. Should we post it closer to the deadline of should we do it now? Also, should I email you the story again along with the template (I submitted it already)?
Thank you!
Solstice
no subject
Obviously, you can't fill the URL in the template before an URL exists. :) However, when the Gen Fic Day entry goes up, all Soup authors comment there with links to their stories. I'll be going through those comments and adding the links to the templates.
You needn't send the story in again (unless, of course, you'd added or removed a comma in the meantime). Just the template will be fine. And thanks for cooking with us. :)
no subject
no subject
So PG/PG-13 is pretty much the norm, but I appreciate a more delicate touch in the profanity department. Hope this helps, and I'm around now if you've got any more questions. :)
(Edited to include the link)
no subject
Thank you, Fig for the reminder! I think everyone wanted to follow the rules but did not remember them well. I passed the clarification along just to be sure.
Sent from my iPhone