Alright mares, stallions, ladies, gentlemen, changelings of undisclosed gender preference, some of you might have noticed in the thread celebrating our reaching 500 members, that this folder right here is the odd one out amongst the folders, lacking any banner image, and the administrative team's desire to correct this situation.

So, in celebration of the month of October, we're going to celebrate and encourage writers to flex their creative merit in the field of Original Character (OC) development!

Simply write a straight romance story involving an original character. It can be at any point in the relationship and can be with another original character, or a canon character.

The winner of the competition will have a commission of their original character drafted, and it will be used as the banner to the All-OC folder!

Here are the rules of the competition:

1. The story must focus on a straight ship involving at least one original character.

2. The story must be submitted to fimfiction.net by the time of submission. It also cannot be an older fiction, that is, it must be something that was started at the time of this competition starting. Other than that, you have free reign, you can have as many words as you like for your story, and it doesn't even have to be complete. We ask however, that because we'll be judging these stories primarily on the development and balance of the original character(s) that you will have written a sizable portion of the story that involves them.

3. Stories must be submitted to the "OC-tober Writing Competition" folder by November 10, 2013 in order to be eligible for judging.

4. The original character(s) cannot be any of the following:
- Alicorn (Don't be coy and call it a pegacorn).
- Changeling.
- Futanari (We wish for all OCs to have clear-cut gender/sex identification, makes things easier to classify).
- Human (This exclusion also includes formerly human OCs. I know this ticked me off too).
- Fan-made species (This includes things such as kirin).

5. All submissions must meet the standard submission rules of the straight shipping group.

6. Mature stories are permitted.

1887179 Oh god, If I wasn't One-Shotobering right now.....

....Actually....

I can still do this

1887179
OC-tober! Let's make it happen, Muskeeter!

Hope everyone is ready because this isn't our only event!

1887179
I will try. We'll see if I even submit anything at all.

1887232 Right there with ya buddy.

1887179Seems like the perfect time to dust off that PinkieXOC ship I was blowing smoke about a while back.

An OC shipfic? Is there anything in your rules that outlaws stories that I've already written? Or do I have to write and submit it starting now?

I think I'll do this.

1887179 This sounds like a fun idea, I'll try and give it a go!

(Yells in the direction of one of his cancelled stories) You hear that, Lilac? You're getting a second chance!

"Woo!"

1887589>>1887232

Dunno whether the one-shot group would have any quarrels with it, but why don't you try writing a one-shot about an OC that you can enter for both competitions?

1887654

The story must be submitted to fimfiction.net by the time of submission (of this thread).

Apologies that looks like a typo. As long as you publish it to Fimfiction between now and the competition deadline, it's cool.

1888908 That was plan A, but the story I'm trying to tell would best be told as a full fic. Not a one-shot.
Can we have multiple submissions?

1889055

One submission per user, I'm afraid. But there is no limit on the amount of words or chapters.

1889065 If that be the case, I'll opt for the full length story. Really looking forward to see what comes out of this.

1889075

Well, considering the prize is your OC gets vectored and immortalized, I'm hoping people will feel more inclined to participate.

1889090 Well mine's just a lowly guard pony, and there's already plenty of vectors for them. Winning is not my concern. Though you're right, perhaps this will drive the other authors to making something great.

1889135

immortalized

Don't pass off the prize just yet!

1889142 hmmmm...
Just think about it Templar, in years to come. Future generations of bronies shall punch "royal guard" into google and there shall they find Silver Spears, in all his former glory. Forever alive in vector image. He will stand the test of time. Immortal.

...
...
I'm going to get working on that, like now.

I finally get an oppurtunity to write an OC ship story without getting punched in the face?

YES!

Immortalized?

Immortalized...

The perfect chance to use Ice Fire.

MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

Well, time to write my Ice Fire X Pinkie Pie story.

I'm so submitting mine to this

We just add it to the OC folder to enter right? Or did I miss something?

1893076

There is a love OCtober folder for you to stick your fic in to enter it in the competition.

Westphalian_Musketeer's going to love the banner I put in that folder...

1887179
Definitely joining.
Does romance have to be the center of the story, or can it be an adventure story with romance as an addition (just as an example)?

cannot be any of the following:
- Alicorn.
- Changeling.

I'm out.

1887179

Crap, guess my character is out of the equation, since he sort of falls into the formerly human category. Though the mechanics behind it are a bit... complicated. He was born into Equestria as a normal pony, but got all his memories back when he got his cutie mark... but then he rejected his memories so strongly that he broke them off from him completely and created a second personality inside of himself, which only comes back years later when the story begins...

So in a way, while he's a human born again as a pony, he could also be considered a normal pony with a human mind living in his own... hard to say which idea takes precedent on inclusion in the fic, because I intend for his human side and pony side to forever remain separate and individuals, and it is his pony side that is in love with Applejack... Gah, maybe some clarification on this? I'm pretty certain it won't be allowed, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

1896870 Romance must be a major component that ends up driving a significant part of the plot, but by all means you can build up the relationship with lots of adventuring first.

1897734 Sorry, we wouldn't accept this character. If you wrote them to not have this past however, focusing just on the pony component, we would accept that.

1897899
Sorry, but that I really can't do. Not only am I rather fond of his pony side, but I'm planning on tying his romance story in with that of several other OCs' stories of their own, (some former humans as well, but not split personality like him) culminating in a grander adventure fic combining them all. His humanity is an important point in the greater story I want to tell.

I really don't mind though. I would have been happy to include him in the contest if I was allowed, but it's not something I desperately wanted.

1887179
Well, the no alicorn rule takes my ship and sinks it...
MoonXAqua

Hi guys, I'm the new obnoxious idiot to join you and I might participate.

1887179
Are sapient bears allowed?
I kind of had a story for this, but I'd need the bear.

1897899
Sounds great!

1898245 To clarify, the rule is no alicorn OCs.

1898258 No.

1899564

I was working on one of these already. If I can find it...

Well, time to write my DashxApplewood fic.

SHOWER ME WILL ALL APPLEJACK STRAIGHT LINNNKSS! OKAY?

1887179

Okay, question here: I've got a collection of sidestories to my main one, and I was considering doing this as part of a chapter within that collection. Would that be feasible (if I marked which one was the one in question), or would that violate the "no earlier stories" rule?

2008912 I think for the purposes of keeping the rules not overly complex, that too would violate the "no earlier stories" rule. You're welcome to publish it separately though. Realize that your work would be judged on the basis of that single work, so relying on the context of the rest of the story would be detrimental to your own efforts to win.

2009319

No problem; i was doing it more for the sake of "just wanting to keep it with the collection" rather than have to publish it separately as another story in the AAGverse, but I can do that, so no problems there.

1887179

Ok, question: I have plans for a rather long romance story between two OCs. The romance plot won't start until Chapter Three, I still have to finish a story for Nightmare Night, next week start exams for me...

Short story shorter... Can I try to just write the main part - the highlight, if you will - and post the link to the unpublished story if I make it in time? I'm pretty sure that it works really well as a stand-alone, but there's a lot more to the rest of the story than just the romance plot... You'll see what I mean.

2012880
Send it to our folder, and we shall take a look at it.

2022660

Too late, I wrote a whole different story now
Going to submit it in a few hours and add it to the folder.

And don't you dare not appreciate my effort.

2024221
It shall be appreciated then...

2 things:

1. What if there are multiple pairings and three are either Changeling or Alicorn?

2. What if it's a story ive already written, but I'm completely changing it and the only thing that remains is the name?

2026544
I'm sorry, but alicorns or changelings aren't allowed. How much they are given attention to be significant to the story it's up to our discretion, and your entry can be negated.

You're free to post your story as long as you worked on it recently. If the content is new, go ahead.

2032159 well, there are multiple pairings, there's also a few involving neither of those types, that's just some.

2032916

If it's a longer story (with multiple chapters) you could consider posting the chapters without changelings and alicorns for the contest, and adding or backtracking the other chapters a week or two later. That's what I wanted to do at first (before I did something completely different...)

Wait... Why am I trying to help the competition?
What Trixie River Road meant to say was: post changelings and alicorns, I'm sure it will work out in the end (for me).

2033477well, it'll probably just start with an eligible pairing.

2033561

In the meantime, take a look at my entry to the contest.
(Seriously, it's one of my best works, I've added it to at least four larger groups, and in more than 24 hours it hasn't even made it past 60 views. I just don't know what went wrong! )

1887179 Is a D-dog X Minotaur allowed?

2044190 Yes.

2045116 Sweet, I'll see what I can do and, if it doesn't work, I'll probably not submit it.