Site Post » Announcing the Everfree Northwest Scribblefest Official Start! · 11:56pm Jan 31st, 2018
Greetings Aspiring Writers!
Everfree Northwest, Seattle's premier pony convention is known for having one of—if not the—strongest writing tracks in the MLP fandom. As part of that, we run an online writing contest every year: The Everfree NW Scribblefest! Entry is open to everyone, whether or not you attend the convention.
This year, we’re offering the winners a $10 Amazon gift code, as well as mentions across a bunch of sources of media that Everfree NW utilizes to tell people about your awesome story!
This year’s prompt is: Family Trees: Roots, Branches, and Leaves
Goals
It's up to you, the author, where you want to focus your effort. Good stories will often include elements that make them eligible for multiple awards, and we encourage everyone to focus on good storytelling, rather than targeting a specific award. Do note however, that no story may win more than a single award.
How to Enter
Publish one new (never before published) story to FIMFiction.net between February 1st and March 3rd, with a rating no higher than Teen, then submit it to our online form at: https://goo.gl/forms/UIJ3tmJfrLwjrvc03.
Awards
The Jaw-Dropper Award ("The Dash")
We all know the type, the stories that make us go "Holy cow, THAT just happened!" This would go to the story with the best twist, surprise, or simple moment of hoof-pumping awesomeness!
The D'aww Award ("The Fluttershy")
A staple of ponyfic... the story with the sweetest, most touching moment that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
The Nasally Ejected Beverage Award ("The Pinkie")
You know, the one that makes you laugh so hard you snort milk out your nose. Good humour, ball emergencies, and all things that Pinkie Pie would just love are what it takes to stand a chance of winning this award.
The True Fable Award ("The AJ")
The story that is most true to the spirit of the show. By definition, a fable is "a short story, typically with animals as characters, conveying a moral." This goes to the story that best teaches a life lesson, especially using old fashioned, honest-as-apple-pie wisdom.
The Elegance Award: ("The Rarity")
For services to poetic language, beautiful diction, haunting prose, and overall elegance in writing.
The Checklist-And-Caliper Award ("The Twilight")
The story with the most attention to detail. This could be a puzzle or mystery type plot, stories that rely on actual math/science, or ones that show well thought-out rules underlying the use of magic. Basically, any story that makes you wonder just how much time the author spent on research, calculations, plot diagrams, or anything else that wasn't actually writing.
Prizes
Each of the six awards mentioned above comes with a $10 (or monetary equivalent) Amazon gift code! In addition to the prize listed above, winning stories and authors will also be featured on the EFNW website, our Fimfiction page, and on EFNW social media! How’s that for some spotlighting?
Word Limits
Stories must be between 2000 and 6000 words in length. Note: FIMFiction’s word count uses a different algorithm than most word processors and we will allow some leniency to compensate for this.
Duration
Scribblefest 2018 will accept entries from February 1st, 2018 until 11:59 pm PST on March 3rd, 2018. Judging will begin immediately afterwards, and winners will be announced 2-4 weeks later, depending on the number of entries we have to judge.
Judging Process
Judging will be done in phases by a combined panel of EFNW staff and invited guest judges from the community. Judges will be given a randomized set of stories to read and each story will be assigned to a minimum of two judges, to reduce the chance of personal taste/bias disqualifying a story unduly. Judges will vote for their favorite story in each award category to advance to the next phase. After each phase, votes will be tallied, and the top stories in each category will advance to the next phase, where the process will repeat until only one winner in each category remains.
Additional Rules and Details
1. All entries must adhere to a PG to Teen rating. Submissions using elements that could reasonably be considered above a PG to Teen rating, including but not limited to adult situations, intense violence, or drug use will be ineligible for the contest. If you are unsure if your story meets these guidelines and wish to ask, please contact our writing track lead, Heartshine, directly by PM on FIMfiction: https://www.fimfiction.net/user/heartshine
2. Any material that violates the rights of a third party will be disqualified.
3. Submissions must be relevant to the My Little Pony fandom. If it's not MLP-based fiction, an entry may be disqualified.
4. Stories must be an original work by the submitting contestant and must not have been released prior to the start of the contest.
5. Contestants may submit only one (1) story for consideration. If more than one (1) story is submitted, the submitter will be asked to select which entry they wish to enter into the contest. If the submitter cannot be reached in time for judging, the most recent entry will be used. Contestants that attempt to subvert this rule and submit multiple entries under different accounts or aliases may be disqualified at our discretion.
6. Co-written submissions are allowed, but disqualify all authors involved from submitting additional solo or co-written stories.
7. Editing/proofreading assistance doesn't count as co-writing, and authors may submit their own story even if they help edit for someone else.
8. Contestants may only win one award each. If an entry is found to be the best in multiple award categories, the judging panel will decide which award is most suited for it, and will give the other awards to lower ranked stories in the other categories.
9. Winners will be selected based on many judging criteria, including, but not limited to: technical skill, characterization, creativity, originality, impact, and personal tastes of the judges. This is in addition to the criteria defined for each award itself.
10. Submissions must be submitted via the linked Google Form: https://goo.gl/forms/UIJ3tmJfrLwjrvc03. If you have trouble submitting, please contact our writing track lead, Heartshine, directly via PM. https://www.fimfiction.net/user/heartshine
11. Final interpretation of the contest rules and judging criteria are left to the discretion of the judging panel, and their decisions are final.
12. Submitters retain ownership of their submissions, but by entering the contest the author agrees to allow Everfree Northwest to share their submitted stories on our website, social media, conbook, and in other promotional media and materials.
13. Contest judges are not permitted to enter the contest.
Final Thoughts
Good luck to everyone! We look forward to reading your submissions, and hope to see you all at Everfree Northwest this May. As always, keep up-to-date on the latest Everfree Northwest news by visiting our website, viewing/following our FIMFiction account and group, liking us on Facebook, and following us on Twitter and Tumblr.
Sweet. I've had fun doing this in the past, both as an author and judge. Best of luck to everyone!
Hazaa we shall engage in this.
this gonna be guuuud
This. Is. going. to. be. GREAT!!
Ooh, I'd forgotten this was coming up. Might give this a go, as the prompt looks interesting.
Question: Is attendance to the con a prerequisite for delivery of potential prizes?
For a minimum 2,000 word story?
I make $20 commission for 1,000 words -- meaning payment guaranteed, and I'm not up to lose against anyone.
Suppose the real prize is all about exposure though.
4786649
Hot damn dude, you make bank.
Unless I'm mistaken, they fixed the bugs in their word count algorithm, so it shouldn't be off anymore.
If your cash prize is less than minimum wage, don't offer a cash prize. Just stick to the publicity and the honour of it, of the love of the contest.
As it is? You're basically saying that the winning work is worth a $10 gift card. It cheapens everything. It shows how much value you put on this, and that value is... insultingly, aggravatingly low?
When the prize money is nothing, you say; Your work's inherent value, we'll signal boost it, we just can't afford to renumerate you, we don't have those kinds of resources.
But with $10 you're saying the winning work is worth $10, financially. And hell, the losers have to deal with not even being worth that much.
4786658
Minimum wage here is $540 a week. I need to write 27,000 words a week to make the same amount as nightshift at McDonalds.
Thank God I gotta disability pension for the moment.
4786666
You're making *relative bank
4786666
Flip a burger, write a paragraph.
Salt some fries, write a paragraph.
Unclog the ice cream machine, add a page break.
I'll give this some thought before I make a final decision on whether or not I'll take part in it.
Anyone got any ‘ideas/suggestions ‘ for a story? I’m dry today >.>
4786506
... you open to help other contestants pre-read? ^^’
This will certainly be interesting. I may just give it a try.
I'm most confused on the prompt. I understand that it's about family trees, but the branches, leaves and roots thing confused me. Can you elaborate?
4786814
I think it's a story where the main characters are related to each other in some way? Like, an actual family.
4786695
How about a stallion, who had been acquitted and released from prison for a crime he didn't commit, moves to Ponyville to start a new life. And it's up to the main 6 and even the CMC to help him reintegrate into society, and to encourage the whole town not to be fearful of him, and to give him a chance.
How about that for a story idea, AJ?
I think I'll take a shot this year.
Something like this, perhaps?
Can I get clarification on what the prompt is? I don't quite understand it.
Maybe we'll enter this year
I haven't written anything in awhile, so I might as well take a crack at it.
I don't remember signing up for the Everfree Northwest group-- oh, site post.
Question, how come half of these site posts don't really relate to the site as a whole?
Better yet, why is the event named after the convention if it has nothing to do with the convention?
Maybe.
4786928
You can interpret the prompt in any way you want, as long as it's within the contest rules. One of the things the judges will do is to decide how well your story fits with it.
4786696
Wouldn't say no.
How exciting to see the contest back again! I will admit I had been tossing around a different idea, but it has nothing to do with family! I will return to the drawing table!
Family trees? Come on Everfree, you're giving Kudzu and Chengar auto wins here.
4787009
I’ll keep you in my contacts, and just came up with an idea featuring Big Mac and Sugar Belle!
I guess this is my chance
I wonder what a Sci-Fi like story around this could work...maybe...yeah!
I'm here to whine about the prize not being up to my standards... actually, no I'm not. That'd be stupid.
Best of luck to everyone competing. Have fun ^^
Now, if only I had some ideas...
Im a little confused about the theme. Can someone explain it to me?
4786663
I disagree strenuously. Offering to pay an insultingly small sum—fair. It's bad form. But a small award tells me 'this is how much we can afford.' Hell, if it was a local book club it might just be a piece of paper with some fancy writing on it or some tchotchke. But it is the Internet and we can't wire those.
4787335
That's fair as well, but it's more annoying to me it's split into 6 parts, and half the prize pool of last year.
A single $50 prize with a $10 followup, for instance, wouldn't raise my hackles nearly as much.
The contest I'm helping Aragon with at the moment managed to get a $400 prize pool from a short whip around and wishful thinking. Now, we're incredibly lucky in that regard, but we also have far less resources than people organizing a con, and we're not trying to purchase the rights to make the winner an official material for redistribution like Everfree does.
4787349
I get that it annoys you and that you think it can be organized better. Certainly, having one impressive prize seems like better design to me. And, yes, it seems odd that a large con can't rustle up more of a fund.
Where I part ways with you, conceptually, is that you see this as immoral instead of merely not to your liking. They offer what they offer. Maybe they are on a tight budget. Maybe they don't really care much about a writing competition. Maybe it is a simple snafu. But it isn't malicious. And goodness knows they are not gatekeepers to anything. If you don't like their terms, don't take part. If very few people take part then this will send a powerful signal that the prize pool is a bit on the insulting side. If people find the $10 to be a decent prize to compete over or merely symbolic (and I assure you there's plenty in the fandom who'd appreciate the $10 much more than a firm pat on the shoulder) then it will succeed. There is no monopoly here, no coercion, no ill effect.
4787382
I have just grown extremely leery lately of anyone who tries to pay artists in exposure, whatever the work may be. This got me in a raw spot.
That there's no malice behind it - in fact I am given to believe it was genuinely a pure hearted attempt - doesn't make me any less irked.
i'm of the mind that something firm needed to be said about the matter, because of the attitude towards paying artists that it encourages and reinforces. And I was of the mind few others would call this out for fear of seeming totally ungrateful, or petty.
Since, after all, there are plenty who would be grateful for the $10 more than a firm pat on the shoulder.
But historically these stories go into con pamphlets and other areas, meaning that the winners work is acquired for publication. That means that the prize isn't just a prize, it's purchased for advertising purposes.
And the implication here is that the value of being honoured for your work in promotional material is worth more to you than the material is worth to them. Or only $10 difference.
Even if it's good spirited and well intentioned and I do choose to stay out of it, which I obviously will, it feels like abusive business practice to me.
4787402
As I said, deliberately underpaying people is very bad form and is deserving of social censure. But I am not convinced this is underpaying. Certainly, the story may be printed in some sort of con material but the key question is whether, upon the $10 changing hands, do substantive publication rights pass to the con, i.e. does the con own it? Can they profit from it?
I put it to you that the answer to both is a resounding no.
4787090
Of course it would be. I don't think anyone has ever accused you of having standards.
4787408
I'm not the one bitching that the prize money isn't worth my attention, pal. Though, I'm also not dumb enough to flip $20/1k on mediocre writing.
4787407
I'd argue that it counts as an asset: they're not selling the story directly, but they're using it as marketing material because they believe it has value as marketing material.
4787415
You say 'marketing material' but I can say 'exhibition of the winner.' There is a reasonable interpretation under which this is done as part of the normal process of running a competition, especially one that, let's face it, is going to revolve 100% around stories published for free on the 'net and which, in fact, can't be legally monetized anyway.
Also:
Can you refuse to have it printed? Do, by entering, you sign a disclaimer of some sort? Sign away rights? Because in the absence of a binding contract, the Bern convention of 1886 applies, and they can't print anything without your express permission.
4787410
My writings worth what people are willing to pay for it, funnily enough. Mediocre happens to be about that much.
If a $10 gift card is what you're hoping for... I mean, you do you man. I'm angling for others to expect better for their own work, and actually negotiate for it. The industry is choked with the corpses of unpaid interns who died of exposure.
4787421
12. Submitters retain ownership of their submissions, but by entering the contest the author agrees to allow Everfree Northwest to share their submitted stories on our website, social media, conbook, and in other promotional media and materials.
4787423 Your quality is subjective.
Here's the funny thing: I'd have no problem with you angling if you didn't open up like an ass about it. You opened up scoffing and going on about how you make more money with your comms, mocking the exposure portion of the prize, and then whipped out the fast food allegory.
Um. Yeah, what a great way to open the table for negotiations.
4787423
4787428
ok now kiss
4787434 Why ever would I kiss any other man but you, Arch?