CFC: Recent Projects of Interest?

[ysabetwordsmith]

What cyberfunded creativity projects have you recently donated to or participated in as a fan? What have you viewed? What prompt calls have you sent inspiration? What made them special enough to attract your support?

What do you want that you haven't been seeing, or would like to see more of? Do you have ideas that you want to prompt, but aren't sure what creator would be a good match for them?

Comments

Cyberfunded

[dialecticdreamer]

As Ysabetworsdmith may know, I'm new to funding works.

I /love/ it. Rather than drop the price of a movie ticket and lunch on a movie I'm not likely to enjoy more than once, maybe NOT even while sitting in the theater, I can help promote independent, creative stories and poetry.

Then I dipped my toes in /writing/ for a cyberfunded universe, just to noodle with an idea, and created a multimedia explanation of a slang term used in her universe. It's at LEAST as much fun.

Prompts are a lot of fun, BUT it has to be something which, for whatever reason, sparks that little bit of "Alice in Wonderland" in my brain.

I'm working on writing my first piece for a bingo challenge, and working on parameters for hosting a bingo challenge.

What I'd /love/ more advice about is -- what's okay to ask for? How specific? I don't want to limit someone else's creativity, but to use a fan fiction example, a story can be going along at a solid 8.5 on a scale of one to ten, and then, BLAM, Harry-n-Ginny-TWUU-WUUV, and my brain just goes, "Uh... NOPE. Not even." A story has to be MIGHTY strong otherwise to get me through a major turnoff.

I'm reading about Torn World, learning the back story, and concentrating more on the nonfiction world-building details.

I'm still not sure where to ask for specific kinds of fiction. Lately, though, the very beginnings of a 'wish list' are germinating.

Re: Cyberfunded

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> As Ysabetworsdmith may know, I'm new to funding works. <<

Yay!

>> I /love/ it. Rather than drop the price of a movie ticket and lunch on a movie I'm not likely to enjoy more than once, maybe NOT even while sitting in the theater, I can help promote independent, creative stories and poetry. <<

Yeah, that's a favorite part for me too. I don't have much money to spend, but I keep raising the bar for mainstream entertainment. Basically, I can give money to my enemies or to my friends. In order to get money out of my, my enemies have to come up with something pretty awesome. And most of what they think is awesome, is not what I think is awesome. My friends and I have much better overlap.

>> Then I dipped my toes in /writing/ for a cyberfunded universe, just to noodle with an idea, and created a multimedia explanation of a slang term used in her universe. It's at LEAST as much fun. <<

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Another thing I love about crowdfunding is that it encourages people to share ideas instead of hoarding them.

By the way, we had dinner with my parents today and they asked for the link to "Flickering," which I just sent to them. Okay, they're huge fans of my writing, everybody knows that. But they don't read my blogs, because they find DW & LJ hard to navigate. They do use YouTube. So that's a useful point of reference.

>> Prompts are a lot of fun, BUT it has to be something which, for whatever reason, sparks that little bit of "Alice in Wonderland" in my brain. <<

That's true for most of us, although some people are more flexible than others.

>> I'm working on writing my first piece for a bingo challenge, and working on parameters for hosting a bingo challenge. <<

Woohoo!

>> What I'd /love/ more advice about is -- what's okay to ask for? <<

This varies by project. Some writers encourage loose interpretation of the session theme, or may not even have a theme so anything goes. I've seen at least one person use a format (three aspects of a story) instead of a theme.

My best advice on this point is to know the creator. Everyone has things they do well, things they don't do well, and things they'd rather not do. If you read their blog or other writing, you can usually map those areas pretty well. Doesn't take much looking at me to realize I like writing about a lot of social issues but soap opera stuff is not my thing. With artwork, one person may be great at furry animals and another at robots.

But I'll tell you something else -- a lot of crowdfunders are inspired by support, either money or feedback or both. If you start waving dollar bills and attention around, you should be able to get almost anything you want eventually. People will help you make connections.

>> How specific? <<

Depends on what you want to accomplish.

Do you want to help the project? Short prompts of one or a few words are easy to use, even reuse. Sometimes I'll get a great phrase and put it into three or four poems. I love cottoncandy_bingo for its light easy prompts such as "dreams." You could do anything with that one. Some are mini-plots: "Won't fall in love ... Oops. In love." It's more specific but there's still a lot of flexibility.

Do you want to encourage a particular kind of material, or even one specific idea? Go ahead and lay out a whole description. When these hit, they hit big; I've gotten whole series this way, such as The Steamsmith. But they can miss too, if they don't grab me. Honestly, I'm willing to take the risks, because if the results aren't great, it's not a big loss; whereas the big wins are awesome.

If you are really attached to an idea, make it your only prompt; in most projects, that will get it written. If you want to be maximally helpful, post a batch of things ranging from short and general to longer and more specific. These are the folks most likely to get more than one poem from me, because I'll pick my favorite idea and then double back if I have time to do more.

>> I don't want to limit someone else's creativity, but to use a fan fiction example, a story can be going along at a solid 8.5 on a scale of one to ten, and then, BLAM, Harry-n-Ginny-TWUU-WUUV, and my brain just goes, "Uh... NOPE. Not even." A story has to be MIGHTY strong otherwise to get me through a major turnoff. <<

Only occasionally do I have people list turnoffs to avoid, or ask me if they can prompt in a certain direction and not have X happen. I'm happy to work with this as far as my muse allows; I have manual steering, not automatic. If there's a relevant turnoff, it's worth mentioning. Also, "I am tired of X in the mainstream; I want not-X" is a popular and effective prompt structure. Some of mine that I framed that way went into nineforthenebulasheart which is why that team is all women except for one man.

>> I'm reading about Torn World, learning the back story, and concentrating more on the nonfiction world-building details. <<

I really look forward to seeing what you can do with that.

>> I'm still not sure where to ask for specific kinds of fiction. Lately, though, the very beginnings of a 'wish list' are germinating. <<

One thing you could do would be to keep a wish list and watch to see if anyone's themes cross it.

Another is to watch for current projects, because people post here with both new and ongoing ones. So you can get a feel for their favorite topics and best skills. aldersprig excels at school stories, for example.