1. Click
2. Read
3. Review

If you have a phone, PDA, games console, webtv, ebook reader or some other device that uses a low screen resolution to browse the web, can you complete a quick survey using the device at:

http://www.tthfanfic.org/mobilesurvey.php

This will help test how well the site works on such devices. The are 5 pages and it should consume less than 100K of bandwidth - much less if you already have some of the TtH files cached on your device.

Well for the August Fic a Day challenge we had an absolutely fantastic turn out this year. We had 27 people participate, with a great daily turn out. And in an impressive tie for first we had seven - yep seven! - winners! In no particular order:

KoohiiCafe, Ramenth, DennSedai, Snag, Beriaearwen, SilkenSky, and Manchester

Congratulations you guys! 31 days of fic is most wonderful. All the stories for the challenge can be found in the Twisted Shorts livejournal community


September's challenge: To Boldly Go...

September... the Final Frontier. These are the stories of the website Twisting the Hellmouth. Your thirty day mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new characters and new civilizations; to boldly go where no author has gone before.

Your challenge this month is a simple one - write something in a fandom that has not already appeared on the site. Bonus points for finding something that *isn't* obscure - a mainstream fandom that we've somehow collectively overlooked.

This challenge also applies to those responding to FFA's. When you request a pairing this month, choose a pairing from a fandom that is new to the site.

Please list all challenges as a response to the official site challenge here, and remember to state clearly what it is you are crossing over with (at the end if you want it to be a surprise) as the moderators are going to have to sort these into new categories.

We have made changes both to the main categories on the site and to the site code today. Code changes:

• The site now supports category aliases. These are links from one category to another, so, for example, "Television -> True Blood" will take you to "Literature -> Southern Vampire Mysteries".
• The drop-down lists used to choose a category when adding/editing a story have been rewritten to use ajax, resulting in smaller faster loading pages and shorter lists to scroll through to find the category you want.
• Subcategories with stories newer than 14 days now have a "new" icon to help those who have been away from the site for a few days to easily find updated items.
• The top 15 stories in long categories are now displayed in a single column in handheld mode.

Category changes:

• "Comics -> Marvel" is now a top level category "Marvel Universe".
• "Comics -> DC" is now a top level category "DC Universe".
• "X-Men" has been moved inside "Marvel Universe".
• Movies/Cartoons/TV programs based on comic book characters now link to the appropriate comics category using the new aliases feature.
• Movies/Cartoons/TV programs based on games now link to the appropriate games category using the new aliases feature.
• "Miscellaneous -> Comic Strips" has been moved into "Comics -> Comic Strips".
• "West Wing" and "Roswell" have been moved inside "Television", as they no longer attract many new stories or readers.
• "Literature -> Twilight" has been made into a top level category.

If you have written a story that is set in a DC/Marvel/Comics world, please check if it's in the right place. If you think we need a new sub-category for a particular comic, please post to this forum's thread. Also, if you've posted Marvel/X-Men crossovers under multiple crossovers, you may now be able to move them into the Marvel Universe category.

I have accidentally run a database restore script I intended to run on the test site against the live site instead, which has resulted in any changes made to the site between approx 8:20am and 4:30pm GMT (4:20am - 12:30pm EST) this morning being undone, and the whole site being reverted back to how it was at 8:20am.

This means that:

• New stories/chapters/challenges/reviews added during that time will have to be re-uploaded
• Any changes to your tracked stories and profile settings will have reverted, so you may need to track stories again or mark chapters as read.
• The accounts for users who registered during this time no longer exist - please register again.
• The hit counts on your stories will be missing 8.5 hours of hits.
• If you have edited or deleted anything during this period, you will need to do so again.
• You may have received notification emails about new stories/chapters/reviews that no longer exist.

Please let me know of any further issues you spot here

I've now made the changes I was trying to make to the test site when things went wrong. Please take a look a www.test.tthfanfic.org for a preview of the new features and category changes that will soon go live.

Once again it's almost that time.

The annual August Fic-A-Day Challenge over at Twisted Shorts is about to start.

The Rules:

1. Write one fic per day during August. Stories should be BtVS/Angel Crossovers of any rating with any fandom, minimum 300 words.
2. Entries must be posted in the Twisted Shorts Livejournal to be counted.
3. Post more than one a day if you want, but only one fic per 24 hours counts toward the challenge. Backdating fics are not allowed for getting a fic to count within a 24 hour period.
4. There's no 'miss a day and you're out'. If you can't post one day that doesn't mean you're out of the running. Keep posting when you get a chance.
5. Winners will be decided by who has posted the most during the month. I.E. If Author A posts 28 fics on 28 days, Author B posts 31 fics on 31 days, and Author C posts 25 fics on 25 days, then Author B wins.
6. Regular posting rules apply: proper header, fic behind cut, adult rated fic comm-locked, disclaimer, etc.
7. Have fun :)

Prizes will go to first, second and third. This year we will be offering fic. The following moderators have offered up one piece of fiction as prizes: Ava, Malana, FaithUnbreakable, KaylaShay, and Demona.

The winning author gets first choice out of the pool of mod-authors for their story, then second, then third. At the halfway point, the front runners will be notified so they can get into contact with the mods they are interested in to discuss what the potential prize will be.

I've added a new feature to the site to allow a group of authors to collaborate on a story, each posting their own chapters.

Previously, you either kept the story private so that only you could post chapters, or opened it up for any member of the site to make additions. Now you have a third option: you can specify a list of pen names for people who are allowed to add chapters to the story. After the chapters are added, everything works exactly as it used to for multi-author stories regarding who can edit what, reviews, etc.

And to make some use of it, we have the "Two heads are better than one" challenge: team up with a friend to write a first person story with chapters from alternating viewpoints. Pick a crossover pairing, then one of you writes a chapter from the BtVS character's perspective, and the other follows it up with a chapter from the Crossover character's point of view.

Whether you tell each other in advance what you are going to write... that's up to you ;)

Add your challenge responses here