So I just think it would be a great way to increase our story count and perhaps increase the amount of chatter around here if we did a monster mare story contest. I don't mind coming up with cool rules to try to motivate writers, new and old, to try new things, however there are a couple problems that I thought I would discuss and see if anyone had any good solutions.

1) Prizes - As you all know, every contest needs at least one prize for people to fight over (or in this case write over) for victory. So naturally we would need a prize.
2) Judges - In the past I used to serve as a judge for the various writing contests I hosted in the various groups... however, as you can all guess, my schedule has grown rather busy, so I wouldn't be a good judge for such a contest. Therefore we need at least one if not two or three unbiased monster mare loving individuals to judge such a contest.

Remember, this is just a discussion, please feel free to talk freely here and offer your suggestions.

Thank you.

Update:

Good news we now have more prizes. Grim_Grin is willing to do some artwork for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winner's (I will reveal the details when the contest thread is posted).

So with judges, prizes and a theme agreed upon there is only two things left to discuss. Story word count and dates for entries.

Personally I think a good, well detailed short story needs to have at least 3,000 words and we might want an upper limit just so the judges don't get too overwhelmed.

As for starting/due date I am all ears.

Discuss away.

6826122
I certainly know the feeling. #2 is why I tend not to either start contests or judge them. Lack of time.

Though, admittedly, I'd probably just be declaring all the cute, fluffy, and well-written stuff as the winners, anyways.

--Sweetie Belle

I would like to help and be a judge since I don’t really know anyone here ;^^.

As for prizes... well... we can try for an art commission if so for the winner.

6826122
I would love to take part in this, depending on the situation.

On topic 1: When I hosted a contest in another group, I made the prize threefold; a free coverart commission for the winner, an interview, and a re-blog of whatever story they wanted promoted. This was, however, for a Promotion style group, so these prizes might not fit too well.

On topic 2: I am a terrible judge. I procrastinate and that's no bueno. I know myself and I know I'd fail in the role of judge...

6826354 I mean if you don't mind that would be pretty awesome. It would be great to have a judge and I could see a commission being a reward for first place. Not too sure what we should do for second or third.

Personally as much as I would love to participate, I don't think it would be fair since I am also trying to organize it. But I will do everything I can to help (which is one of the reasons I made this thread).

6827277
I would love to, but due to my schedule, it will take time to read them all and judge them fairly, so after the due date, it might take a little while, maybe setting it on a weekday would be a good one ;^^

Once again, you don’t have to choose me if anyone else steps up to the plate

6827296 I also don't think this is going to happen... immediately. At the soonest maybe a couple weeks from now. I just wanted to try to organize things so we could do it first.

6827301
Alright, just wanted to make sure ;^^

It’s good that you are making a plan

6827315 Yep, I do enjoy making plans.

6827267 I can understand that. I found myself getting heavily distracted by my own writing when it came to judging contests.

---

If possible I would like to get three prizes, one for each place (1st, 2nd and 3rd). I think it might also be good to have more than one judge, that way they can kind of provide multiple forms of feedback for the contestants.

Once we have that we would then need to promote this contest as fast and as broad as possible. So obviously we would need a thread in the promotion group, a thread in one or more of the contest groups, a thread in our group and perhaps a few blogs discussing it. It might be even cool if we could see some of the contestants blogging about it as well (but that would ultimately be up to them to do).

Is there anything else I am missing?

One thought I had was maybe giving it the theme of less popular monster mares. If you look in the Monster Mare story list we have a lot of stories with vamponies, were ponies and lamias, but very little of anything else. Perhaps participates could be awarded additional points based on how unique their choice is in the monster mares species.

6832551
Always a possibility. Also, I could always judge as well if you need it. My schedule seems pretty okay so far.

6835818 That would be awesome.

---

So now we have two judges and at least one prize.

Good news we now have more prizes. Grim_Grin is willing to do some artwork for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winner's (I will reveal the details when the contest thread is posted).

So with judges, prizes and a theme agreed upon there is only two things left to discuss. Story word count and dates for entries.

Personally I think a good, well detailed short story needs to have at least 3,000 words and we might want an upper limit just so the judges don't get too overwhelmed.

As for starting/due date I am all ears.

Discuss away.

6826122
I can check with my contacts for judges but Quillian might have more contacts then me.

6849315 I forgot to update the main thread. We have a couple of judges (sadly, Quillian doesn't think he would be a good judge ) and we also have the prizes set up.

6849327
So do you need any help?

6849332 Well, like Post #13 says, we need to decide upon the word count/limit and the start/end date.

6849337
Well word count can be either 1000 words or 2000 but I am think short story. The start and I would like for the start and ending date to be decided by you.

6849346 Well, I'm not actually judging the contest (both Kydois and Lunar Flarion will be doing that), I am merely trying to organize it. So I guess we should try to see what they think about start/end dates.

6835818
6827315 What do you both think for start/end dates?

As for word count, as I stated I think 3,000 is usually a pretty good number, however I am willing to meet part way and have the minimum word count be 2,500. I'm not too sure about the maximum word count, so hopefully the two judges might share their thoughts on that.

6849477
The last story I wrote was 150 words, and it won a contest. Just saying...

--Sweetie Belle

6849484 This isn't a flashfic contest.

6849477
What exactly do you mean?

6849529 What would be a deadline for the contest entries that would also be convenient for you and your schedule?

6849531
Hm... a good deadline for the contest, at least for me, is probably the 20-21 for May since I’ll most likely have a good amount of time to read the stories that are written. Of course, there might be changes to this, and if there is, I’ll make sure you know of them.

Is that alright?

6849536 Well, I usually try to give everyone a month or two, so they don't feel too rushed but that's just me.

6849630
that’s perfectly fine ^^

6849630
A month should be fine, plus maybe a week or two after to give time to read everything before results are posted. I'd be fine with most anything though.

6849631
6849634 Okay. Any thoughts on the word count of the stories. I was thinking of a 2,500 word count minimum, however I don't know if you both want to establish a maximum word count since both of you are judging.

Once I have this information I will try to set up a thread (sometime this week) with the submission deadline being a month after that day. If that makes sense.

6849639
Personally, I don't have a minimum. I don't want to encourage padding that could hurt the story being told. We could probably take care of any special cases that arise anyways.

6849639
Nothing past 8000 words ;^^

And yeah, that mini is good ^^

Oh, I suppose I should add a max too, but my max is higher than Lunar's, so do whatever. I can work with anything.

6849712
Oh, hello ^^

6849717
Heyo!

6849719
How are you?

6849720
Getting stuck on slice of life. Might have to rethink what I actually want to write lol

Maybe it's time for eldritch horror :^)

6849735
XD

From SoL to hey Cthulhu! I need your help XD

6849735 Why not both?

6826122
Would my oc count as a monster mare or would it have to be a new one because I can do either.

6851067 You mean the scorpion pony? Yeah, she would count. I will have more details later, however as long as it is a new short story featuring your OC, she should be fine.

6851074
Awesome. Thank you and I will spread the word of your contest so it turns out a lot better then mine did.

One final thing, what she we call this contest. I was thinking of calling this: The Unpopular Monster Mare Story Contest, in hopes of increasing stories for the less popular monster mares, however I am not sure this is all that great a title. Does anyone have any good suggestions.

The sooner I recieve a suggestion the sooner I can get to work on the contest thread.

6849741
6849735 A couple of people have asked if they can submit multiple stories to the contest. I thought I would check with you both first before saying one way or another.

Are you okay if people submit more than one story and if so is there a limit you might want to establish on how many stories one person can submit?

6854407
Hmm...

On one side, letting people submit more than one feels like just throwing darts at a wall and seeing what sticks instead of trying to hit the bullseye to begin with. On the other, letting people submit more than one might encourage people to write more monster mares, which we all need.

I think I lean more towards the "just getting more monster mare content out there" side of things, though regardless of the number of entries, I think it's safe to say that we'll only be considering the best one in terms of handing out prizes.

6854407
I'll have to agree with them on this one