You wot m8?
Oh hey guys, you remember me, and how like… ten months ago… I pre-announced a second contest. Well guess what?

The Preamble
It feels like so many of the fics that pass through these “hallowed halls” are what are colloquially known as “Hook-up fics”. And equally it’s not very often that a story will explore the relationship beyond this initial infatuation, yet this is where the real magic happens. It’s one thing to fall in love, it’s another to learn to live together and grow together. To experience life together, to move from a variable to a constant within your partner's life.

The Prompt
Four seasons of Flutterdash.

The Deadline
This contest will end and judging will begin at 11:59 pm (AWST) on Sunday the 14th of September. If any of the details of the contest change, I will extend the contest period by two weeks to Sunday the 28th of September and anyone who previously submitted will be allowed to rework and resubmit their entries.

The Rules
General
0) Submitted entries are to feature the Fluttershy x Rainbow Dash pairing past, present or future.
1) Submitted entries are to be greater than 4000 words in length.
2) Submitted entries are to have no greater than a T rating.
2a) That means no explicit descriptions of anything more “heated” than passionate kissing.
3) No content that would require the entry to be tagged “gore” will be permitted.
4) Submitted entries must be marked complete before the contest deadline.
5) Each contestant may only have one entry.
6) Entries must have been written for the contest, within the contest period.
7) None of the contest judges may have been involved in the writing, editing or pre-reading of your entry. The judges will however be available to give feedback after the end of the contest

Prompt Specific
1) Your entry must contain a story/chapter/scene taking place in each of the four seasons. The seasons do not necessarily have to take place in the same year.

Important Note
Remember you’re writing for other people here, so while you can technically write that Grimdark Human in Equestria Crossover if it fits within the rules, you’re not likely going to do too well with it. Let your common sense guide you.

Addendum
You’ll notice that I keep referring to entries instead of stories. This time around, due to the prompt, I wanted to give people the opportunity to write multiple stories as an entry if that was the direction the prompt inspired them in.

Judging
This time around I’m going to eschew the public vote from last time in favour of something less formal after the end of the contest, more on that later.

Official judging will be by a panel. Judges will be assessing entries on the quality of their prose, the quality of their plot and their handling of characters and the relationships between them.

Judging will not be blind this time around.

Each judge will elect from the entry pool, a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in their opinion. 1st places will be awarded three points, 2nd will be awarded two, and 3rd place one point. The resulting scores will be tallied and the entry with the most overall points declared winner.

The unofficial public vote will be after the judging period, I’ll set up a straw poll and you’ll vote for your favourite.

Submitting
Submit entries by PM to me. Preferred format is going to be be published to Fimfiction, but if you want to just send in a googledoc feel free. If anyone decides to write multiple stories, just bundle them all into the PM and I’ll let the judges know. .

The Prize
I’m still poor, so the prize will be the same deal as last time, a place in our front page showcase for the foreseeable future. If anyone would like to contribute anything more substantial, let me know and you’ll have my eternal gratitude.

The Judges
In no particular order the members of the judging panel are.
Titanium Dragon
Blagdaross
Jondor
Skeeter the Lurker

And that's that. The game is on. It's been a long time coming, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what you guys do with this one. Feel free to use the forums to brainstorm ideas, and if you have any questions about the contest you can PM me or just ask below. And if I've forgotten anything essential here, please let me know as soon as possible.

I'm looking forward to reading your entries.

Sincerely,
Everhopeful

EDIT: Deadline Extended!

As per the the main post, the deadline for this contest has now been pushed back two weeks, and the new deadline is Sunday the 28th of September at 11:59pm AWST. Early submission is advised for those among you who are almost already done and wish to get on with your lives.

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And away we go...

~Skeeter The Lurker

0) Submitted entries are to feature the Fluttershy x Rainbow Dash pairing past, present or future.
1) Submitted entries are to be greater than 4000 words in length.
2) Submitted entries are to have no greater than a T rating.
2a) That means no explicit descriptions of anything more “heated” than passionate kissing.
3) No content that would require the entry to be tagged “gore” will be permitted.
4) Submitted stories entries be complete.
5) Each contestant may only have one entry.
6) Entries must have been written for the contest, within the contest period.

I would change #4 to "All entries must be marked as complete by the September 14th deadline." I might also note that, seeing as this is a shipping contest, that entry #0 note that they must be (or have been) together romantically.

Also, the prompt doesn't need a number next to it, as it is the only, well, thing in its category.

Each judge will elect from the entry pool, a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in their opinion. 1st places will be awarded three points, 2nd will be awarded two, and 3rd place one point. The resulting scores will be tallied and the entry with the most overall points declared winner.

I think these rules could be broken down into bullet points.

Each judge will read all of the entries in the contest.
Each judge will select the three best entries from the contest and rank them in order from first to third.
A first place rating is worth 3 points, a second place rating 2 points, and a third place rating 1 point.
Scores from all the judges will be tallied, and the entry with the most overall points will be declared the winner.

Also, this was not mentioned anywhere in the rules:

Are people allowed to ask the judges for feedback or help editing their stories? Are the judges allowed to give feedback during the contest period?

3484664
As I am one of the official judges of this contest, I thought I'd give everyone some advice.

1) Read over your entry yourself to look for errors before you submit it. Look not only for spelling mistakes, but incorrect word usage (they're instead of their or there, for instance), grammatical errors, and bits where it just doesn't sound right, and try to smooth them out.

2) Ask for help! You're allowed to ask other people to read over your entry before it is submitted, and have them edit it or give you feedback. Take advantage of this fact! It helps, and will also help you improve as a writer, not just as a contestant. There are many places you can ask for help - here, many groups on FIMFiction, Skype groups, asking your friend, PMing someone you respect... Having anyone read over your story and give feedback is helpful, but getting specific feedback is even more helpful.

3) Hook the reader. Engage me. Interest me. Make me want to keep reading, to find out what happens next. The stronger your story is starting out, the better, and the more likely any minor mistakes you make are to be overlooked or to not end up detracting as much from your entry.

4) Keep the story flowing. Don't do things which pull me out of the story; keep me engaged the whole way through.

5) Make me believe. I think the judges all want to believe in FlutterDash, but that doesn't mean you don't have to convince them with your story.

I gave feedback on the last contest that the group held, back in 2013. If you're interested in knowing what sort of things I look for or commented on, you can look over my general comments in that post, and even perhaps look at some of the individual fic-by-fic feedback I gave.

Incidentally, I have some Steam games which I can offer up as prizes, as I noted previously. I'll cough up a list in a bit.

3484715
I knew I'd have to do something like that. Hopefully things should now be a bit clearer.

Also, the prompt doesn't need a number next to it, as it is the only, well, thing in its category.

And yet it has one. Strange.

I think these rules could be broken down into bullet points.

Well they could be... But they read just fine as is. I think. If someone later provides concrete evidence that this inconvenienced them in some way I'm going to feel pretty bad about this.

Also, this was not mentioned anywhere in the rules

Look again: The rules are now diamonds.

3484771
Freaking alchemists. I wanted gold, damn it! Diamonds are just carbon. I can get that by grabbing a lump of coal and squeezing it. Or a person. Though people diamonds tend to be all discolored and funny looking.

Not that I, you know, have ever done a thing like that.

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It's here?

It's here?

It's here!

Expect an entry from me once again. Ironic how I was just thinking about writing a FlutterDash SoL earlier today, too. Perfect timing~!

Woo! Time to get to work! My first Romance story, and it's about my favorite ship!!

What a delightfully gimmicky and hacky prompt. I love it. I have to write something. Expect gimmicks and hacks.

Huzzah! FINALLY! And I have time to write too!

Who provided the judges? A board of the Appledash group?

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Two of them are from the panel of judges from last time,
Titanium Dragon actually participated and came runner up last time
And Blagdaross is around the group more often than I am at the moment.

I asked all four of them because I know them, and I trust they'll conduct themselves reasonably professionally.

Though if you wanted to bring a little more group influence into the judging panel, I am actually looking for a fifth judge and I've been meaning to ask you if you wanted to.

A new contest with a really interesting idea for the story... And I must pass. Too busy in too many things, including a story.

But! Good luck to the participants!

3486308

You can be sure I'll have my eye on quality.

Besides, everyone knows that lightningbutt gets all the mares.

3486308
I've written more FlutterDash than I've written AppleDash.

Though I do have a first edited draft of an AppleDash fic, so that will soon change. Soon being "maybe sometime in the next X time period, as I've been sitting on it for months now". Assuming I don't randomly write a FlutterDash story in the interim.

If you're going to sully me with such accusations, at least accuse me of being on the board of the RariJack group.

Though more seriously, I wouldn't have volunteered if I wasn't interested in reading a bunch of FlutterDash stories. I noticed you have a bunch of FlutterDash on your profile, but no stories. Maybe it is time for you to get crackalackin, eh? Eh? *nudge nudge hint hint*

3486509
We'll have to teach them the secret judge handshake, then, I suppose.

Well, I've needed an excuse to write another FlutterDash story!

(Actually, I don't need an excuse at all.)

3486308
Nope, but we have our own contest too!

I'm interested in this, and I've already jotted down ideas, but I have a question regarding #0.

Do they have to be in a relationship from the start? At the moment, I've set up four chapters that take place over time. But the first is more friendshipping than actual shipping, while the second is currently a fence line confession-based chapter. Would these be alright? If not, I'll have to revise my ideas.

3486509
I unfortunately have a lot on my plate in the timespan of the contest. I'm not a native speaker of the english language, therefore writing lengthy feedback and critiques would require too much time.
So I can't join the judges panel even if I would have liked to up the representation of Flutterdashers a little.

3503797 You can comment here without beeing a member of the group? Or did you just temporally join for some cheap advertising?

3506390
The latter, mostly. Not a ship I'm interested in, but when I saw hoofbiting mention the contest, I just browsed the forum, and replied to a relevant post ;)

3506453
Calling Appledash a ship I'm not interested in is beeing (incredibly) nice. But I don't go to their group to state that fact or advertise our contests. People who want to expose themselves to Appledash can go find relevant content in the aforementioned group, certain profile pages and universal groups like Shipping. I think here is the not the place for that.
But if you want to widen your horizon, you are certainly welcome to stay.

3506483
Well, I fear I may have worded it wrong. I was simply here to browse and saw someone mention the panel being appledash judges. I simply went in to chime in that it wasn't the case, even if we had our own. I'm not here to advertise the contest itself.

3505739
That should be fine.

3506453
Tch. See, I'm just a member of every mane six shipping group at the same time. Works wonders for finding contests and adding stuff to groups.

Alas, I have not yet written a story for every group.

3505739
That's absolutely fine. The rule's basically about them being in a relationship at some point during the story. It doesn't have to either start or end that way. What you're describing is perfectly acceptable.

3506491
3506483

Rawr! Y U try to be friendly?! We no like friendly!

You're going to love me and you're going to like it.

Element of Kindness out, yo.

3506491
3508961
No kidding~

Poor Tchernobog. Ah well, I'm sure he'll live.

Probably.

2a) That means no explicit descriptions of anything more “heated” than passionate kissing.

Just to clarify: is it all right to have an intimate scene as long as it's kept subtle?

3533819
Yes, it's okay to write in ponies having an intimate moment. It's just not okay to "show" anything beyond passionate kissing. Feel free to imply or hint at whatever you want. Just no explicit descriptions.I feel like I'm stumbling in circles, is what I'm trying to say clear?

3534056

Yes, it is. Thank you.

3484664 LET'S DO THIS THANG.

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How goes the writing?

3610451
Uh... I think I'm writing a different story than the one I started because of a change of heart. >_>

3610451
Oh... I got distracted...

The deadline is in a week? Eh, there's pretty much no way I'm meeting that.

Theoretically--and this is purely theoretical, as I am straining to finish my EG fic before Rainbow Rocks releases--are fics set in the EG verse acceptable? There's some Flutterdashy subtext in my EG fic, and it might be fun to let them off the chain.

3610451
I would refer you to my blog for the full story, but the general idea is that I have to drop out as I have, right now, absolutely nothing. I've got some stuff, but not even a single chapter is complete. I'm not getting any motivation for it, and there's no way it'll be complete in time.

Guess I forgot to put that in a post here earlier. Whoops on my part.

3610451

I have bits and bobs.

3610451 I FORGOT.

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Fortunately, I came prepared for this eventuality. For those among you who haven't quite given up, and for everyone in general, I'm extending the contest deadline two weeks. Might not help all of you, but if you're lacking only for time hopefully this will help you along enough to get you over the line.

3610567
Yeah, EG is acceptable, as per the note in the main post just remember you're writing for an audience.

3616440

Thanks. The extension is very probably necessary for me. I have a couple of ideas, including two first drafts, and I've been wavering over whether to retrofit them for this contest, make them an original story, or add them to What Tomorrow May Bring (should I elect to uncancel it).

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

So. Uh. Wow. Time's up.

I don't actually know what to do at this point. Over the contest period we had a grand total of one entrant. That means they win by default. Which isn't really that much fun for anyone, but it is the ways the rules are laid out. So that's what's happening, unless we do some last minute rule changing. Which wouldn't be fair for the one participant who actually met the guidelines.

I know a bunch of you had entries in the works that for one reason or another never made it. I'll co-ordinate with our winner to see what they want to do, and with their permission only I'll see if I can't organise some kind of secondary contest or round-up.

Stay tuned.

3662802
Oh, jeez. That's terrible.

I wonder, is this a promotional problem? Or is FlutterDash not very popular? Or is everyone just really lazy like me?

3665545

The issue of why the turnout was...low to say the least...is varied across a whole number of topics.

Promotional wise...maybe it is a big deciding factor because unless you hear about this through word of mouth you're not going to know there's contest going on unless you check the Flutterdash forums. Not everyone checks the forums on a daily basis or even a weekly basis that and given the abrupt "hey it's starting now" start of this contest that might turn people off who check in to find a contest has started and find that it's already half over.

A pre-announcement (not the one that was like ten/eleven months ago) that proceeded the actual announcement would've helped because if you post something on the forums saying "Hey this is going to start in a month at this time" you're going to get more people to notice it over time and see it compared to "Oh it's starting now/already started." And thus give them some prep time and an actual date that they know it's starting But then again that might not have worked either promotion is a very tricky thing to nail down. So maybe instead of that you would have to vocalize and spread it through word of mouth which always gets...mixed results.

Honestly for me personally the promotion wasn't a problem as I saw this day one and there was enough time (especially with the extension) to make something if I really wanted to.

Flutterdash not being very popular is not accurate as we have one of the highest number of stories/members in comparison to other ships. And I see more Flutterdash stories added every month compared to others...so no Flutterdash is still alive and kicking...and it will continue to kick even if Rainbow and Flutters get paired up officially with Stallions in the show because that's how shipping rolls...isn't that right Zutara or whatever that ship is called.

Being lazy is probably the biggest reason to me, but personally I'd use a different word. That word is unmotivated. When I first saw this day one I honestly got a little excited but then I read the details I said "No thank you." I read the preamble and those four words killed it for me. And looking up at some older posts I think I see other people feeling the same way or similar. It's not a terrible prompt...far from it..it's just not good enough to make me sit down and seriously dedicate my time to.

When I sat down and thought about it for a good couple of minutes it was surprisingly difficult to come up with a story with that prompt. The prompt is strangely both too constricting and loose at the same time. It's constrict in the fact that no matter what, there has to be four sections/chapters showing these four different seasons. This of course means time skips which translates out to "There has to be four different set ups to establish what season/time frame were in and what's going on."

That's where the looseness comes in, because since it's setting up four different situations in four different time frames it's going to feel like four different stories rolled together. So essentially I was being asked to write four different stories that may or may not be loosely tied together. When I read the only contest entry I experimented and read the four sections out of order and pretended like each section had nothing to do with each other. I had little to no problems in understanding each section which begged the question "What ties these four different scenarios together and what's really connecting them outside of Flutterdash?" The answer was nothing, it wasn't a real flowing narrative and just a series of four events that couldn't draw me in. That isn't the author's fault as they were clearly bound by the structure and the prompt.

I'm not saying that the structure of showing events that aren't really connected over a long period of time is a bad thing. It's just not particularly my cup of tea. I like flowing narratives...I like going down the hallway and seeing the hallway progressively change around me to the point that when I reach the end and turn around I'm amazed by the flow of how things changed and how it ended. I don't care for or read the room by room structures where I'm being lead through a series of rooms like a tour and being shown things that have little to nothing to do with each other but are good in their own right.

That's what killed it for me personally...

That and I suck at writing so if that didn't kill it for me my anxiety and fear of getting last place would have.

And if you really wanted entries you could try making some kind of prize that essentially isn't bragging rights...if I threw down a hundred dollars right now and said "After a month whoever wins gets this!" you'd probably have like at least 10 entries within in the first two weeks guaranteed.

Maybe I'll do that...for the next contest I might chip in like 85 dollars and say "Hey first place gets 50 dollars, second gets 25, and third gets 10." And if you still get like one entry I'll be shocked...and I'll change my name to "Well that backfired spectacularly..."

:(
shame to see that only one entry was posted.... seriously, I hope it's just because writers are still writing and not just plain 'meh-ness' in regards to the new contest and whatnot. Now, I certainly wasn't planning on entering anything, but was that just everyone's mentality? That someone else would do it? Ug, I really hope this clears up soon...
~Wywint

I think Dalek Saxon summed it up very well. You see, I really wanted to participate in this. But in absolute honesty, I couldn't think of anything. Not even with a bit of help from one of my friends. And the last thing I wanted to do was force something out just for the sake of it. So while I tried to think about what to do, nothing was working. The prompt, as Dalek said, was too constricting and yet too loose. It seemed a little complex for something so simple. It didn't hit me until now, so it makes sense why it was so hard.

For the previous contest, the prompt was simply FlutterDash having to overcome an issue, be it internal or external. That right there is simple, but very effective and plants the seeds just right. Having something that's vague and tells us nothing doesn't really work all too well for the kind of contest being put together. You'd have to pretty much incorporate seasons into it more naturally. Like, for example.

Winter: The prompt is that Rainbow and Fluttershy go on a winter vacation.

Having only the season in there but with no real theme within it makes it vague. So I think what needed to be adjusted for this was the prompt itself. When you go to someone and say "Write a story about a girl", that tells them absolutely nothing about what they can build on. But if you say something like, "Write a story about a girl struggling in school", right there you have much more of a solid idea for what to do.

With an adjustment to the prompt, I think we might have more to work with.