elrhiarhodan

I say it a lot, and I always say it at the start of these things, but I love my flist. You know that, don't you? You're a bunch of incredibly special people - you write, you read, you live for White Collar (well, at least most of you do). But you've got busy lives, and maybe the writing isn't coming so easily these days. I know I'm having that problem, too. What I've found is that there's nothing like jumpstarting the muse with a game of prompts.

The premise is simple: you take a prompt, fill it and give me a prompt in return, I fill it and give you back a prompt, and so on and so on. In one prompt game, I exchanged prompts with another writer for seven go-arounds.

There are no limits or minimum length. If you are moved to haiku, that's brilliant! Three sentence ficlets, excellent! If you want to write a story that's linked from prompt to prompt, you can do that, too. I can name some brilliant epics that came out of Promptfest.

I like to make these things as stress free as possible, because rules are really only boundaries to completion. You can write whatever you want, crossovers, A/Us, RPS/RPF, whatever strikes your fancy. If you don't like a prompt I've given you, don't be shy about saying so, and I'll be happy to re-prompt you. If you want to write something outside of the WC fandom, or you want me to write something, that's fine too. If you want me to prompt you in a specific way, just ask.

This is all about having fun, writing and spreading the writing love.

There are going to be two types of prompts for this edition of Promptfest – we've got the traditional abstract Character/Prompt and Prompt (you pick the character), plus we have

kanarek13's photo prompts that I've been talking about since I first floated the idea a few weeks back.

A bit more about the photo prompts…

There are one hundred different prompts that

kanarek13 created from White Collar screen caps and they all have a word or phrase on them. Since Promptfest is running for fourteen days and I want to sustain interest through the two weeks, I'm going to post the prompts in groups of twenty. The first comment in this entry will be the standard prompts and that comment will be frozen so no one can reply to it. The second comment will be

kanarek13's prompts and it will be frozen, too. When I update the prompts, I'll post to my LJ that new prompts are up and add links to the refreshed lists. But just be aware that comments will probably collapse at a certain point as activity picks up, so you'll probably have to make sure you expand the first two comments to find fresh prompts. It's a tradeoff – if I add the new prompts to the original post, then that post becomes very long – especially with the images, but if I comment to the post, the comments will collapse.

On a housekeeping note, please make sure you fill your prompts in a new comment thread and then link to it back in the original prompt from me by saying "You can find my fill here", with "here" as a link to the new comment. I think it makes it easier for everyone to keep track of the fills.

When we close, please, please, please - repost your prompts in your own journals and on the comms. I can tell you, with 100% certainty, these little ficlets and drabbles are exciting to read and very motivating.

Let's get this party started!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Promptfest IX is Now Closed

The final tally stands as follows:

elrhiarhodan - 16

dennih23 - 9

theatregirl7299 - 2

hurinhouse - 25

pipilj - 3

aragarna - 4

doctor_fangeek - 3

sapphire2309 - 9

nywcgirl - 16

daria234 - 1

buzzbee17 - 6

cookielaura - 1

sheenianni - 1

96 Stories Overall

Think about that. Ninety-six new works of White Collar fic in sixteen days. How freaking awesome is that?

There's nothing stopping anyone from writing to the prompts and posting their fills, but I'm not keeping track after today.

Thank you to everyone - writers, cheerleaders, interested bystanders, for all of your commitment to keeping this fandom vibrant, creative and alive.