Minific writeoff: What now? · 9:58pm Aug 17th, 2014
Submission time for the August Minific Writeoff is over, and we've got — what? Wait, that can't be right — that many? —
51 stories. That's more than double the last minific's entries. Sweet stars, you guys. I guess those cash prizes turned some heads.
This is awesome though! I've got my work cut out for me, writing reviews of them all. And if you want to help decide the winner, and you've got the time to read 35,000 words, the writeoff still needs you.
So, the deal is: The writeoffs are a community-judged event. Anyone who wants to register an account there can score the stories. Scores are on a 10-point scale, and you have to rate at least half of them to have your votes register. (A story's score is determined by the average of all votes it receives, so the number of judges who skip it should have a minimal effect.)
Contestants are absolutely encouraged to read and judge — the site keeps you from voting on your own works. Since all entries are presented anonymously (remember not to claim or post your entry until after judging ends!), scores should simply reflect the quality of the story.
Judging lasts for a week. On Sunday, Aug. 24, exactly a week after submissions closed, scores are tallied and the winner is revealed.
In the meantime, check in on this thread in the Writeoff Association FIMFic group. That's ground zero for the few, the proud, the crazy the reviewers. The writeoffs have a proud history of authors (and others) providing constructive feedback on all of the stories posted, although this is … a lot more entries than usual, so we'll see how it goes. (I'm going to review them all, anyway.) If you feel like typing out impressions and feedback as you read through the stories, post it to that thread, or post it on a blog and link it from there — that will make sure the information stays centralized.
Prizes will be awarded on Aug. 24 when the results go live.
Best wishes to all our contestants, and thank you all in advance for destroying my schedule this week! 
p.s. totally not sorry for this
never getting over that luna caption
also i want to review everything but don't know if it'll happen
we shall see
Well, the money may have poked me into thinking about it more than I would have otherwise, but I just ended up with a ton of ideas for this particular prompt. It ended up a lot better than I thought it would be when I first saw it.
Over half hundred pony stories in 24 hours, that has to be a record
I'm still wondering if I should post my own reviews before or after the results; I have a handful of fake reviews to post if I don't wait. Though I'm already convinced that I have little, if any, chance at getting any of the prizes, which makes me happy actually; more good pony fics for me to read
I thought about it, but the Muse didn't come by and clobber me with The Spiked Club of Brilliant Ideas, so I held back. Sometimes she stays away for days, other times she sits on the back of my chair and pounds my head into hamburger all night.
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I don't write fics (yet?), but I too will admit that I Had No Good Ideas for this prompt.
I think the fact that you only had to write 400 words helped to boost the entry numbers a lot too.
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It is a much lower bar to entry, though on the other hand, you actually have to write something short, which means that some story ideas work a lot better than others. Though of course, it could just inspire you to write normally; the RariJack prompt tag lead to me posting two full-length RariJack stories.
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(As you can see from my story count,) I normally write single-scene one-shots anyway, so not having Fimfiction's 1,000 word limit meant I could just write naturally without fluff or padding.
That's heck of a turn-out! I wanted to participate, but I couldn't get the ideas to crystallize. Maybe next time!