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infrequencies) wrote2025-08-21 01:45 am
infrequencies) wrote2025-08-21 01:45 am
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so you want to run a fic fest!
I started co-running fic fests in 2018 with Your Hope Fest, and have since co-ran a round of SeokSoon Fireball Fest, four rounds of Emo Fic Fest (originally Emo BTS Fest), one round of 98z Rare Pair Fest, and various other fandom events that you may or may not know about—to varying degrees of success.
I've been on the other side of fests as a writer as well; some good, some bad, some downright confusing. From all of these experiences, I have been able to put together a loose how-to on running a fic fest, particularly one for K-RPF. I've been less successful out of this space, but admittedly, I have less interest in writing outside of this space at this time.
I've received feedback that joining fests that are not run by me are noticeably not run like the Marines, which is :') a very nice thing to hear! I put a lot of thought and effort into each portion of running an event for fandom, and I've asked a lot of questions to friends who have way more experience doing this than me. I have taken a big step back from big fandom-wide fests due to lack of time and energy for it, but I'm still participating in fandom and I wanted to share the things I know to help make fandom a better place.
1. Idea Phase
Let's say that you and a group of people come together and learn that you have a specific overlap, like, enjoying the same ship, or wanting more of a certain member written. Or you like a trope and want more of it. You love an artist and want to launch a jukebox fest. Where do you begin?
Well, first of all: make sure the fest doesn't already exist. And if it does, reach out to those mods. Even if the fest is inactive.
Sure, you don't have to, but it's just good form. And it's polite. Not to discourage, but to see if you could probably a) get them to change ownership of the Twitter acount b) offer assistance or c) get that promo of an existing audience.
If that isn't a roadblock standing in your way, go ahead and put your think tank together. Whether that ends up being your mod team is up to you, but you need 1. some level of graphic design experience or know how to use Canva and 2. some social media savvy.
The basics of creating a fest mean that you need to have the following things before launch:
- fest name
- fest timeline
- dedicated fest email
- dedicated fest social media accounts
- fest rules
- fest collection on AO3
Should I run an interest check?
I personally feel that interest checks are stupid, especially if you have already committed to the idea of the fest. Interest checks should happen before the account is created, if at all, within your own circle. (This is where you hold your friends at knifepoint and threaten them to join or else.)
The only reason you should run an interest check is if you're between two options, like two timelines or two fest formats. If you're running a second round and need feedback.
Also: if you're asking if people are interested in an event you want to run... do you actually want to run it?
How do I name this thing?
It can be as simple as "[member name] Fest" or "[Trope] [Fandom] [Ship] Fest". Don't make it hard for people to find, and keep it short and sweet. Keep the word "fest" in the name or bio of the social media accounts for SEO reasons, and this is especially important if you're running a niche, music festival-themed fest that parodies branding of a well-known touring fest.
Hey so. Graphic design is not my passion.
That's okay! I'm also notably terrible at creating graphics! For Seoksoon Fireball Fest, I used a lot of templates to build out fest graphics. Canva is incredible, and will offer suggestions for fonts to pair up. The text will snap in place. A godsend. (I am not my wonderful talented friend ao3 cryptonomica, the brains behind the graphics for Emo Fic Fest.)
Make sure that your graphics are readable. There have been many fests that I've been interested in, but their fest graphics were unreadable. Worst of all, there wasn't a Carrd or Google Doc with information easily accessible that I just gave up on it. Something that I've learned in working in marketing: don't make people work for the information they're seeking. Because they won't do the work. You gotta make it easy to get the conversion!
Sick. I've made the email, social media accounts, and I've got graphics. What else do I need?
That's cool! But before you start posting your graphics:
Something that has been raised to me in the past—and is an excellent point—is the lack of usage of the alt text feature on Twitter. I use that description field to put in the text on the graphics to the best of my ability. It is hugely disheartening to see fests not take advantage of the feature, when this is something that helps everyone. I'm not perfect about this, and neither will you be! But take the extra second to proofread and check your alt text.
2. Get the Word Out
Now that you've gotten an idea ready to be shared with the general public, you need to start creating rules.My general rule of thumb is that by signing up for a fest, you agree to tag your fics to the best of your ability and/or warn for content. I operate on an honor system. I'm not your mama, so I'm not gonna go behind every single one of you to check, but I am gonna at least look at the tags of the fic and determine if there's any additional warnings needed. You can be as thorough or brief as you want, but if there's darker themes, hard kink, explicit content, and so on, be up front about it.
There has been a lot of discourse regarding content allowed in fests, and I have run fests with a stance against rape, assault, bestiality, and incest. I've run fests with no restrictions, just tag it. I'm not going to go back and forth on debating this, but do know that if you are opening yourself up to barring content in fests, you are holding yourself accountable to the fics that are entered in your fest. Know that if you create a word count minimum, or bar an age group from participating, you are tightening your pool of participants.
My preferred format is to write rules in FAQ/Q&A, because it gives you easy verbiage to refer back to when someone asks you a question. And if a new question comes up, then you can add it to the list.
For an example of fest rules, Emo Fest rules can be found here. If you use these as a reference point in your fic fest verbiage, please credit us!
Next should be a timeline.
Timelines are important because it tells your would-be writer pool how much time they would have to dilly-dally until the fic is due. As someone who loves to sign up for a fest, then completely forget about it until check-ins... You need to space check-ins so that the forgetting period doesn't happen. You should also add a buffer between the due date and posting.My rough estimate for the sweet spots for each period are as follows:
Fest open: as immediate as possible. Easier done with jukebox fests, self-prompted fests, and anything that involves a lot less mod intervention. You want to keep the momentum going.
Prompting period: no more than 2-3 weeks. Maybe a month, but at some point, the number of prompts gets overwhelming to wrangle and/or look at.
Claiming period: open either immediately after prompting closes, or the second mods clean up the archive. I typically prefer to run a "rolling claim period" aka claiming never closes.
Check-ins: dependent on how long the fest is, but approximately 1 month after claiming, then 3 week intervals until fest end.
At first check-in, also remind people that they're allowed to drop the fest whenever! Unless it's an exchange. Then you should be reminding them that they need to let you know sooner rather than later if they cannot complete their fic so you can find a pinch hitter.
2.1 Checking In
I am a strong believer that all people who sign up for fests are responsible for their own fest participation and that I'm not going to chase you for a check-in. I also know and acknowledge that life happens. But communication is key to make literally anything work, and not communicating as a mod or a writer is a huge detriment to all people involved.
Make your check-ins as accessible as possible: tweets with direct links to the check-in form, emails with links, sending out reminder DMs to the handful of people whose emails got caught in the spam filters. You need to know if they're continuing on. Without you, there is no fest, but without them, there is also no fest.
Posting: add in a one week buffer between fic due date and posting. This builds in time for any late fills, and gives mods a brain break. It also helps your graphics mod time to space out the work needed.
As a reader and writer, I love daily posting, but as a mod, I love spacing out the days. I love giving my writers space for their works to find an audience, and my readers time to get through their works. On the other end, I am rattling on my goddamn cage. (This is a fun time to do some sort of reader bingo if you're feeling fancy.)
2.2 Posting
Build a buffer into your calendar.
Did you listen to me when I said that earlier in this post? Build a buffer into your calendar. "No, infrequency, this fest is gonna be different! We're gonna have all fics in on time." Build the buffer into your calendar. Have you ever had less than 25% of fics submitted on the day fics were due? BUILD THE BUFFER INTO YOUR TIMELINE. THANK ME LATER.
Reveals: Space a few days after the final posting day. This can be a TBD date on your timeline because... the writer's muse is fickle and some people will want to try to use every second they can squeeze out of the timeline. Fair. But have a hard date set in mind and keep it in your back pocket. You should have this by fest end.
Once all of that is said and done: do you have graphics for your pinned tweet?
3. Getting Organized
You want to make things as easy as possible for people, so putting all of your information in one place is best practice. This was true when I was creating resources for IRL events on social media, and it's true for fic fests. I want to go to the fest page, click on the Carrd link in bio or the pinned, and find exactly what I'm looking for.
Your pinned tweet should contain the following info:
- centralized information. (carrd/strawpage/google doc) It doesn't have to be pretty, but it does have to explain what it is in a digestible way.
- AO3 collection link. The AO3 collection link should have all of the information pertinent to the fest on the information page as well. More on this later.
- another link to rules, guidelines, etc. Rules should also be accessible on the Carrd and AO3 collection. For Emo Fic Fest, we used a Google Doc.
No. Coming as someone who worked in events, our canned response to questions was to direct people to our FAQ in conjunction with their answer. Point people to all of the information they're seeking out.
Immediately after the pinned tweet should be the timeline. The timeline information should be in the bio as well. So if the fest runs from June to October 2025, I would list out the dates for each step of the fest.
The idea is that you want to keep all of your information in one place, one thread, so you can easily go back to reference it.
Okay, I've launched! Now what?
Make sure your AO3 collection page is up to date with all info. Include dates, links to the social media, email, and so on. It's useful to have your information as visible as possible! It's important for a fic fest to have their contact information visible and present. And for Emo Fic Fest, we had it everywhere.
Reach out to other fests in your fandom! Send a DM and say "hi! can you RT our timeline/pinned?" You want to reach out to as many people as possible, right? Follow other fic fests - it's a surefire signal that says, hey! Check us out! Get the news out that your fest is here and ready to go. And it's just fun to make friends!
If you are reading this and run a K-RPF fic fest, you are welcome to reach out to me at @infrequenced or on @emoficfest at any time. We have a 1k+ following reach—as does my fic account—and I would be happy to boost!
In the meantime, you should be doing the boring administrative work that comes with running a fest. Get your spreadsheet looking right for tracking writers and prompts claimed. Workshop an easy template for your confirmation emails, and get ahead with writing out your check-in emails. All that jazz.
Something fun that Emo Fic Fest adopted in Year Three was a confirmation graphic for writers to post on social media—which was another way to promote the fest, but in a fun interactive way! There are a lot of cool ways to use that audience you've captured to do some of the leg work for you, but it's just cool to share and be excited about a thing in fandom, you know?
Help... I'm bad at writing emails....
An easy confirmation email template is:
Hello!
Thank you for signing up for [insert fest name here]. You have successfully claimed [prompt/song/whatever: whatever they claimed]. If this is correct, no need to reply.
The first/second/last check-in will be on [DATE].
Thank you again, and happy writing!
Feel free to amend this for check-ins as well!
4. The Lull
Don't let it fool you. The lull during the writing period is the calm before the storm.
As it gets closer to the due date for all fics, you need to start evaluating your timeline. Start pre-planning what your posting schedule looks like.
My go-to format for fic posting is:
TITLE
SHIP
RATING | WC
TAGS
[link]
When people drop, create a separate drop list on your spreadsheet. This has made my life significantly easier, as someone who always manages to fuck up my spreadsheet while tracking writers with outstanding fics, and it will make your life easier, too. Also, if you created a buffer in your timeline, it gives you more time to get stuff together.
Sometime in this lull, you should also post a guide on how to post your fics! AO3 collections are finnicky, so a video guide helps. See: my screen recording for Emo Fic Fest here.
5. The Storm
Imagine this:
Fics were due two days ago, and only 2 people have submitted fics. You have 10 people promising that they'll get their fics in by tomorrow evening, and 3 people just dropped.
Aren't you glad you added in those buffer days?
You added in those buffer dates, right?
You need to give those writers promising they'll be done a hard final date. It's not fair to the writers who submitted their works on time they have to wait longer for them, and it's not fair to you as a mod to have to wait on them.
The alternative that I often offer to writers is that if they complete their fic down the line, they are welcome to DM or tag us in their promotion post, and we will RT the post to our audience as if it was part of the fest.
Yes, this means you can't please everyone. Yes, this means you're the bad guy. But these things are set in place for a reason.
6. ...End?
Some last things, and you're free!
Figure out a format that works for your closing graphic: your author reveals! Keep it simple as possible, but make it something that people can share with their TL.
If you do a author name graphic pre-fic reveals, it allows people to invite readers to guess who they've read. It can be fun as a reader to try to guess who wrote what!
Look. We know that engagement has largely fallen off in fandom, but it's still a fun thing to do. Plus, it's just nice to appreciate all of the people who took part.
Once all fics have been de-anoned, you should post another set of graphics with all authors' names next to their fics, like so:
You should also link directly to the AO3 collection in each tweet. Again, don't make people look for the information that you're giving them. You want to convert these tweets into click-throughs. Marketing babey.
This is just a general guideline of things that have worked for me in the past, and should not be taken as hard and fast rules. I'm just one person! And if you have suggestions of things that have worked in the past or need any clarification, please feel free to jump in. I can also be reached at my Alterspring.
Thank you for reading!