Contest #2 has now ended, and we have two great stories to choose from. I wish they could both be winners as they're both fun reads, but only one will be able to win. The way this works is that you'll vote for your favorite story among those listed below. You cannot vote if you entered in the contest and I urge you to be nice and friendly when it comes to voting. Voting will end on December 14th, after which the winner will be announced and the prompts for Contest #3 will be announced.

Here are the stories that are in this contest:
Noi the Rookie Author

Assisting Yourself

Best of luck to those who have entered.

Congratulations to both writers for submitting a story to this contest! I was planning to enter myself with a PhotoFleur epic, but I got sidetracked, sadly. Sidetracked by another story idea, that is, so maybe it's no so sad? Anyway, if I can't be an entrant, I can be an evaluator instead. Let's review.

I really don't like being mean, but evaluating means one has to be honest, I suppose. In any case, I'm really just an amateur writer trying to be a story critic. I am also a wannabe Grammar Nazi. Please take everything I say with a grain of salt.

("You" refers to the reader. And spoilers ahead.)

Assisting Yourself: This story is really nice. I like what it does with subtlety and obfuscation of plot points. The story kind of drags you along, given that you don't know what "the day" is until something like halfway through the fic. This sets itself up well for the climax of the story where Grace meets not-Coco.

I feel like this story characterized Coco well along with Grace, even though Coco wasn't really even in the story. This is taken with the second story linked in the Author's Notes. Coco's love life might meet a tragic end if she bounces from mare to mare like this! As much as I love Coco, I have to agree with Grace's evaluation that Coco is, indeed, a bitchy little fashion pony.

Grammar as a whole is very good, with just a few sporadic errors I noticed. Here's one:

She didn’t care though. Today, little things like that were irrelevant. The mare at the coffee shop got her order wrong, the cab driver chattered on and on about something, his accent making him intelligible, and now the cold and the wind.

Er, did his accent really make his speech intelligible, or unintelligible?

And another:

She stared at the note. Her look of sadness twisting into anger.

That period needs to be a comma, right? The second bit is a participial phrase that can't stand on its own.

And on to the inevitable criticisms. For one, I feel like this story was paced a bit too fast. Consider:

Grace felt tears in her eyes. What did she do wrong? Why was this happening now? Why now? Why her? Why, why, why?
She felt her legs buckling beneath her. She wanted to crumple, curl up, cry until it stopped hurting.
But she caught herself. She stared at the note. Her look of sadness twisting into anger.

It seems like it only took three lines for Grace to go from sad to mad. Maybe it's just me, but that seems awfully fast. She's happy, discovers the note, gets sad, reads the note again, and gets mad. I think a little Grace introspection and self-loathing might be warranted here that could expand on how Grace gets mad when she reads the note again. Maybe a restatement of how much she had prepared?

Second—and perhaps the more important of the two—I feel like this story ended in the wrong place. As I said before, the story kind of drags you along, building up to the climax of the not-date. It resolves the story. Continuing the story after that seems to force the words to continue to limp along a second conflict line, this one about finding Coco and haranguing her, presumably. This second conflict line is never resolved, and for a story this short, I feel like it only needs one conflict line in any case. Ending the story with the failed date seems a good place to stop.

Noi the Rookie Author: This story is also fairly nice. It covers many of the aspects of being a writer: being overly proud of your stories, having them be rejected, the edit process, writer's block, etc. It takes a lot of work to write a good story, and this tale shows that process fairly well. Forget "Slice of Life," this is a Slice of My Life!

Well, now that the previous story has sullied my headcanon of Coco, let's replace it with Shining Armor being the host of a publishing house instead! I see that Twilight is not the only bookworm in her family.

The grammar of this story is, admittedly, less polished than the first story.

Cadence just chuckled before taking a piece of paper and a quill from their night stand, “What should I say? That Mr. Enter is very pleased and that he likes your story?”

This is a recurring error in this story. If introducing dialogue with a introductory phrase (Cadance said), a comma should be used. If introducing dialogue with a full sentence (Cadance addressed her husband), a colon should be used. In this case, a full sentence that does not introduce the subsequent dialogue is used. In this case, a full stop (period) should be used.

On to the criticisms. (Sorry!) I like how Carrot Top edit's Noi's story, but I have a problem with her advice.

“Pretty good” Carrot Top replied, “Though I’d make it a little more detailed. For instance, instead of the blue pegasus, describe what kind of blue the pegasus is. Is he aqua, dark blue, and so forth.”

Making stories more detailed is good, but not in the way Carrot suggests. Maybe it's just me and my scientific writing upbringing, but I like my stories to be succinct and to the point. Adding words like "aqua, dark blue, and so forth" really doesn't contribute much to the story. It just wastes space, especially when added to every color descriptor. I generally don't like to do this unless it plays a functional role in the story. Again, maybe it's just my personal writing style, but I like plot to take up my words, and not descriptors.

The biggest problem with this story, I believe, is the pacing. Given that it addresses the difficulties of writing a good story, it seems a little strange that it's so short. Noi hears a song being performed outside, and magically, a few lines later, she's writing a masterpiece? This isn't really convincing. Rather, I'd like to know exactly how Noi gets inspired by the story. Does she think about how the world almost ended when Tirek attacked? Does she think about how her character would react in that situation? Y'know, things like that!

Alright then. That finishes my reviews of the two stories. I, too, wish that they could both be winners, but a better has to be chosen from the two. I vote for Assisting Yourself. Overall I just found the story to be better paced, more well polished, and just a better read.

Now I'm realizing that I've spent hours on this post that's nearly as long as the stories I'm reviewing. I should really get back to studying. (Or writing!) Thanks for hosting this contest, 3865484, and I hope to enter in the next one!

3865820 You're welcome, and thanks for voting. I've got things to study for as well, so I know what it's like. Best of luck on your studying and writing. I hope you're able to enter the next contest.

3865820 Yeah, pacing is something I kinda have trouble with. Though, I thank you for pointing out those flaws and I'll try my best to fix them.

Oh... I forgot to write my story!

Oh well. I would like to vote for Assisting Yourself... do I need to put the reasons why?

3867244 You don't need to explain your reasons as to why you voted for a story. Just a vote will do.

3867250 Oki dokes, then. I voted.

Gah, in the end I just never had time to write my Blossomforth story. Ah well, that means I can vote, at least...

I enjoyed reading both these stories. They both took good ideas and ran with them, and I always like to see that. Dealing with Assisting Yourself first, I'm not a big shipper myself, but this fic worked fairly well for me. I would have liked a bit more description to add colour -- there were an awful lot of single-line paragraphs, which is often a sign that the story needs fleshing out a little. (I have this exact same fault, so it stands out to me!) I tend to agree with Taialin that the ending was in the wrong place, but personally I'd have made “One for Ponyville, please.” the last line. Everything past that point isn't really necessary: the reader will know why she's decided to go to Ponyville. Nevertheless, it's a reasonably solid story that tells a reasonably interesting tale.

Okay, on to Noi the Rookie Author. This was fun to read, and it certainly gave me a few laughs, Maybe not to quite the extent that a [Comedy] tag would have been appropriate, but most [Slice of Life] stories also benefit from a bit of humour, so points for that. Also, I liked Noi's interaction with Carrot Top, and the reveal at the end was amusing. One thing that felt a bit off was Mr. Enter's name: he reminded me distractingly much of The Mysterious Mr Enter, the well-known YouTube reviewer of pony stuff. (Even if that was deliberate, it didn't really mesh with the story here.) The story could also do with a proofread/edit to remove little errors like typos, tense shifting and so on. But again, I agree with Taialin: the pacing is out. I'm probably not one to talk, as most of my own fics are under 2,000 words, but a little more room to breathe could really have helped this story; as it is, it comes across as a bit rushed.

So, I really hope that both authors will carry on writing ponyfic for a long time to come. The things I always want to see in a writer are ideas and imagination, and you both have those. But if I have to vote for one story as the winner, I think my vote will go to Assisting Yourself: it just feels like the work of a more experienced, more confident author, in that it reads rather more smoothly and the tale fits together better. But, as I said, both authors have given their readers enjoyment -- and that's what matters most of all.

3867649 I hope you'll be able to participate for the next contest.
Also, thanks for voting, and I also agree that giving the readers enjoyment is what matters most of all.

3867974 I'll definitely keep an eye out, and do my best to enter next time round.

3868004 That's great! Good luck if you decide to enter!

A reminder that there is only one day left to vote. Also, the next contest prompt will be revealed tomorrow along with the winner of Contest #2.

I urge you to be nice and friendly when it comes to voting.

I will do my best, but no promises.

My vote goes to Noi the Rookie Author.

I'm a bit too engulfed by real life at the moment to give both stories a solid review, but let's just say this was not an easy choice to make, and not in a good way. Both stories left me with a certain taste in my mouth. I'm chalking it up to the pressure of getting a story published in time, but neither entry was ready for submission. The choice was akin more to which lunch did you want on an extended airplane trip. Neither sounds appealing, but you've gotta eat something.

Noi had a fair amount of spelling problems and was riddled with various errors already addressed in previous posts as well as quite the sudden jump in writing ability feeling like a deus ex machina moment, but Noi the Rookie Author had something that Assisting Yourself did not: an ending which qualified it as a stand-alone story.

Noi's problem was introduced immediately, wasting no time getting to the root of the problem. Though it was resolved rather... abruptly... it still had a beginning, middle, and end. Grace's story reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from Steven Speilberg.

Before I begin, can anyone tell me what the inciting incident* is of this story? It is not when Coco Pommel agrees to the date, it is the moment Grace finds the note. The ending is not Grace chasing after Coco to Ponyville, it is only the beginning of a bigger story. Coco accepting the date offer does indeed make our agent of action follow a plotline, but there is no conflict with it. That conflict was resolved when Grace finally worked up the courage to ask Coco the question, thus ending that arc before it could begin. That leaves us with an issue of a story misidentifying its equilibrium and inciting incident which attempts to resolve a nonexistent conflict with a bigger complication, which by my thinking makes the work incomplete.

Grace's story would be adequate for a first chapter or prologue, but to call it a story would be stretching it as we are left with no satisfying conclusion for the reader. When I say satisfying conclusion, I don't mean something I like, rather something that leaves me with a sense that I've finished something. Instead, I now desire to follow Grace on the ACTUAL adventure, which would be chasing down Coco. In short, you didn't write a story, so I have to disqualify it. Noi gets the vote.

*Inciting Incident: The moment which causes a great disturbance or conflict within the story's equilibrium, knocking it off balance and forcing the agent of action into a plotline to resolve it and restore a new balance