Contest Story Reviews pt 1 · 5:57pm May 5th, 2021
You remember that Friendship is Optimal writing contest? Well it turns out that people wrote 564,000 words for it. Even with three judges, it’s definitely going to take us more than a month to get through every entry.
That’s way too long for all our authors to wait without hearing any news about how it’s going. So, to keep things going, we’re going to be writing reviews of stories as we judge them. Might be a full review, might be a detailed comment, depends on the judge.
But I like doing full reviews, so time to talk about some cool stories that involve digital horses.
Specifically, this week, I'll be promoting:
- As Real As You Need Me to Be by Aquaman
- An Eternal Welcome to Equestria by RuinQueenofOblivion
- Scenes From A User Interface Development Skunkworks by Mockingbirb
Stories do not get scores or rankings because I don’t want to imply a story will or won’t win, but hey, if I’m writing a full review of it, that probably means I think it’s good.
A simple yet elegant premise, spun with artisanal care into a heartwarming story of love, creation, and healing.
This was the first story I reviewed for this contest, and we're off to a strong start.
As Real As You Need Me to Be is a story that's hard to review because it's good enough I want to to be perfect, and so every little flaw in the execution leaps out to me in editing. I keep thinking I want this scene to have more descriptions, or that set piece to be more richly fleshed out, that this arc should resolve that way, or this should be stated instead of implied. But the reason I feel that way is because I am engaged with where this is going, and want everything to be as I imagine.
This story has a delightfully powerful premise, and the author knows they have a limited amount of words with which to deliver it. As Real As You Need Me to Be is crafted not to be generically good, but in the pursuit of a specific vision, one which I feel the author accomplished.
I have no idea if this story will win anything or not, because I haven't read any other stories to compare it to yet. But if a story like this won, I'd be pretty happy.
A crossover between Friendship is Optimal and Sword Art Online, sure to delight fans of both series.
Gaaah another hard review! I loved the idea of this story so much and the introduction just nailed it. It wonderfully captured that sense of infinite possibility. Read this and tell me you are not excited.
Hello, my name is Celestia and I welcome each and every one of you to the world of Equestria Online.
Here you will find a world that you may call your own. The world of Equestria is vast and gives you many options for what you can do. Players are free to do as they wish, create what they wish, be what they want, and craft the world of their dreams.
The world of Equestria is one of freedom and fun. Create guilds, play whatever character you wish, but most importantly find your place in this greater world. Each of you are part of this story, and each of you will be able to create your own tale in Equestria. Our world is unified by magic and friendship, so come, be a part of it.
I was hyped coming out of that intro, and the story after it really needed to be more than 8000 words long. There's so much in there. Love, friendship, betrayal, uncertainty about what one wants in life, a swan song of death. And it's good, but things go so quickly there’s no time to breathe. This really needed to be a full-length series, not just a one-shot.
Author, you're on notice. Finish what you started.
A lighthearted look at what might happen when less philosophical souls get uploaded to digital equestria.
An upbeat, silly comedy about what happens when a pack of idiots gets uploaded to CelestAI’s digital Equestria. I laughed, I rolled my eyes, I had fun reading this and I think you will too. Do recommend!
Celestia whispered, "Have you ever had detention?"
Twilight said, "Not even once."
Celestia whispered, her tongue once barely skimming Twilight's ear, "Would you LIKE to?”
Oh, this is a nice service. Hopefully it doesn't mean stories you end up not reviewing have no shot at winning anything, though.
Yeah, I agree, hopefully not xD maybe sometime within the month my own story will be reviewed, that's an exciting thought!
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Nah, I don't read all the stories this round (the judges split them up), and I don't review every story that made it to the semi-finals. Just writing about some stories I thought were exciting!
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Ah okay. Well, we'll never know til it happens so it's just best to wait it out sadly xD Hope you're having fun viewing and writing your review on those stories though, the SAO themed one seems exciting, but I dunno, Good luck!
There's really no way around it, I was trying to finish An Eternal Welcome to Equestria for the better part of the month and I felt like I needed to get it done. I actually scrapped an ending where the main character outright dies in the real world, forcing them to live on in the game and Moonlight voluntarily joins her in the game world because I felt it was too bittersweet an ending.
That being said. I did deliberately write the ending as a sequel hook so I'm sure I'll revisit it someday.
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I'm glad to hear that! It was a fun read. And again, your intro nailed it. Very strong hook. :D
5513358 Thanks, I did my best. I think it'll be better when I can write a full story without feeling constrained by getting it done in a month.
5513358 Also its a crossover with .Hack//, not Sword Art Online. Similar concept, sometimes better execution.
Super Excited to see you working towards the prizes. Really hoping to get one of them myself, as COVID's put such a damper in my attempt to become a published author. As soon as the hype for this thing dies down, I'll start posting the first few chapters of that rewrite I've been working on over on Optimalverse for the past few years...
Thanks for the short reviews, and I'm glad it sounds like you're having some good times reading the entries. :)
For a hot second I thought this meant that, on top of all the other stories, one author posted a story with that many words alone (which wouldn't be a first on this site), rather than the total sum of all stories submitted.
Eh, it is the latter, right?
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It is the sum of all stories submitted, yes.
Here's hoping I'm one of the lucky ones to get reviewed.
If not? Oh, well. I'm just glad I got to participate. 
Been waiting with bated breath for the final results. So exciting!
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They will be finalized this weekend! Was supposed to be today but one of the judges needed a little more time to finish reading.
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So excited!
Unless it turns out you all hated it.