Greetings one and all! I would first like to begin by thanking everypony who has joined this group to make it a better place for the encouragement and betterment of brony writers everywhere. As we said when we started, the more members we have, the more reviews can go and the more people can be helped. With a whopping 500 of you, we've done something right, and you've seen the benefit! So thank you all so very, very much! Have a mustache

Anywho, onto this serious business of celebrating our up-and coming 500 member benchmark. In honor of this memorable occasion, we will be doing a one-shot contest among anypony who wishes to enter. There are three prompts:
1. The CMC get their cutie marks, one way or another.
2. Twilight deals with her new place as an Equestrian Princess.
2. Pinkie Pie struggles against her alter ego, Pinkamena.

Now, of course, there are probably hundreds of fics that have explored this topics already, which is the exact reason they were chosen. Take a unique spin on your one-shot, or go so tropy that it's downright hilarious. Your choice! Whatever road you decide to take, the one-shots will be judged by none other than you admins and the contest will be open for two weeks starting tomorrow. To submit your fic to us, send each of the admins a PM with a link to the story on this site.
But we can't forget the all important part. This is a contest, and contests have prizes! That's right, the winning fic will be given the audio treatment, read aloud and posted to YT by none other than yours truly!

Now, onto more meta material. It came to the attention of a few of us admins (and not a few of you members) that the group was spammed by quite a few 'please help me with this story' threads. While we do encourage authors to seek out assistance for a story, in this group, that is primarily accomplished through doing a review for someone, and consequently receiving a review back (and telling the admins if you don't ). That said, there are always concerns with a story that authors want to draw attention to, and that is where our thread rule modifications come in.
Therefore, if any 'story help' threads are posted, they must be about a specific aspect or portion of the story that the author is particularly concerned about! Any future 'story help' threads that are deemed too general will be deleted by the admins without prior warning!

So ending on that bright and cheery note, get writing, get reviewing, and get muffins

Cheers!
Inky

Lol, 498 members.

Anywho, I'm still rather disappointed in vren55 for not writing his 400 member prompt, but I may give it a crack.

Sweetie Belle will find out singing isn't the only way to get a music note cutie mark. :sombragrin:

(cue evil laugh)

Are there any limits to the length of the story?

1101233
Nope, especially considering it's a one-shot. Now, if said one shot is, say, 80k words, we may have a problem, but if you write 80k words, then it's no longer a one-shot, but a multi-part fic that hasn't been properly split into chapters; and I just keep running this sentence on and on because I think its funny.

But seriously, no, there's no limit.

1101086 So is there a deadline on this?

1101439
Two weeks from tomorrow. Says so in the post.

1101445 oh oops

1101202 Forgive me :P XD I hope you do take part in the contest though :D and I will be writing that scene soon :D

Question: could I, if I so desired, submit a previously published story that fits one (or more) of the prompts?

or, more likely in my case, a re-write of a story I have previously published?

1101994
Wait, is this a reference to my currently favorite story on this site?

If he's allowed to do this, I may tweak The Unicorn's Apprentice to fit the prompt.

1101994
If it fits the any of the three prompts and is a one-shot, I see no reason why you can't.

1102211 It's in desperate need of one additional scene right now, and for the life of me I can't think of where to set it.

Once I got a place, it writes itself!

1102294 Thanks for the clairification

1101086 Ah bollocks. I want to enter...but I can't. Curse you school and your final exams!

1101086

Forgive me for asking this, but who are the current admins?

1101086
Is it necessary that all of the CMC get their cutie marks in the story, or is just one enough?

1106286
Our pages can be found here:
Inky Jay
Vren55
Arandompenguin
Kolwynia
Hingard
ProfCharles

1106428
I suppose this is alright, so long as all three of the CMC are involved in some way.

1106286 you can also just look at the groups banner

1106605
1106574

Thank you, I was not sure if the banner was current.

Hmm... I've been having a mighty lot of trouble writing my current story lately, I've sort of lost touch with it. Maybe a one-shot for a contest is what I need to get back into the swing of things and get writing on it again. We'll see how we go

I just had a computer HDD crash and may have lost all my current stories and chapters.
I can't face going back and rewriting it all right now, so maybe doing this will be a good distraction.

I've got an idea that fits around prompt #3 and should be able to get something out in the next week or so. I want that audio recording.

1113689 use google docs, or back them up

1101086

Were many submissions made for the contest? Just asking out of curiosity.

1101445

I have ADD* so my story is gonna be late but hopefully still good. (Attention Deficit Disorder, makes it hard when writing out a plot. ) Looks like I won't be getting that Youtube reading. I congratulate whoever wins.

1106428 1116355 1116355
Well, you three were the only ones to send something in. But even so, I think I speak for all the admins in saying that I enjoyed reading each one. Thanks for participating and if I could I'd hand you some sort of pointy stick or something to go poke other members in the flank.

But I'm sure you're eager to know which of you came out on top, and the congratulations go to Prolet's A Hole in the Sky! Great job with the pony sir! I'll make a blogpost once the reading is up on YT and I'll PM you as well. You can expect it to hit sometime this weekend.

1182755
That's odd -- I thought I'd PMed The Cutie Mark Crusaders Use Their Brainsssss to everyadmin.

No worries, though -- congratulations, Prolet!

1183281
Oh, well the reply system bugged out or I accidentally hit reply on two of vadram's comments: probably the latter. We all did get your submission, even though Prolet's won.

1183294

Fair 'nuff.

1182755
Woohoo! Thanks.

1182755
If it makes you feel any better, I was halfway through a story, but didn't get it done on time. You reached more people than responded.