Welcome to the third challenge of the Lyrical Titles community!
The challenge this time is the Duet Challenge, where the goal is to write two fics to fulfill a shared prompt. The intention is to pick one prompt for each week, but this is pretty flexible. This is a low-stakes, personal challenge, of course; there's no penalty for not finishing or running late.
There is an AO3 collection for the event! In the past there were some issues where the collection would not come up automatically in AO3's collection field, but if you use the full name of the collection (LyricalTitlesDuet2025) it should work fine even if you need to manually type in the whole thing.
Prompts:There are a total of 16 prompts. You can pick whichever one you want to do for the week (you do not need to do them in order), and write two fics with different titles according to the prompt requirements.
1. Different songs with the same title
2. Different lyrics from the same song
3. A song and its parody*
4. A song and its reprise/remix/alt version*
5. A song from an artist's earliest album and a song from their latest
6. Different songs released in the same year
7. Different lyrics that start on the same word
8. Different lyrics that end on the same word
9. Second fic's lyrical title starts on the same word that the first fic's title ended on
10. Different lyrics that share a phrase anywhere in the titles*
11. Lyrics in conversation with each other*
12. Lyrics and a translation of those same lyrics into another language
13. Different songs with a shared subject or theme*
14. Different songs from a different band but a shared artist*
15. Different songs with the same length*
16. Different songs with the same track number
Some clarification on the prompts:
3. In music, "
parody" is a much broader term than the satirical genre - we're not just talking Weird Al here (though you're more than welcome to use those if you want!), any songs that use different lyrics over the same tune would work here.
4. Oftentimes these will have a lot of similar lyrics, but to fit this event, there should be a distinction between the lyrics that are used for the titles such that someone can tell which title came from which version of the song.
10. For this prompt, a "phrase" can be considered as two or more words. Similarly to prompt 4, the lyrics used should be distinct as to tell which title came from which song.
11. For this prompt, the title of the second fic should follow on from or respond to the first. The simplest way to do this would be to use the following line in the same song, but you're not required to do this - you can use a completely different line from a different song if you think it works as a response line. Creativity here is encouraged!
13. The shared subject/theme can be as broad or narrow as you like, it's up to you.
14. The shared artist can be any member of the bands - for instance, if a drummer played with one band and then moved to another, you could use songs from each of those bands that that drummer worked on (but songs from after they left/before they joined would not work for this prompt).
15. For this prompt, consider the length to the nearest second.
If you have any other questions on the prompts, feel free to ask!
Rules, Guidelines, and FAQ:All works must be your own and not previously posted.
All works must use either the title of a song or a portion of its lyrics as the work title.
Works have a minimum wordcount of 100 words.
Please indicate the song title and artist in each entry for this challenge. You're not required to link to the song, but feel free to do so if you want!
Work text should be under a cut or linked offsite. Please indicate any warnings in your post.
You can begin working on the fics at any time, but please don't post them until January.
What kind of works are allowed?
All fandoms and original work are allowed. Works must be your own and not previously posted, but do not need to be exclusive to this event - they can also be used as entries for concurrent events. This is a writing focused event, and there is a minimum wordcount of 100 words, and no maximum wordcount.
Content-wise, fics do NOT need to be related to each other, even when fulfilling the same prompt.
What kind of music is allowed?
Any genre of music is welcome.
How many fics do I need to write?
Each prompt should have two fics written for it (though you're welcome to do more if you can make it work for the prompt). You can do as many of the prompts as you want, and you can repeat or skip prompts as well.
Do the songs/lyrics I pick need to be in English?/Can I translate non-English lyrics?
You can use songs from any language. Titles/Lyrics may be in their original language, or you may translate them if you wish. For that matter, works can be in any language as well.
Do the lyrics need to be incorporated into the work?
No, this event is focused on titles, lyrics do not need to be used in the work itself.
Have fun!
Any questions, comments, or suggestions? Please don't hesitate to ask below!
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yellowmagicalgirl