They said* it couldn’t be done. They said* the child was dealt with, problem solved, nothing more to see here. Rendered completely harmless as a statue. A grotesque chunk of frieze in the old gothic style, fallen from the ramparts of Canterlot Castle. A lawn gnome set in ambush to bemuse wanderers in Celestia and Luna’s precious hedge maze. No way could she inspire a single expression of overwhelming support, let alone three.

But look how wrong they were, dear friends. Observe the joyous adulations she’s received over the past conflicts literary disputes. All is documented and irrefutable. Rest assured, therefore, in the knowledge that she still roams free, fully empowered to command your devotion, sympathy, and undying loyalty. Welcome to the 4^th annual Cozy Glow Short Story Contest!

Guidelines

All stories must:

-Adhere to the site rules

-Be between 2.5k and 15k words in length

-Contain Cozy Glow as a central character and be classifiable under one of the prompts.

-Be written in English

-Be written between 25 Jul 2023 12:00 PM EDT and 25 Sep 2023 12:00 PM EDT. No exceptions. Post up to three entries in this folder. Stories may be sequels, but must be able to be read without knowledge of prior works.

-Entrants must be willing to reveal their country of residence (which must have an amazon website) if they win a monetary prize. If a monetary prize is not possible, an alternative prize will be offered.

-“Genre” refers to narrative type of story (e.g. adventure, mystery, etc.); “category” refers to tone (e.g. sad, comedy, dark, etc.).

Otherwise, there are no restrictions on content or maturity level. Stories will be assigned points based on the following:

-Narrative flow and cohesiveness – does it all work together as an organic whole?

-Quality of spelling and grammar – typos and copy/paste errors can ruin the most carefully engineered mood.

-Emotional impact – make the reader feel it.

-Relevance to the MLP universe – is there a connection to the characters, lore, and storyline portrayed in the show?

-Originality – take an old premise and add a new spin, or venture into the unknown.

-Style – speak to the reader in your own unique voice.

-X-factor – how sharp are the teeth?

Prizes

Monetary prize amounts will vary depending on the number of entrants. Winners are guaranteed the following:

1^st place: an amazon gift code worth at least $50, posting with link to story on the Cozy Glow group front page, and brief review.

2^nd place: an amazon gift code worth at least $40, posting with link to story on the Cozy Glow group front page, and brief review.

3^rd place: an amazon gift code worth at least $30, posting with link to story on the Cozy Glow group front page, and brief review.

Runner-up: posting with link to story on the Cozy Glow group front page and brief review.

At 20 entrants, the monetary prizes increase by $15; at 30 entrants, they increase by an additional $15, and so on at each tier of 10 up to 4 total tiers.

Prompts

Any genre, any category

-Cozy writes a short story!

-Cozy Glow vs. …

-Gap story (fits with canon but not shown in an episode).

-Cozy’s got a secret.

-From the ruins of Canterlot slunk Cozy Glow...

-It wasn't a problem until...

-Possessions

-Sprout discovers the ancient legend of Cozy Glow, which inspires him to go on a quest.

Adventure, any category

-As Princess Luna is delivering Cozy to Tartarus, they have an adventure.

-Cozy had never heard of (Maretime Bay/Zephyr Heights/Bridlewood) before.

Slice of Life, Sad

-Cozy was a straight-A student at the School of Friendship, on her way to becoming an Element of Harmony. Then there came a lesson set her on a different path.

-Life was great until mom started barking like a dog.

-How can I make them be quiet when they’re already dead?

-And that was when she realized it had all gone wrong.

Grimdark/horror

-They showed her how to harvest the skulls, after she’d finished playing.

-Flurry Heart and Cozy Glow develop a strong friendship that turns into something more.

-Of all things, it was love that Cozy needed.

-Cozy and the house of horror.

Judges

the dobermans

Anonymous Judge #1

*All persons who said this are purely imaginary. Obnoxious, but imaginary.

*cracks knuckles*

Let's do this. FOR THE EMPRESS!

Can we opt out of the prize and still enter? Like, even if someone were to win, they can forfeit the prize down the line to the next winner. I don't need money, the competition is more just for the fun of it.

Regardless, I think I've got an idea ready, can we combine prompts? I was thinking of doing a combination of:
-From the ruins of Canterlot slunk Cozy Glow...
+
-Flurry Heart and Cozy Glow develop a strong friendship that turns into something more.

cozy glow enjoyers rise up

can't wait to enter in this competition again!

This'll be something interesting to do.
As asked above, prompt combos would allow for more creativity.

7860760
Let's seeeeeeeee... Hmm, there might be a few things I could do with this. I might be able to enter this after all.

7860888
7860962

Yes, prompt combos are definitely allowed, as long as the genre and category of each prompt is adhered to. One way to do that would be to pick one of the Any genre, Any category prompts and combine it with a more specific prompt. If in doubt about an idea, feel free to ask.

7860888
Sure, one can opt out, but think of all those wonderful amazon products ...

7860760
As previous times, I would like to invite you to repost the contest in the Hall of Contests [SFW] group. Hope it would be another successful contest.

7861583

Thanks for the reminder. Done!

-Cozy and the house of horror.

This prompt makes my heart tingle. I will start working on my Nightmare Night story for this year (one of them) soon and the end date of the contest just so happens to be very close to the Dark Season..... *whistles*
.

I would love to participate but I don't speak English and I don't think I'll find someone to help me translate it

For the "Cozy Glow had never heard of Maretime Bay/Bridlewood/Zephyr Heights before" prompt, can that be extended to G5 Equestria as a whole (either the entire land, or a different location outside of those listed) or does it have to stick to those three locations?

7866410

The general notion here is that Cozy finds herself in future Equestria. I'm OK with not focusing on one of those locations in particular, but it would be a good idea to at least mention one or more of them.

You know, I wasn't planning on writing for the contest, but I think I might have an idea about that secret Cozy's got...

...Oh yes... a very grim secret indeed...

7874068

7860760 I'm a bit late to publish all my chapters. Would it be okay if I submitted my GDoc version of the story?

7881928

If the entire story is completed before the deadline, that shouldn't be a problem. Feel free to PM me the link.

7882177 This is the story for this contest:
Cozy Glow vs. Bad Dragon

It's completed and fully edited. The problem is that it has too many chapters and I couldn't publish all of them before the deadline.

Edit: I'm also still waiting for a custom-made cover art. Artists need their time, you know?

7860760
Would it be cheating to ask people of this group to help with editing for my story?

7882993

Nope! As long as it's not one of the judges

And remember folks, 12:00 PM is noon, not midnight!!

I am so excited to submit for this contest, and completely respect the team's decision to ignore my request. I'm racing to complete my entry but won't have time to complete it by the noon est deadline. Is there any chance we could extend the deadline by another day or two?

I wouldn't mind an extension myself! I have an awesome story but it's coming out way too long and I'm not sure I'll finish tonight

Still, I'll try!

EDIT: made it with hours to spare

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

I finished my story twenty-three minutes ago after writing for ten hours straight.

I procrastinated, and I am sorry.

But I did it, and nobody can take that away from me.

god I hope auto-approval goes through soon. I am antsy as all getout

Finished! Submitted just ten minutes before the deadline! I was crunching out my story over the last two and a half days, after I had been sick pretty much all the time for the last two months; first a depression episode, then an infected tooth and then I was strapped to the bed with high fever and strong limb pains coming right from Tartarus for a week. But this story had to be written in time for the contest, so I just CRUNCHED. IT. OUT.

And I was scared it wouldn't be finished in time. I want to cry now.

We are now over the deadline! Good luck to everyone, and I'd like to extend a very emphatic wish of fortune for the dobermans and whoever in the wide world anonymous judge #1 is. Just going off my story, I think the judges are gonna need all the wherewithal they can muster.

7883674
Dude, same! I was too terrible at writing all month to work on my story, so I ended up writing the whole thing pretty much entirely over the course of the last twelve hours! At the end of the day, it's only important that it's finished!

...Though I would rather like to cry along with you.

Woot! Everyone's submissions are in, and it looks like mine is the only Equestria Girls entry. Hope it helps me stand out.

I got 2nd place in 2020. I got 2nd place again in 2022. Now, will Sunset Shimmer be the boost my Cozy needs to reach the coveted 1st place? The excitement is palpable! For Sunset, at the very least.

7860760
Are we supposed to list the prompt being used, or is it ok as long as you can tell which one it is?

A shame I didn't get my other story for the contest submitted (I had wanted to submit three), but it's okay. The story I stayed up until 7:30 in the morning finishing and threw in shall suffice.

Good luck to everyone in the contest! Looks like a large majority of folks submitted for the "Cozy VS" prompt, so I'm curious to see who comes out on top.

Thanks to all for your submissions! I wanted to mention that there were 2 entrants (Bad Dragon and AltruistArtist) who submitted their completed stories by contacting me directly, bringing our total up to 25! That's a contest record, and means that the prize amounts listed in the guidelines above have been increased by $15 each.

We are targeting completion of judging in 2 weeks' time.

7883739

It helps if you list it, but if there's any question I'll contact the author.

7883529

I'm afraid the deadline is firm. If there's a version that was completed before the deadline with a date/time stamp, shoot me a PM.

7883896
As mentioned by the dobermans in this previous comment, my submission was initially sent through PM but is now visible to the public on Fimfiction! As it was my first work posted to the site, it was in the moderation queue for several days but was published in its entirety on September 22nd, prior to the completion deadline.

Best of luck to all the entrants! I have loved reading the incredible creativity this contest has evoked in its past years and look forward to doing the same this year! I'm glad I was finally able to finally join the fun myself.

My story can be found here if anyone is interested in reading:

TThe Roles We (Are Fated to) Play

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Dark
• Drama

Princess Flurry Heart becomes infatuated with the filly imprisoned in the statue.

• Death
• Twilight
• Cadance
• Flurry Heart
• Cozy Glow

AltruistArtist · 14k words  ·  250  12 · 3.1k views

7860760
I wanted to ask, when does judging begin, and if requested, could I find out what the judges thought of my story regardless of winning or losing?

7885919

Hello! Judging is already well underway. I can certainly give you feedback after the contest. I'll send you a PM (if I forget, send me a note).

7886035
Thank you for letting me know!

7886035

I would like to request the judges' feedback, too.

I think every author is happy when she receives feedback for her efforts.

When I was a judge for a contest, I wrote a paragraph for every story that entered the writing competition, even for disqualified ones.

I'm getting extremely hyped for the results. Checking the group once each day since Monday now.

7890854

Reviewing is 92% complete! It's taking a bit longer this year because there were a record number of stories.

7890970

It's taking a bit longer this year because there were a record number of stories.

That is part of the reason why I'm hyped.^^ So amazing how the fourth contest has a higher number of stories than the first one. The fandom still got it and the interest in Generation 4 hasn't lessened.

(From the front page ...)

After much painful, but fulfilling deliberation, I'm excited to announce the winners of this year's contest:

Tied for 3rd place: Life on Equus and The Angel with One Wing by AlwaysDressesInStyle and Fluttercheer, respectively (this eliminates the runner up spot)

2nd place: The Roles We (Are Fated to) Play by AltruistArtist

1st place: Doubt Itself by Casketbase77

I'd like to offer a sincere thank you to all of the authors for your interest and time, and for making this the most successful contest yet! Monetary prizes will be purchased shortly and sent to the authors via PM.

As always, the contest attracted many excellent stories that are well worthy of your attention. Please consider heading over to the Contest Folder to read them, and joining me in congratulating the winners!

7892229

I'm honestly stumped. I ranked? Really? And I beat BronyWriter? Even with a story that was rushed out over the course of two and a half days and has gotten only one (hasty) proofreading for typos and no editing, no improving and no fixing and finetuning because there wasn't enough time anymore to do that? This feels surreal. I need to mull this over. I didn't expect to rank at all o.o