Calendar

~~Sign-ups:~~ ~~February 17th - March 3rd~~
~~Writing Time:~~ ~~March 5th - March 31st~~
~~Stories Due:~~ ~~April 1st~~
Stories Posted: April 1st - April 11th

About

The idea for The Spark Inside came to me back in 2006 from a few different places. First I was inspired by Eve’s collaborations projects [If Hanson Wore Blue Collars, Tales of the Glories, Hearts Will Bind You], and then I was inspired by seeing exchanges done in my second favorite form of fanfic, which is Harry Potter. I’d seen some exchanges, so I thought why not try it with Hanfic?

Over time The Spark Inside as evolved. Instead of solely doing exchanges, other forms of challenges have been tried. Instead of trying the same thing over and over, I’ve continued to try different sorts of challenges to keep things fresh and interesting each year.

During the spring and summer of 2006, we did an exchange where each person listed three things they wanted and didn’t want their fic to include. The challenges were traded and each writer wrote a story, using those things to include to write a story for someone else. During the summer of 2007 we did a theme challenge, and we had 2-3 people in each category. Spring of 2008 the theme was “Worth A Thousand Words” with a picture to base the story on plus one quote and one item to include. During the summer of 2009, we tried collaborations. This seemed to be the least successful challenge as far as people coming through, but we did end up with a few gems.

This year the theme is “How Far We’ve Come.” As you might have guessed, the idea is to show how much you’ve improved as a writer over the years by rewriting the first chapter of a multi-chapter story or rewriting a short story from the past. Writers will be providing the original along with the rewritten version so that readers will have something to compare the new version to.

The timeline for this year’s challenge will go as follows:

Sign-ups: February 17th – March 3rd
Writing Time: March 5th – March 31st
Stories Due: April 1st

If you’re interested in rising to the challenge, sign up after reading the rules.