This jam is now over. It ran from 2019-03-01 17:00:00 to 2019-04-14 16:00:00. View 32 entries

#overtimecats

a zandraverse writing antholojam

Hey hi folks! Want to write short stories (or other small creative things) in a shared universe, with the goal of collecting some of them in an anthology afterwards? Here's the idea:

In the Cali Co office building, employee health is important and crunch is discouraged! That's why to ensure that everyone gets plenty of rest, the harder people work, the more they turn into cats—until they nap away their sleep debt. In theory.

Theme

Tell the story you want! In order to ensure that all stories can coexist in the same universe, here are the main guidelines to keep in mind:

The story takes place in and around the Cali Co office building, a multi-story affair that's in an unspecified city, at an unspecified time.

What makes people turn into cats when they overwork? Is it because of a curse? A benevolent cat goddess? An experiment gone wrong? ALL OF THE ABOVE! So many strange cat-related causes have created this situation that whichever one you want to explain (if any) is valid!

The extent or "maximum cat" of the phenomenon is up to you: cat people or actual cats, whatever works best for your story!

You write the story you want, of course, but

Cali Co is a worker-owned company with a very open structure, so management is constantly shifting—and whichever company chart works best for your story is fine!

The building is so big that space is leased out to other companies who need it, and the first few floors have a bunch of shops in a public, mall-like space—to maximize freedom and ensure folks' stories can coexist in a big snuggle pile.

What does Cali Co do? A little bit of everything! Plus, they keep changing their focus all the time. This means that pretty much anything goes, and different stories can still be canonical even if they appear to be contradicting each other. You can specify what your characters are doing, or you can keep it abstract—it's up to you!

Turning into a cat and/or cat-person is just the Cali Co norm; your story can talk about other, unique cases if you want! (other animals, mythical creatures, and so on; if you'd like it to happen in your story, there's enough curses/experiments going around to explain it)

Oh also: this is absolutely a good opportunity for other changes to happen along with the cat stuff to help characters through some gender feels! I know most of what I do implies this but I just wanted to make it clear! ^^ —Zandra

And finally: this is meant to be a fun jam! Think fun, positive transformative experiences! Let's leave readers our in a better place. <3

Entry Format

There's lots of ways to contribute!

Short story (published in an itch-friendly format like pdf, epub or mobi)
Comic
Story cover
Micro-fiction
Art
...or anything else that can be shared here!

Once the jam is over, we'll look at the feasibility of collecting some of the submissions into an anthology, with each author's permission! What this means exactly is something we'll discover along the way as this is the first time we're doing this! But if an anthology happens, it'll be completely opt-in (there will be an option when submitting) and contributors will have final say on how their work is featured. The goal is to make a cool team project and get interested folks involved from the start!

This is the simplest and most straightforward approach at an anthology project I've taken yet, and hopefully third time will be the charm! These are a lot to handle, but by starting small (and smaller each time, as it turns out) I hope to gain the experience needed to grow into bigger collections. Let's try and make wonderful things together. <3 —Zandra

Resources

Need help with the light novel genre?

Check out Talen Lee's (@Talen_Lee on twitter) guide on writing light novels: http://press.invincible.ink/how-to-write-a-light-novel/

Or read one some light novels on twitch under the tags:

Light-novel: https://itch.io/books/tag-light-novel
Lite-novel: https://itch.io/books/tag-lite-novel

If you have any questions regarding the format or the theme etc, we have a questions thread going where you can check if you question has been asked and answered already and ask it if it hasn't: https://itch.io/jam/overtimecats/topic/395863/questions-thread

What Else?

Remember: this jam is about making stories in a shared universe. Feel free to discuss with your fellow creators in the jam's community section, and fill the Cali Co building with interesting characters and situations! The anthology project, if it works out, is a fun extra, but not the main goal. Let's get started, have fun, and see what happens! You got this! <3