****This challenge is underway****

Announcing the third annual Exquisite Corpse Challenge!  Please read through the challenge, as this year there are some new rules and a couple tweaks to old ones.

For those who are new to the concept:  an "exquisite corpse" is a surreal, collaborative artwork created using a series of prompts.  For a written corpse, each person writes their part based on very thin knowledge of what came before.  The history of the form is here, very briefly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse.  You can read the previous Elysian Fields exquisite corpses here, here, and here.

This is intended as a time-limited, prompt-driven challenge -- that is, by signing up you commit to waiting for your prompt, to seeing what it sparks, and then to writing for 7 days. The end result tends toward the surreal specifically because the small amount of info passed along from author to author encourages discontinuities.

Here's how it will work:  

*** EDIT:  We have a volunteer to write the opening chapter. ***

1.   If you want to participate, PM me before or on January 31. Let me know if you have special timing needs -- any periods in February, March, or April when you know you will be otherwise occupied.

2.   I'll put you on the list.  

3.   I will randomly draw names from the list to establish the order of writers. (Yes, this means everyone risks going first -- but if that ends up being you, I will provide you with an optional prompt.*)

4.   The first person writes Chapter 1, and sends it to me.  

5.   I send only the last paragraph on to the second person, who will have have 7 days to write Chapter 2, and send me their completed chapter.

6.   Etc.

7.   This will publish on consecutive days, starting no sooner than May 1, after it's complete -- although if we get many more authors than expected, we may split it into a couple of flurries of continuous days.

*If anyone has a first chapter of a fic they’ve come to accept they will never continue, and would like to donate it as chapter one -- or if anyone would just generally enjoy going first -- please let me know!  

Rules:  

• Your chapter must start with the paragraph you were given.  
• Only your final paragraph will be forwarded to the next author.  A natural last paragraph is preferable. (“Crap!” said Buffy, for instance, is an acceptable final paragraph; as is “Crap,” said Buffy, glaring at the now teacup-sized Angel.)  
• We are a small community -- please do what you can not to share info about chapters before publication. You are of course free to have your chapter beta’d, but preferably not by a fellow corpser.
• NC-17, though you do not have to rise to that rating.
• There were several indications of various people feeling a little … competitive … about word count after bewildered’s muse writ long last year.  I wouldn’t willingly change a word of that chapter, but I’d like to discourage word count as a goal in itself.  So while I generally recommend a 1,000 to 5,000 word chapter, I am also going to initiate a new, maximum word count of 14,000.
• Your chapter should be sent to me within 7 days if at all possible, since other people will also be waiting for their prompts.  But if something comes up that interferes with your ability to write during your assigned week, let me know and I will see if someone can swap places with you.

And just a note, because it can be an issue: participation in the EC (or other collaborations) will mess with your word count -- if I remember right, it awards all the EC words to me, because I create the story.  My understanding is that there isn’t a fix for that.