text: # Gooooood Morning, /r/ShortStories! You may have noticed a fancy new feature running on this sub called Serial Saturday! So... what is it? Serial Saturday is a weekly challenge for serial writing and we’re now three weeks into this brave new world of writing themed beat assignments for our own original universes. If you’re brand new to and thinking about participating in Serial Saturday, welcome! Feel free to dip your toes in by writing for this challenge or any others we have listed on the beat schedule at the bottom of the post. # New to /r/ShortStories and Serial Saturday, but want to join in the fun? We appreciate all contributions made to this thread, and all submissions are of course welcomed, whether it addresses a previous challenge or the current one. We hope you enjoy your time in the community! &#x200B; ***Do I need to write for all the previous challenges in order to participate?*** Nope! You don’t need to catch up by writing for each of the previous assignments, feel free to jump right in wherever fits for you, with whatever assignment or theme fits for you, and post it on the current thread with a link to whichever previously posted challenge you choose to start with. Wherever you start, take a look at our inaugural Serial Saturday post for some helpful tips. ***Can I start a serial off based off one of my*** /r/writingprompts ***responses or another short story I've started?*** Yep, you sure can! Make sure you provide a link to where that story can be found on your own profile/sub, or here on shortstories. ***If I write for the previous challenges independently, where should I post them if I want to write on the current thread with the current challenge?*** Make sure that if you did write for any previous challenges, link them at the bottom of your post to wherever you choose to post them so someone can read the previous challenges if they choose. If you want to jump right in with us on the current challenge you can post your independently written responses to the challenge on the corresponding thread, on your own profile/sub, or on /r/shortstories itself. Keep in mind we only read your most current challenge responses at campfire, and that each thread allows for one submission per author. If you post to the previous challenge threads you are not required to play catch-up with the 2 comment crit rule, though it is required moving forward. # So what are the goals of Serial Saturday? The ultimate goal for SerSat is to help serial writers launch and land their planes. Lots of writers want to tell their stories but aren’t sure how to actually write the dang things *and finish them.* That’s where Serial Saturday comes in. For this first cycle we’re running a shortened cycle of challenges that will end the third week of November. November is also NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and it may be hard for everyone to keep with it in those last three weeks, but we also don't want to cut short a cycle for people who may *not* do NaNo, so this schedule hopefully can mitigate some of that dicey-ness as well as stay mindful of upcoming holidays. After the new year we'll start with a more fleshed out challenge cycle, with more assignments that will extend SerSat by about 5 to 10-ish weeks. Each post will address how these challenge assignments can apply to both conflict heavy and non conflict heavy stories. Just as a note, anyone can earn a fancy “completed serial banner” on the sub based on the Saturday feature with only 8 installments, so there's no problem with anyone picking and choosing what assignments suit their story. The idea in releasing this schedule is that it should help participants prepare better for upcoming arcs and how they plan to address them. If you prefer to wait to brainstorm until each beat is assigned that is totally ok, too! **The Rules:** * In the current assignment thread submit a story that is between **500 - 750** words in your own original universe. * Submissions are limited to ***one*** serial submission from each author per week. * **Each author should comment on at least 2 other stories** during the course of the week. * That comment must include ***at least one*** **detail** about what the author has done well. * Authors who successfully finish a serial lasting longer at least 8 installments will be featured with a modpost recognizing their completion and a flair banner on the sub. * Authors are eligible for this highlight post only if they have followed the 2 feedback comments per thread rule. *Yes, we will check*. * While content rules are more lax here at /r/ShortStories, we’re going to roll with the loose guidelines of "vaguely family friendly" being the rule of thumb for now. If you’re ever unsure if your story would cross the line, feel free to modmail! \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Reminders: * Make sure your post on the assignment thread also includes links to your previous installments if you have a currently in-progress serial. Those links must be direct links to the previous installment on the preceding Serial Saturday post or to your own subreddit/profile. * Authors that complete a serial with 8 or more installments get a fancy banner and modpost to highlight their stories. * Saturdays we will be hosting a Serials Campfire on the main voice lounge. Join us to read your story aloud, hear other stories, and share your own thoughts on serial writing! We start on Saturdays at 9AM CST.