Announcing… The Portkey Felix Felices Fanfiction Competition!

To lighten the mood here on Portkey after we have all finished reading the 6th book, we have decided to run a fanfiction competition! This competition will be for Harry/Hermione stories, with very general criteria, allowing for all sorts of stories. We are in the process of finalising some very nice prizes for the winners. Most importantly is that this competition will not be judged by us, it will be decided by our masses of Portkey members. Our registered members will rate each story, and the results will not be visible until the voting period ends.

What are the criteria for entering?

• The story must take into consideration book 6’s events and new information. You are encouraged to use any new ideas that were mentioned – you cannot pretend that events in the book did not happen.
• The story can be of any length, it can be continued after the competition ends, and does not need to be finished when the voting period starts.
• The story must have been started AFTER July 16th and the author must have read the Half Blood Prince before starting the story.
• Stories can be as many chapters/words as the author desires, and no preference is given to short or long stories.
• The story may not be set in the periods of year 1 – 5. This means authors may not go back and re-write one of the previous books. Authors may, however, write fanfiction which happens during the 6th book if they wish to.

In summary, if you start a fanfiction after reading book 6 that does not ignore what happened in book 6 and is not a story replacing any of Harry’s 1st – 5th years, then your story is eligible to enter this competition!

How will this competition work?

It will run using an extension of the Portkey fanfiction section. Entering a story into the competition will be very easy. All current Portkey authors are eligible for entry, and non-authors can apply as authors to Portkey to have their story entered (but will be subject to the usual rules and quality requirements). On the page for “Creating” a new story in the author control panel, there will be a box that can be ticked, with the words “Enter this story into the Felix Felices Competition”.

Once a story has been submitted, it will be listed on a web page which will be constantly updated with new entries. Entered stories will also show up on Portkey in the usual fanfiction channels – on the new & updated page – however it will be clearly marked as being an entry into the competition.

The date that authors may begin entering their stories is Friday 22nd July. Until then there will be no options in the author area to enter stories. Entries will close on Monday 15th August, at which time all members of Portkey will have until Monday 22th August to get voting. After the date for new entries closes, authors may still continue to update their stories.

Next is the part involving our community. When the reviewing period begins, registered members will then be able to rate the stories, giving all stories a rating between 1 and 5. We will be providing a marking key to assist members in judging the stories, and the judging will be entirely anonymous. Every member is entitled to rate each story once, and they can choose to change this vote at a later date if they wish to.

The criteria for this competition is very general, and is about having some fun with your fellow shippers and inspiring authors to get back to writing. If this competition is successful we will certain look to starting future competitions with narrower criteria as challenges to our talented writers, with prizes and credit for our winners.

If anybody is confused by these rules or this information, please reply to this thread with your question and I will answer it as soon as possible. We value your feedback to help us run a smooth and fun competition for all involved!

Please note that the days listed are subject to change. I am working hard to get the programming completed so that the system is ready for the dates that I have set.

I look forward to reading all your stories!
James

James...you are a life saver and I love you with all my heart. Thank you so much for being here for all of us shippers who have been called "desperate shippers". I am definetly going to enter this competition. I feel the need to write a fanfiction after book 6. And you know, it's really not the end! Again, thank you James.

I just have one question...you couldn't possibly...well...er...tell us what the prize is? If you don't want to say, no problemo...lol

I am a Harry/Hermione shipper too, so I know exactly how you feel . I have no probably with being called a desperate shipper, because the magic of Harry/Hermione will continue in fanfiction, regardless of what happens in the books.



When I have confirmed them I will announce them. Hopefully by Monday I should have more of the details. At the moment I am programming the system so that it is all nice and automated and works correctly . But I definitely will tell you as soon as I know for sure .

At this stage I think that we will have a few prizes that will be given to a few randomly selected authors that enter the competition, and probably prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

I would gladly sponsor some of the prizes. I think that would boost morale to H/H shippers. This is a good thing you're doing to us. At least we still have one more book to hope for. Just tell me whatever prizes you feel like giving out and I'll gladly oblige to finding them.

I am already writing a post-sixth year fanfiction that would be eligible for the competition, and I would be nonoured to take aprt in it. Problem is I'm leaving tomorrow, so I wouldn't able to post even chapter one as I'm going to come abck in Rome at the first of Septemeber. Can't it be arranged that the competition closes on 15th September? That would be great...

I have a question regarding this competition.
What if you already uploaded a story, that meets all the criteria, but you uploaded a couple of days ago (so on the 18th or 19th.. I don't quite remember)
I read that you can begin putting a check mark on whether or not the story is for the competition or not on thr 22nd. Can you still go into your control panel, and put a check mark by already made stories?
Because there is a story I would like to submit for the competition, but I wouldn't like to re-upload it again (I like my reviews, haha).

Let me know! Thanks.

Amanda

PS: Awesome idea, by the way. I look forward to writing and/or reading for this.

I will consider pushing the date back but at this stage I think the timeline I've set up will stay, because we don't want the competition to be too drawn out. If this runs well I'd like to run another competition under different guidelines and requirements at some stage.



I will make it possible for authors - when they click "edit" on their stories - to enter them into the competition .

I was wondering if you and another person could write a story together?

Is it okay if your story is AU (not like it completely ignores HBP...because well it doesn't really have anything to do with most of the series? Like Hermione's in Beauxbatons and has never met Harry...that type of deal). Is that allowed?

We still going ahead wtiht his fanfic ? Can we make it now such that it can cancel out Book 6 ?

Yes 2 people can write a story together, though at the moment the only way to do this is for one author to start the story on his or her account, or for both authors to apply for a joint account. If you win you'll have to distribute the prize between yourselves somehow though .



The story needs to follow on from HBP. I like the idea of AU fanfictions and I'm sure we will have future competitions involving them because they allow for much more creativity by the author, but this competition is about following on from HBP really .



We are going ahead with this competition, but no the story cannot rewrite book 6.

A general update is that I am uploading the code changes now, so authors will soon be able to enter their stories in this competition. In about 24 hours members will be able to see a list of stories entered in the competition .

I'm posting to update that it is now possible for authors to enter stories into the competition. This can be done in one of two ways:

1. For authors who have already started their story (they started the story between 16/7/2005 and today): Stories can be edited using the "edit story" feature inside the author's area.

2. For authors who have not yet started their story, entry is done when creating the story inside the author's area.

A list of all entered stories will be available within 24-48 hours, after authors have had a chance to enter stories. The list will be dynamicly generated, so new stories will constantly be added to it .

If anybody has any questions, please post here!

Thanks,
James

I've never done one of these before, so I have to ask: is it one story entry per author?

Hi funvince,

We have never done one of these before either! For this competition authors can enter as many stories as they like .

Thanks,
James

A quick update - the competition is good to go. Authors are able to enter right now, and a list of all entered stories will be visible tomorrow (and this list will automatically be updated whenever a new story is entered). I am in the process of writing the rating system now to handle how entries are rated, and I will announce the prizes tomorrow as well .

Will there be a thread or forum section dedicated just for this? I'm wondering because I'll be looking for someone to work on this with me. I already have a Prologue/Chapter 1 written but I know I will need story support on this. Otherwise, it won't be completed at all.

I think a forum for it is a good idea .

It looks like voting for members is going to open sooner than expected. To be fair to all authors I have decided to spend a bit of extra time before releasing the address to the file which "auto-updated" the list of entered stories.

I have chosen to do this so that I can complete the "rating" code. It is important that this is done so that members can rate as they read, rather than allowing members to read and then expecting them to come back and rate some time later. Things are *almost* 100% finished, I just need to spend tomorrow double checking a few bits of code, and then we are good to go.

I will create a forum for the competition tomorrow when it goes live .

I have a question- would one of the mods look at my Breakaway story? It's still in the works and it was put up after I read HBP... but I'm not sure if it meets all of the criteria. Keep in mind that it is still being developed...

Ah, I'm just nervous about it. If someone takes a look at it let me know if it's okay to enter the competition or not.

Thanks,
Mars

Erm... question.
I'm not a Harry/Hermione shipper, so if I enter a fanfic in this comp that's not H/Hr, will I be diisqualified? Or can I write one non- H/Hr. Because there is no H/Hr in the book lol.

umm.. i wanna know if i could enter a draco/ginny fanfic in... is that possible???