On July 6th, 2013, an Iron Author competition was held at Everfree Northwest. Authors were directed to pick three of the following list of four story elements, and to use them to craft a story of not (much) more than 2,000 words... in two hours or less!

Setting: The Canterlot Vaults
Theme: Laughter is the Best Medicine
Item: An Artifact
Character: A Princess

In a frenzy over pizza, three were selected as winners by a panel of judges who definitely did not hold possibly-seditious pro-Luna biases:

In first place, Special Case, by Bookish Delight

In second place, The One, by Jordanis

In third place, Desperate Times, by Xepher


Every story that was entered into the competition is welcome in this group! Did you enter a story? PM a group admin so we can make you a Contributor!

Comments ( 22 )
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I've finally got my story up! I may have been running on valve time, but I'm glad that it's finally done. Big thanks to Horizon for editing and sorry that it took so long everypony!

Guys. GUYS. (And girls!)

I rewrote Special Case. Like, a lot. :pinkiehappy:

Woot! I am the first in the group to get two downvotes! I mean, the first downvote seems automatic (since I got it before I even knew my story had been approved... within 3 minutes of it posting... who does that by the way?) but the second downvote means I really pissed someone off with characterization, storytelling, or some other dastardly skill of the fictional arts! If only such neigh-sayers would leave COMMENTS explaining why they dislike things, then maybe I could improve! :pinkiecrazy:

318739
Okay, mine should be up now. :twilightsheepish:

318739 As a matter of fact, I finished editing my reworked chapter just last night! Horizon was kind enough to offer to edit my (and anyone else who asked) story. Once he and another friend of mine edit my stories and I sift through their edits, then it'l be postworthy.

Thanks again to Horizon! :pinkiehappy:

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318458

Yes, please... post stories! We really want to see entries that weren't just the three "winners" (as it were.) This whole thing was a crazy act of high-wire fiction, and anyone that survived it deserves some notice!

Found the group on the twitter post from everfree. Funnily enough, seeing this group has given me the most productive night of writing I've had in months.:twilightsmile:

I'm planning on re-writing my entry as well as posting the original 2 hour version. It will be a small way to make it up to myself for somehow not managing to get the email to send in the first place. My submission was over before it began! :raritydespair:

The silver lining is that I've been meaning to since everfree ended and I've yet to do anything on it before tonight; but I'm currently well over halfway through! pinkiehappy:

Then of course theres the revisions and the revisions of the revisions and getting friends and other users to critique everything and then revising the critiques, but it's all just part of the creative processes. :derpytongue2:

Anyway, glad to see that this group exists, thanks to Jordanis for making it!

I'll be putting mine (the one with the creative interpretation of 'Canterlot Vaults') up Monday, original version, mistakes and all. :rainbowderp:
(Because I've got more important stories to proofread, and I'll clearly state on it that it's a 2-hour effort.)

Anyway, it's actually already up and ready to go, just waiting for high-volume time to post (thanks, 'Making the Big Time' panel suggestions! :twilightsheepish:). If you want to take an early look at it, go here: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/115459/the-canterlot-vaults the view password is letmein

Thanks, everybody, and I'm looking forward to next year! :rainbowdetermined2:

Hey, everypony. At the risk of engaging in any kind of terrible behavior, I wanted to call attention to the Everfree Northwest Writers group that I've started both for past and future Iron Author competitions, and to house any sorts of group discussions regarding writer attendance at future events, to discuss panel ideas for the future, and to house any contests that might end up being associated with the group.

A huge round of hoofbumps for Jordanis for putting this much together!

318203

Right, I wasn't entirely sure. I knew I had heard something about dem twitter thingies at some point, but that was about it.

In your own time, in any case. If there's anyone else you think I should also bug with this, let me know when you have a chance.

318052
Regarding publicity:
My understanding is that Everfree should be announcing (if they haven't already) the three winners via their official Twitter feed.

I, as a private individual and not an Everfree representative (I'm just a panelist and a judge and can't speak for them), will blog about this group as soon as I can settle down enough to write up a full blog post. I'm not actually home from the con until this coming Sunday night so I'm still getting snatches of occasional computer time.

Now that this group exists, though, I'll poke Silver Quill and see if there's any interest in a further, slightly more official pointer.

Okay, so I lied. Just submitted it. Should be up whenever it gets approved.

Dropping unconscious now. :twilightsheepish:

Hey folks!

Quick status report: managed to crop a cover and create a story entry. Totally fading fast though (it's a work night), so when I wake up in the morning my first order of business is to spend 15 minutes just to sure nothing in my text is outright broken, and then toss it up. :pinkiesmile:

318053

For the record, I spent a few hours today revising mine. Nothing too major, but I think a few key improvements on flow and clarity were definitely needed. That, and correcting an embarrassingly large number of typos. I can't believe I spelled "changeling" without an "e" at least twenty separate times. :derpytongue2: For posterity (and my own future humility) I'm putting the original text (typos and all) as a second chapter. Not that most people will want to read that version, but a few might be curious just exactly how bad even a ranking story looks after only 120 minutes.

318053

Hooray! Delicious content! :pinkiehappy:

318052

You indeed raise a good point!

Okay! I'll get scrambling to get it uploaded once I get home in a couple of hours. :)

318051

I believe Horizon said at the awards panel something about tweeting about or otherwise publicizing the group once we had things up. I'm not sure exactly what he had in mind, though.

I figure that the sooner we can spread ourselves around, the better we can take advantage of the post-con high, but that's just me.

318049 Fortunately I never leave home without my literary snorkel. :pinkiehappy: Hi!

Hmmm. You know, I'd planned to give the Fimfic version of my piece the royal treatment--when I posted last year's Iron Author entry, one of the biggest requests I got from readers was for a polished version. So I was going to try and spruce it up and post both versions by... sometime during the weekend?

(Plus I need a cover for this thing, and given the story's premise, screenshots probably aren't going to cut it!)

If you're planning to make some kind of time-sensitive big unveiling, though, I can just post the original version. Lemme know!

318048
Good point! Suitably dramatic verbiage added. I have also PMed Bookish, so hopefully he doesn't drown under the two pieces of mail.

318046

Awesome, thanks! As soon as my story is approved, I'll get it added here so you can update the description. I also sent a PM to bookish delight, as I definitely want to read his winning story for myself.

In the meantime, one small note... you forgot to mention the most difficult part of the whole contest! We only had two hours to write conceive, type, edit, and spell check the entire thing! :pinkiecrazy:

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