Event overview | Review spreadsheet

This event has a prelim round. This means that once the fic submissions close, you will be assigned a series of stories to read and rate. Only entries whose authors participate in the prelim round will pass to the next round.

Note for newcomers: While many participants choose to review others' entries, doing so is by no means required nor expected.

Please refrain from saying anything that might compromise your anonymity. Doing so is grounds for disqualification. It's recommended you do dummy reviews of your own stories should it otherwise be easy to deduce which you wrote.

I completely forgot about the prelim discussion.
Oops.

4043661

After Strythio suggested it, I created a spreadsheet to help folks find reviews for the write-off. You can find it here.

This is open to everyone to edit. Please don't delete stuff which isn't yours.

Instructions for adding your review to the list:

Make a column for yourself (if there isn't one already) over on the right-hand side in an empty column.

Type "Review", "Post", or whatever else into the row of the story you reviewed.

Click on the post number of your forum post to generate a hyperlink to your specific post.

Copy that hyperlink.

Right click on the the text you entered and hit "Insert Link".

Paste the link you copied into the link.

Voila!

Note that if you have multiple reviews in one post, after you make one cell for that post, you can just copy-paste it into other rows, thus saving yourself labor.

Thanks to everyone who is helping populate this spreadsheet!

This will make it much easier to find reviews (hopefully).

ORIGINAL POST

I'm so excited!

Prompt submitted promptly.

EDIT: And then redacted and changed. Oh well.

Submitted my prompt.

I'll have to see what it comes out as before I can even think about committing myself to this one. I have a couple of projects in the works and real life work stuff is ramping up again. Also, I did super poorly in the last mini-fic writeoff. I'd like to redeem myself, but I also don't want to slow down the production rate I currently have going on my other fics.

Hopefully, whichever prompt pops up will hit the ol' inspiration button pretty hard.

Prelim round is making me quite happy, because it will reduce the exhaustion quotient. Course, still going to hope to read everything, but if we repeat last month this'll do wonders.

Well, this should be interesting. Prompt submitted.

oh god why ;_;

Not sure if I'll find the time to compete in this one, but I submitted a prompt anyway.

Submitted my prompt.

Eeep!

I've got too much non-Pony writing I need to do in February. If I can, I'll try to read the entries and leave some comments.

Would prelims work differently if I don't submit a story?

Mike, Wondering

Whoever submitted "Play Your Cards Right", I think I love you.

But seriously, didn't the last one just end? Why must time flow so fast...?

[EDIT] "Petrolsexual"....dafudge?!

After some less then stellar placings in the minific contest, I'm a bit more confident about this one.

If all goes well I'll have the weekend free to write!

At least I got done the fic that I'll be posting starting next month, so I have the weekend open now. :B Such as it is.

4016307
I looked up Petrolsexual. The definition wasn't that far off from what I expected, much to my relief. I actually think I know what I'd write for that one, and that scares me a little

4017889
That's pretty sad.

What's also sad is the number of prompts. Last round only had 39, and we got 59 authors and 93 mini stories. We've got 58 in there right now. With only one prompt per user, this is shaping up to be quite the round.

60 prompts.

This is, uh, getting to be intimidating...

4016307

And suddenly we're going to have 1006 fics about poker.

4018231
Don't be too sure. That's what a lot of people thought would happen last month. We only got two. Maybe three if you count the extended metaphor in The Cards We're Dealt.

For example, if I didn't think it would both compromise my anonymity and alienate ninety percent of the other participants, I'd totally use that prompt as an excuse for a Magic: the Gathering crossover.

Given the insane min-fic round we had last time, I'm surprised that this thread is more than a day old and has less than 20 replies. I wonder if that will correlate to a relaxed, much less of a clusterfudge than last time too?

Short story contests always garnered less attention because it's kinda harder to spam out 8k words in a weekend and thus generate less interest. Unless you're one of the bigger name writers. :V

4019047

That's the joke =P

I'm kinda new to this whole thing. >.>

You don't have to submit a prompt to participate, do you? I am awful at that kind of thing. I just got interested in trying this out, mostly to receive advanced critique on work I'll make..

I'm actually wondering, how would we go about submitting the fic? Can I write it in Fimfiction's chapter edit function? I've written all my stuff on there, and have gotten used to the style. I couldn't find anything in the FAQ about it, unless I'm just blind >.>

4019365
Nope, you don't need to submit a prompt!

Unfortunately, you'll have to go about submitting the story using the writeoff.me website's text editor. That's to keep things anonymous. On the plus side, most of the formatting language is the same anyway.

Welcome to the writeoffs! Hope you enjoy yourself.

4019365

No, you do not need to submit a prompt to participate. You will have to vote in the prelim round though to move on.

The website you submit it to has its own writing space but you can write it elsewhere and copypaste it over. Just be sure to do a thorough check after you do to make sure it didn't mess with the spacing.

4019386
I take it there's no easy way to preview what you've typed unless you do the copy-paste method mentioned above? That's the main reason I use chapter edit to do that, because you can easily click to see what it looks like on-site and switch right back to editing. It's how I self-edit all my work. I'm thinking, I write it as an unpublished fic, so I can format it right, and then just paste the end result over. Plus, it'd be easier for when actual site posting is allowed. That's workable, right?

gods, I must be annoying, asking things everyone already knows >.>

4019365
The most important thing is that you don't publicly post your story or otherwise reveal yourself as the author until after the final voting is complete.

The only place you can submit your story is on the WriteOff submission page. Once the submission window opens, you can submit any number of entries that meet the criteria for the round up until the submission window closes (make sure you go over the rules). After you submit a story, you can make changes to it by using the "My Submissions" link at the top of the page and clicking on the edit button next to your current submission. This ability locks when the submission window closes, so make sure you have all your edits submitted before then.

After the entire event is over (once the final results are populated), you are free to update/post your story anywhere else, including FimFiction.

4019430

I'm not exactly a vet around here, but I can definitely say that asking things everyone already knows doesn't make you look annoying, it makes you look smart. You're smart enough to realize you don't know the answer to something and that you need help to figure it out. More people should do that.

One thing to keep in mind is FF and WO have different word counters. I think FF thinks it's higher than WO does, in fact. So while you can write it in FF (just don't publish it!), keep in mind there are subtle differences.

4019451
Okay, thanks :D That answers most of what I needed.

One last thing: (And I think this is really important) What tags/story styles are frowned upon/disallowed? For instance, if I figure that a human character shall partake in the fic, would that impact the decisions in any way/shape? I also like to work with Dark and others that I haven't really seen coming out of the writeoff fics that actually get posted, so is that inadvisable then? I know creativity comes into play somewhere in this.

4019470
Anything is allowed, as long as it has MLP and is under Teen rating Teen rating or under.

As for advisable... that's hard to say. A lot of voters try to judge based on how well written the story was, rather than how much they enjoy the subject. On the other hand, some voters don't, and they're allowed to vote for whatever reasons they want. So it's totally possible that writing a Dark fic, or a shipping fic, or a HiE is basically doing the writeoff on hard mode. Totally allowed, and folks will read it and review it, but your score might not look like the reactions you would get from people who are fans of those genres.

4019485

You know... There's actually no rule saying it has to be MLP related. I mean, it'd be silly not to, but there's nothing in the rules saying it has to be.

4019507
I did think about that, but I'm guessing that's one of those "There's no rule that says an orangutan can't play football!" situations, where there's no rule because huh? If someone tried to submit original fiction or another kind of fanfic with no relation to pony, I'd guess that would be patched up by the next round.

Of course, I'm just assuming all over the place here. Maybe everyone would give the stories a shot and it's totally up to the writer to try it or not.

4019485
Ah, I see what you're getting at. Technicality over creativity, mostly. See, I was told that you usually get better reviews here than on-site for things, so I've been wanting to perfect a few writing styles through critique here. It's my goal to get better at the things I like to write :D

4019622
I think that's true, the reviews here are great, and most of the reviewers are pretty open to genre. But the reviews don't always reflect the silent majority of voters. It's totally up to you whether that matters, of course! Internet points are worth whatever you think they're worth.

4019470
4019485
We've had HiE fics top 3 before (Mark of Destiny did so fairly recently).

We've had dark fics do well.

We've had comedy stories win it all.

We've had mysteries come in first place, as well as British footnote comedies.

And I think we had a shipfic come in first once, too, though IIRC it was a sad one.

It is pretty eclectic.

The main rule of winning is "write something good". Though you're up against pretty stiff competition, here; it is not uncommon for there to be 10+ people with stories in the RCL in the competition these days, plus a number of other good writers.

4019875
I know, but I still think that by doing one of those genres you're handicapping yourself a little. That doesn't mean you can't win, just that your story might have to be better than a similar slice of life or comedy would be.

4019873
I didn't know that. Weird.

4018225
All I can say is that with 60 prompt submissions, there better be at least 60 prompt votes, or I call shenanigans.

4019976

Well, we're half way there...

Let's see if I can feel more inspired than I did for "All in"

4019991 My (totally relevant) reaction.

4019047 I started All In determined not to write a poker story. I was editing The Cards We're Dealt when I had the sudden realisation of what I had done

4020105

Now if only "Half Way There" was a prompt...

4020252 "We Didn't Start the Fire" is, though. Released in the same decade. Same artist initials, too

I'm feeling an 80s music week coming on now
Which will definitely make me more productive during the writeoff weekend...

"The Boss" sounds like a great excuse to go nuts on an MLP / Metal Gear Solid crossover.

Is what I would say, except the show itself got there first.

Actually around 30% of the ideas there sound really good. I bet none of them win.

4020252
4020329
4020351
I'm genuinely sad that nobody submitted "Fibrous Nuggets" as a prompt option.

4020421

I'm not. Because chances are, it would have won...

4020421
4020596
It would probably make a better prompt for a minific contest, anyway. I can't imagine somehow drawing out multiple thousands of words with that as a prompt and not feeling terribly guilty about the resulting story, whereas we've seen that it can... uh, "work" for minifics.

()

4015032

I really want to get involved with this this weekend, but I'm a little confused. Are we required to vote in the prelim round in order for our works to have a chance at the next round, or is "participate in the prelim round" the same as having a story submitted in the prelim round?

4020872

Are we required to vote in the prelim round in order for our works to have a chance at the next round, or is "participate in the prelim round" the same as having a story submitted in the prelim round?

Former.

4020887

Okay gotcha. I am guessing that is to encourage voting in the prelim rounds?

CLOSING TIME R U FKN KIDDING ME
you are goddamn right i voted for it
>tfw you can't remember wtf your prompt was

It's weird not having anything to work toward. :B

4020910
Bingo.