HP Darkfest Statistics
Dec. 8th, 2010 10:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swissmargBoy, they are coming down thick and fast this season. Another master list posted, this time by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hp_darkfest.
Fest community:hp_darkfest
Fest type: Free-for-all, prompts assigned by mods or no prompts necessary
Premise: Dark genre (e.g. Psychological trauma, twisted shenanigans, heavy angst, horror, non-con, death!fic, violence, undiluted evil, good intentions gone horrible wrong)
Length restrictions: None
Ratings restrictions: None
Creation period: About 2 months
There were 28 fics and 5 artworks produced for this fest.
Art to fic ratio: 18%
By rating:
FIC
PG - 1
PG-13 - 2
R - 9
NC-17 - 16
ART
PG - 1
PG-13 - 1
R - 1
NC-17 - 2
By word count:
The shortest fic was 957 words. The longest fic was 42,000 words.
<1K - i
1-2K - iiiii iiiii
2-3K - iii
3-4K - iii
4-5K - ii
5-6K - ii
6-7K - ii
9K - i
10K - i
15K - i
22-23K - i
42K - i
Total words written: 165,202
Mean (average fic length): 5,900 words
Median (half the fics shorter, half the fics longer): 3,000 words
Mode (most frequent fic length): 1-2K words
Most popular characters:
Harry - 13
Severus - 10
Draco - 9
Hermione - 8
Ginny, Lucius, Narcissa, Remus, Ron - 3 each
Bellatrix, Fenrir - 2 each
Most popular pairings:
Gen (no pairing) - 7
Draco/Harry - 4
Harry/Ginny, Harry/Severus, Hermione/Severus - 3 each
Draco/Hermione, Remus/Severus - 2 each
Most promiscuous characters:
Harry* - 6 partners
Hermione, Severus - 4 partners each
Bellatrix*, Draco, Lucius - 3 partners each
Fenrir, Ginny, Narcissa, Remus, Ron - 2 partners each
*includes a threesome
Pairings by alignment:
(Some fics contained more than one pairing.)
Gen - 7
Het - 16 (includes one M/F/M threesome)
Slash - 14
Femslash - 1
Some thoughts: The ratings were generally high, although to a certain extent that was determined by the genre itself. The mods suggested PG-13 as a baseline rating in the rules. Most writers went beyond that, with 90% of the fics ending up with a rating of R or higher, only 3 fics being rated lower. With the art, the percentage was slightly lower, with 60% of the submissions rated R or higher (but still only 2 rated lower).
For the fact that there was no minimum word count requirement, the word counts ended up looking pretty much like any other fest with a minimum of 1000 words. Even in fests with a lower minimum, such as the Regulus Fest (link to my statistical analysis) which had a minimum requirement of 500 words, or the Dudley Redeemed Fest (again, my analysis), which also had no minimum word count, the shortest fics tend to be around 1000 words. Based on these results, I would suggest that fests other than Big Bangs actually don't need to set a minimum word count, as authors in the HP fandom pretty much seem to be self-regulating. On the other hand, this seeming self-imposition of a 1,000-word minimum may actually be due to the fact that most (non Big Bang) fests do have a 1,000 word minimum, and authors just assume that even fests without an explicit minimum are set up with that length in mind as a baseline.
But back to this fest. There was a definite emphasis on short fics, with over a third of the fics being under 2,000 words, and two-thirds under 5,000 words. There were a couple of longer fics, though, including one clocking in at over 40,000 words, which, given the relatively short two-month creation period, is an amazing achievement (although perhaps the author already had the fic partially written before the fest began).
The most popular characters were mainly the usual suspects, although perhaps a bit interesting that Fenrir made it into the top 10.
The fact that there was quite a bit of Gen fic and art was also interesting, and appropriate, as Dark by no means equals sex, although there were still plenty of authors who interpreted the prompts that way. Still, over 20% of the submissions did not focus on a ship (although ships may have been present on a secondary tier). Het and slash pairings were also surprisingly well balanced, with nearly 50% each of the non-Gen submissions.
The most promiscuous characters (i.e. those paired with the largest number of other characters) reflected the popularity of the characters. In other words, the most popular characters by and large had the largest number of partners. This means that there was no 'typecasting' of characters and ships, i.e. only putting Draco and Harry with each other.
hp_darkfest. Fest community:
hp_darkfest Fest type: Free-for-all, prompts assigned by mods or no prompts necessary
Premise: Dark genre (e.g. Psychological trauma, twisted shenanigans, heavy angst, horror, non-con, death!fic, violence, undiluted evil, good intentions gone horrible wrong)
Length restrictions: None
Ratings restrictions: None
Creation period: About 2 months
There were 28 fics and 5 artworks produced for this fest.
Art to fic ratio: 18%
By rating:
FIC
PG - 1
PG-13 - 2
R - 9
NC-17 - 16
ART
PG - 1
PG-13 - 1
R - 1
NC-17 - 2
By word count:
The shortest fic was 957 words. The longest fic was 42,000 words.
<1K - i
1-2K - iiiii iiiii
2-3K - iii
3-4K - iii
4-5K - ii
5-6K - ii
6-7K - ii
9K - i
10K - i
15K - i
22-23K - i
42K - i
Total words written: 165,202
Mean (average fic length): 5,900 words
Median (half the fics shorter, half the fics longer): 3,000 words
Mode (most frequent fic length): 1-2K words
Most popular characters:
Harry - 13
Severus - 10
Draco - 9
Hermione - 8
Ginny, Lucius, Narcissa, Remus, Ron - 3 each
Bellatrix, Fenrir - 2 each
Most popular pairings:
Gen (no pairing) - 7
Draco/Harry - 4
Harry/Ginny, Harry/Severus, Hermione/Severus - 3 each
Draco/Hermione, Remus/Severus - 2 each
Most promiscuous characters:
Harry* - 6 partners
Hermione, Severus - 4 partners each
Bellatrix*, Draco, Lucius - 3 partners each
Fenrir, Ginny, Narcissa, Remus, Ron - 2 partners each
*includes a threesome
Pairings by alignment:
(Some fics contained more than one pairing.)
Gen - 7
Het - 16 (includes one M/F/M threesome)
Slash - 14
Femslash - 1
Some thoughts: The ratings were generally high, although to a certain extent that was determined by the genre itself. The mods suggested PG-13 as a baseline rating in the rules. Most writers went beyond that, with 90% of the fics ending up with a rating of R or higher, only 3 fics being rated lower. With the art, the percentage was slightly lower, with 60% of the submissions rated R or higher (but still only 2 rated lower).
For the fact that there was no minimum word count requirement, the word counts ended up looking pretty much like any other fest with a minimum of 1000 words. Even in fests with a lower minimum, such as the Regulus Fest (link to my statistical analysis) which had a minimum requirement of 500 words, or the Dudley Redeemed Fest (again, my analysis), which also had no minimum word count, the shortest fics tend to be around 1000 words. Based on these results, I would suggest that fests other than Big Bangs actually don't need to set a minimum word count, as authors in the HP fandom pretty much seem to be self-regulating. On the other hand, this seeming self-imposition of a 1,000-word minimum may actually be due to the fact that most (non Big Bang) fests do have a 1,000 word minimum, and authors just assume that even fests without an explicit minimum are set up with that length in mind as a baseline.
But back to this fest. There was a definite emphasis on short fics, with over a third of the fics being under 2,000 words, and two-thirds under 5,000 words. There were a couple of longer fics, though, including one clocking in at over 40,000 words, which, given the relatively short two-month creation period, is an amazing achievement (although perhaps the author already had the fic partially written before the fest began).
The most popular characters were mainly the usual suspects, although perhaps a bit interesting that Fenrir made it into the top 10.
The fact that there was quite a bit of Gen fic and art was also interesting, and appropriate, as Dark by no means equals sex, although there were still plenty of authors who interpreted the prompts that way. Still, over 20% of the submissions did not focus on a ship (although ships may have been present on a secondary tier). Het and slash pairings were also surprisingly well balanced, with nearly 50% each of the non-Gen submissions.
The most promiscuous characters (i.e. those paired with the largest number of other characters) reflected the popularity of the characters. In other words, the most popular characters by and large had the largest number of partners. This means that there was no 'typecasting' of characters and ships, i.e. only putting Draco and Harry with each other.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-12-08 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-08 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 03:04 am (UTC)Writing 20k words in that short period was rough, but I'm so glad I did it. I had the second longest, I think.
Next year we need more femmeslash, though :(
no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 07:32 am (UTC)