Welcome!

We’re back! The last time that we ran a contest only for stories that are exactly a thousand (1000) words long, it was a tremendous success, with amazing results. So we are doing it again! Until 2023 Jul 30, we hope to see stories from you that are the minimum length to be publishable on FIMFic and not a single word longer!

Like last time, we will be splitting up this contest into five categories, which are a bit different this time. They are now based on genre tags, except for Experimental, which by its nature cannot be so constrained!

Categories!

Drama

• Required Tag: Drama

• Tag Description:

  This type of story focuses on the realistic, emotional reactions of characters involved in some serious life-affecting problem. It explores the various characters’ conflicting feelings between each other and within themselves.

• Examples:

  EStarry Darling

  • MLP: FiM
  • Drama
  • Slice of Life

  Starlight just needed a push in the right direction, that's all.

  • OC
  • Starlight Glimmer
  • Firelight

  Climaclysm · 1000 words  ·  47  0 · 870 views
  TDo You Remember?

  • Equestria Girls
  • Drama
  • Sad
  • Tragedy

  Sunset wonders just how much Wallflower remembers of her.

  • Death
  • Alt. Universe
  • Sunset Shimmer
  • Wallflower Blush

  The Sleepless Beholder · 1000 words  ·  37  7 · 964 views
  TAs Above, So Below

  • MLP: FiM
  • Drama
  • Sad
  • Tragedy

  A mare flies into the sky with her balloon, a mare returns to the earth without her balloon.

  • Death
  • Cherry Berry

  Reviewfilly · 1000 words  ·  76  6 · 1.1k views

Slice of Life

• Required Tag: Slice of Life 

• Tag Description:

  A story focusing on daily, normal experiences. Unlike adventure, the story is not driven by action or discovery of new, exciting things, rather bringing the mundane to attention, such as attending school or a dinner party.

• Examples:

  EOf Rocks and Gems

  • MLP: FiM
  • Romance
  • Slice of Life

  A quiet evening has a rock considering a gem.

  • Alt. Universe
  • Rarity
  • Maud Pie

  Snow Quill · 1000 words  ·  37  2 · 535 views
  ELaundromat

  • MLP: FiM
  • Slice of Life

  Doing laundry is always a chore, and sometimes I envied my pony neighbor for rarely having to do laundry. Until I found out she wasn't allowed to wash her blankets.

  • Human
  • OC
  • Other

  Admiral Biscuit · 1000 words  ·  406  5 · 3.6k views
  EWednesdays Are Sacred

  • Equestria Girls
  • Slice of Life

  Mr. and Mrs. Cake choose to commit a murder in their kitchen. A feelgood story.

  • Mr. Cake
  • Mrs. Cake
  • Cake Twins
  • Pinkie Pie (EqG)

  Aragon · 1000 words  ·  236  10 · 2.1k views

Horror

• Required Tag: Horror

• Tag Description:

  The purpose of horror stories is to scare, terrify or otherwise horrify your readers by inducing fear through what happens to the characters or building a justified expectation of things going to end up badly for them.

• Examples:

  TShould Something Be Missing?

  • MLP: FiM
  • Horror

  Pinkie Pie doesn’t feel like herself. She’s not sure if she wants to feel like herself, either.

  • Alt. Universe
  • Pinkie

  RDT · 1000 words  ·  48  4 · 962 views
  TThere is no Mare in the Shadows

  • MLP: FiM
  • Dark
  • Horror

  There's nothing to be afraid of in the darkness. No matter what the stories say.

  • Death
  • Other

  Equimorto · 1000 words  ·  32  0 · 701 views
  TWomb

  • Equestria Girls
  • Dark
  • Horror

  We must have shared a womb. Sometimes twins eat each other in the womb.

  • Death
  • Gore
  • Sunset Shimmer

  mushroompone · 1000 words  ·  132  7 · 2.5k views

Comedy

• Required Tag: Comedy

• Tag Description:

  Stories marked with the comedy tag focus on humor, but aren’t necessarily limited to slapstick or randomness. Comedy can be random or it can focus on a subject and draw the ludicrousness of an aspect of it to the fore through more subtle dialogue or scene descriptions. The point is to bring a smile or a laugh to the reader. Sometimes situations are ridiculous or the reactions of the characters are at odds with expectations. As long as the purpose of the story is humorous, this tag can be used.

• Examples:

  TA Stitch (Or Nine) Saves Thine

  • MLP: FiM
  • Dark
  • Comedy
  • Slice of Life

  Sweetie Belle is... special. The kind of special that needs unique care and attention. The kind that creates all sorts of hard-to-solve problems. But Rarity always rises to the task. Because she's her sister. And big sisters fix things.

  • Gore
  • Rarity
  • Sweetie Belle

  TheDriderPony · 1000 words  ·  355  7 · 3.2k views
  EGull Sentry

  • MLP: FiM
  • Comedy
  • Random

  He will eat all of your fries.

  • Shining Armor
  • Flash Sentry

  daOtterGuy · 1000 words  ·  114  3 · 1.2k views
  TThe Sweet Sounds of Spring

  • MLP: FiM
  • Comedy

  Fluttershy finds birdsong wonderful. Regardless of what that birdsong is about.

  • Profanity
  • Sex
  • Fluttershy

  Rambling Writer · 1000 words  ·  313  4 · 2.8k views

Experimental

• Required Tag: N/A
• Category Description: Fics that defy convention in format, tone, focus, form, or something too unexpected to appear on this list

• Examples:

  EWhat am I?

  • MLP: FiM
  • Sci-Fi

  A domestic appliance starts thinking.

  • Twilight
  • OC

  PseudoBob Delightus · 1000 words  ·  26  2 · 385 views
  E🙂🥡🦄🌎

  • MLP: FiM
  • Random

  Pinkie is extremely unsettled when the words comprising the story she's in are suddenly replaced by emojis.

  • Pinkie
  • Main 6

  Thought Prism · 1000 words  ·  36  12 · 1.2k views
  EExciting Words and Phrases Regarding Four-Legged Equine Mammals, and Your Future Business Ventures Therein!

  • MLP: FiM
  • Comedy
  • Random

  Invest in magic! Conquer Equestria! All this can be yours*! (*for a fee, payable to goat.)

  • Other

  Silent Whisper · 1000 words  ·  38  2 · 427 views
  TAlicorn Ascentionism Tantamount to Plothole

  • MLP: FiM
  • Drama
  • Sci-Fi

  A sentient fanfic dreams of becoming a real show.

  • Twilight
  • Spike
  • Luna

  Botched Lobotomy · 1000 words  ·  32  2 · 776 views

Prizes!

All prize amounts will be sent by PayPal. If you are unable or unwilling to receive money by PayPal, alternative arrangements in the past have included redirecting winnings to other people, or a donation to a mutually agreed-upon charity.

In each category, at least three prizes will be awarded:

• Gold Medal: $50
• Silver Medal: $35
• Bronze Medal: $20

Depending on turnout and judge discussions, other prizes and Honorable Mentions may be added.

Judges!

I am very excited to announce that each of these wonderful people that made the awful mistake of agreeing to judge this contest with me last time have done me the honor of repeating their mistake! Including myself, here is the full list:

• Bicyclette
• FanOfMostEverything
• Petrichord
• applezombi

Please keep in mind that while judges can encourage authors to enter and be excited that they are, they are not allowed to preread, edit, or brainstorm any entries with the author before the contest results are released! In addition, judges are required to withhold commenting on entries until after the release of contest results.

Community!

The group A Thousand Words has been created to both host the contest and collect stories that are exactly a thousand (1000) words long. Please join the group to have contest updates in your feed as well as to submit your entry into the category subfolders of the A Thousand Words Contest II Submission Folder, which is an official requirement.

Rules!

1. The story must be exactly a thousand (1000) words long as seen on its card or longdesc. It does not matter if the word counter in Google Docs, Scrivener, or even the FimFic editor says a thousand (1000) words, all that matters is what the website says!
2. The gratuitous use of non-words, weird formatting, or other trickery to get a story to exactly a thousand (1000) words is not allowed, and we will be checking. The exceptions to this are Experimental and Comedy fics. In those, feel free to use whatever non-words, weird formatting, or other trickery you please!
3. T-rated and E-rated stories may be of any rating or content. M-rated stories may be disqualified, so authors are encouraged to clear the content with a judge ahead of time to make sure this does not happen. No pornography, erotica, or mindless gorefests.
4. Stories based on Equestria Girls, Pony Life, the My Little Pony comics, and G5 are allowed.
5. AUs, crossovers, sequels, and side stories are allowed as long as they can be understood without having read their source material.
6. The deadline is 2023 Jul 30 7:59PM ET (2359 30/07/2023 UTC). Stories must be published and completed, and placed in the appropriate subfolders of the A Thousand Words Contest II Submissions folder by this time in order to qualify. There will be no extensions.
7. The only way an entry not meeting the above to be eligible is for the author to PM me, Bicyclette, the contents of the fic before the contest deadline (a fic password, or link to a public Google Docs, or the text of the story itself). If you are cutting it close to the deadline and might get stuck in the queue, please do this just in case.
8. Authors may submit a single fic into multiple categories, but can only submit up to one fic in any particular category. Thus, the maximum number of fics an author can submit is five, with one in each category.
9. Pre-readers and editors are freely allowed. Co-authors are not allowed.
10. If you feel like your idea,  despite technically meeting all these rules, might go against what we might reasonably expect from a good-faith entry, or if you have any questions or want to clarify anything, please don't be afraid to discuss it with me, Bicyclette! The last thing we want is for you to spend a lot of time working on an entry and then have it not qualify at the end. We understand there will always be corner cases to consider.
11. As I, Bicyclette, must interact with all entrants, please keep in mind my DNI policy, which disqualifies accounts with published fics of a certain subset of pornographic material. This is the only requirement based on factors outside of the actual submission itself.

Other Contests

Feel free to submit entries to this contest to other contests as well, if applicable! Here are some that are running as of this post:

• The May Pairings Contest, ending 2023 May 31.
• The Cyberpunk Equestria Story Contest, ending 2023 Jun 01.
• The Sunset Shimmer x Villains Shippers’ Group’s Sunset x Villain Period Piece Contest, ending 2023 Jun 11.

That's it!

Good luck!

7840975
Finally, something I can finish without conceptualizing a whole ass novel.

I-it... it's back?

hmm, first, perhaps?

7841185
congratulations! that was quick!

Can we make multiple submissions?

7843283

Authors may submit a single fic into multiple categories, but can only submit up to one fic in any particular category. Thus, the maximum number of fics an author can submit is five, with one in each category.

Hopefully there are more prizes because this is way too many people to compete with, LOL.

Also, oh man, there is one more day in July! Too bad the deadline can't be tomorrow...oof!

7843983

When will the contest results be revealed? :)

7865747
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/216361/a-thousand-words/thread/521965/contest-results-deadline-2023-sep-17