Big Bang

A Big Bang (or "Bang" for short) is a specific type of challenge usually involving long fics and accompanying artwork. This type of challenge is a reprise of the old zine tradition of collaboration between artists and writers for internet fandoms.
Most Big Bangs have a similar format: Writers sign up to take part in the challenge and begin writing stories. When the early drafts of the stories are available, each one is assigned one or more artists, or artists might claim stories from posted summaries. Artists create fanart to go along with the story. This art can take the form of illustrations, manips, photo collages, vids, icon sets, etc.
In 2008, the Bandom Big Bang provided each story with a soundtrack, rather than artwork, since it seemed more appropriate for a music-based fandom and because fanart is not as common in bandom. There was some fanart produced for the challenge as well.
Some Big Bangs have specific prompts for the authors to work from, or general themes, while others leave everything but the minimum word count up to the individual authors. 
Open Big Bangs (as opposed to the "closed" big bangs described above where participants must sign up to take part) require no sign-ups or commitments and involve little to no moderation of content — participants simply produce and post their content during the designated time frame, usually under a designated hashtag. Fanweeks (and fan months) are a popular example of this kind of Big Bang, although some open big bangs are much longer. The HashiMada BigBang is nine weeks long.
A Reverse Bang is a type of Big Bang in which fanart is created first, and stories are written for those fanart pieces rather than the other way around.
==History==
The original Big Bang was a Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy fest taking place in 2005 called the Big Bang, Baby Challenge. It was run by shaggirl, Reena and Aja in an attempt to remedy the lack of "canon-based novel-length H/D fics in the wake of The Order of the Phoenix". 
The hallmarks of the original Big Bang challenge included a strict 50,000 word minimum for the writers taking part in the challenge and a focus on artists producing high-quality illustrations for these stories - a minimum of two art pieces per fanfic.
In 2012, Aja recalled: 
The "Big Bang" in the challenge name was not originally intended to refer to the challenge or the challenge format, but rather the relationship between Harry and Draco. However, many fans interpreted it differently, leading to the evolution of its meaning over time (see Terminology).
After the first Big Bang in 2005, other fandoms began to run similarly-formatted challenges and the concept spread outside of Harry Potter fandom. Some other early Big Bangs were the Smallville Big Bang in 2006 and the SPN J2 Big Bang in 2007.
==Terminology==
The name of the original fest was chosen to represent the sparks that would fly when Harry and Draco finally got together after years of UST simmering under the surface.
However, many fans interpreted the meaning differently than its creators intended, assuming it to mean a big explosion of long fics and art all at once. In an example of fannish drift, it is that meaning that spread to other fandoms,Fannish vocabulary time!: "What's a Big Bang challenge, in your mind?" by anatsuno, posted 2011-11-18, accessed 2015-11-26 which upset some Harry/Draco fans
In 2012, Aja said: 
In 2018, the fandom calendar tumblr Naruto Events got an ask from an anonymous user asking what a big bang is and responded:
==Story Length==
The minimum word count for the original 2005 Big Bang, Baby was 50,000 words. In the early years of Big Bangs, many had similar or even longer minimum word count requirements.
In recent years many challenges have cut word length minimums and new challenges have begun with minimums as low as 10,000 words. (See Polyamory Big Bang and Alternate Universe Big Bang as examples of fests with shorter minimums.) The result is a shift in the definition of Big Bang away from novel or near novel-length fiction to fests that include longish short stories. In some cases, this is done simply to ensure lots of signups and that a reasonable percentage of the writers who sign up can complete their story on time.
The definition for what is a long story suitable for a Big Bang, and the length that many writers are willing to commit to, varies by fandom.
The Smallville Big Bang in 2006, with a 50,000 word minimum had only 7 finished stories, while the Stargate Atlantis Big Bangs have always had 40,000 word minimums and have produced hundreds of works.
Some 2012 comments by Aja on the original challenge's wordcount requirements:
The term Mini Bang is often used to refer to a Big Bang with a lower wordcount requirement - typically between 3,000 and 10,000 words. There is also "Mega Bang" which is used to refer to Big Bangs with a high wordcount requirement of 50,000, 75,000 or even 100,000 words. In 2016 the first Mega Bang reportedly originated in Supernatural fandom with the Supernatural Mega Bang, on Tumblr which had a minimum wordcount of 100,000.Supernatural Wiki: Big Bang, accessed May 31, 2020.
But prior to that date, on May 1, 2011, was created by race-the-ace and welfycat the Supernova a multifandom and original super Big Bang where the minimum word count limit is 100k. Most likely he can be considered a precursor to Mega Bangs.
Some Big Bang challenges will have multiple tiers that participants can enter at different wordcount levels. Artists are often expected to create more art for the higher tiers.
==Hosting and Accessibility==
Many Big Bangs provide websites or archive space to host the stories and art all in one place, but some leave the hosting up to the participants.
For fandoms centered on journalling sites, a choice has to be made between hosting offsite or keeping the fest on the journalling site itself. The size of the stories in a Big Bang ensures they will require multiple Livejournal posts. Many fests require writers to submit a Master Post to the community and have their actual story hosted elsewhere. Some fests, such as the very large Supernatural J2 Big Bang have been produced almost exclusively on LiveJournal sites, with most of the stories posted on personal journals in multiple parts.In 2011, Morgan Dawn and Amothea set up the Supernatural and J2 Big Bang Challenge master collection on AO3, which although not officially promoted by the challenge moderators, allowed writers to voluntarily add their SPN J2 Big Bang stories to the collections and readers to more easily find them on the archive. Having this collection available may have encouraged more writers to crosspost their SPN J2 Big Bang stories to the AO3.
Having stories only exist in multiple journal posts, sometimes as many as a dozen or more, creates problems for people who want to read offline, on an e-reader or use technology like screen readers to access the work. Some authors provide single file formats for download or host their stories at archives that allow for single page viewing. Other fans will create PDF or ebook formats for stories on their own time and make them available.
===Archive Of Our Own Collections===
The fanworks archive Archive Of Our Own (AO3) has a "collections" featureAO3 FAQ for collections and challenges, accessed 2015-11-26 that, among other things, can be used to submit works created for a particular challenge - including Big Bangs. Big Bang participants can therefore use AO3 to host their fanworks and submit them to the collection. The AO3 hosting system automatically makes fanworks accessible to screen readers and offline downloads in various formats.
The earliest Big Bang collection created on AO3 appears to be Paper Legends Big Bang, a Merlin Big Bang. The AO3 collection was created in August 2011.Paper Legends Merlin Big Bang Challenge on AO3. (Accessed May 31, 2020).
==List of Big Bangs==
See List of Big Bangs and List of Reverse Bangs.
==External links==
* Big Bangs, Baby!, a list of big bang communities on LiveJournal, Dreamwidth et al.
* Big Bang Index
* bigbangdirectory. This delicious account is run by the former moderators of big_bang_hd, aka the first big bang challenge. This directory only includes big bang challenges which have run, or were at least in-progress at one point.
* List of Big Bangs only on Livejournal
* fandomcalendar entries tagged "format: big bang."
* Recs tagged Big Bangs at Fancake
==Notes==
==References==
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