EDIT: The contest has been upgraded!

This thread has outdated info, please see the newer, updated thread here! http://www.fimfiction.net/group/574/transformations/thread/219880/upgraded-3000-member-celebration-transformation-story-contest-with-over-150-in-cash-prizes

Original post as follows....

3000 Member Celebration! New TF story contest with cash prizes!
Are you guys seeing what I’m seeing? Our humble group has flown past 3000! That’s a lot of people interested in mares transforming into stallions, humans, dragons, changelings, griffons, dolls, and everything else under the sun. And hey, we’re now a top 20 group here on FimFic

To celebrate this milestone, and to help you authors get your creative juices flowing, we’re holding the largest ever transformation story contest we’ve had. The theme of this contest is writing a transformation story around some classic story tropes! Tropes have gotten to be fairly famous due to sites like TVTropes, so most of you probably already know what they are. But right about know some of you might be asking "Uh, what's a story trope?". Well, it’s basically a common theme in storytelling that most people will recognizes. For example, ever notice how in most gender transformation stories, it’s usually males turning into females rather than the other way around? And likewise in cartoons or comedy skits about crossdressing, it's usually males dressing up as females? Funny how much common that type of gender bending is across all forms of media. Well there you go, that sort of phenomenon is explained as a common trope you see in stories.

This story contest highlights and celebrates the story themes that we all know and love. There are literally million of story tropes out there, take a tour around TVtropes (and look up your favorite movies or stories) and you're very quickly learn just how varied and well documented people have made them.

Enough about tropes, let's talk about our contest! I’ll get to the specific rules in a moment, but first off let’s take a look at those sweet, sweet prizes.
PRIZES!
1st place - $40
2nd place - $20
3rd place - $10

Winners will also receive a potion that turns them into a pony of their choice! Ah, sorry, gonna have to scrap the potion reward. Still working the kinks out of those potions, they keep flipping the gender of all the test subjects, not to mention the changes to their libido...
Well, nevermind those, we have a contest to host, and a membership milestone to celebrate! 3000 member celebration, with three cash prizes! And when we say cash prizes, we mean it! We aren’t handing out giftcards to McDonalds here, the winners will get their $$ as a direct cash prize that they can spend anywhere. Though, if I had to make a suggestion, I’d say invest in some new horseshoes and maybe a wool saddle since we’re headed into winter and the enchanted gas we’ve been pumping into your bedrooms should start to kick off your transformations soon that.... Hmm, I’m being told by the other admins that I wasn’t supposed to disclose that last part. Well, nevermind then! Just use your cash rewards to buy... um... whatever things you would normally buy if you were totally not about to turned into various creatures.

Crap, I think the readers are onto us. Um, need a distraction...
STORY CONTEST RULES!
The rules for this competition are as follows and should look familiar to group veterans, but with a few additional rules.
1: The theme of this contest is common story tropes, so your story must contain at least three story tropes and you must list the tropes you use.
1b:Using subtropes of one trope won’t count towards the total. That is to say, the trope of Gender Bender counts, but listing each of the three laws of Gender-bending [1, 2, and 3] would only count as one and wouldn’t count as three.
2: At least one of the tropes must be a transformation focused one. If you want a challenge, consider making all 3 tropes related to transformation themes.
3: Your story must be between 3K-15K words.
4: You have one month to submit your story to this contest, with the final date of submissions being 11/11/15.
5: Stories must be rated Everyone or Teen, so no on screen sexual content, no excessive gore, etc
6: No deliberate bronies in the story. You can have human to pony transformation, but try to avoid the type of story like “this is the story of WoodenToaster turning into his OC!”
7: Must be an original story specifically for this contest. Continuing your story after the contest ends is fine.
8: Submit your fics for the contest to DDRMASTERM or TwistedSpectrum and we'll upload them to a google doc and post the links once the voting phase begins. For the sake of anonymity, do not state what fic you wrote until after the contest ends.

That last rule may be a bit unexpected so let me explain it quickly. We want the submissions to be anonymous so people aren't voting just because they know the author or because they have on crush on the author's OC or something. So instead of publishing your story on FimFic and voting there, the submissions will be linked to on Google Docs.
Then, after the contest, everyone should post their story on FimFic. It's just during this brief submission and voting phase that we ask that you don't make the story public on FimFic.

As always, post any questions below, and best of luck with your stories! Have fun with it! Win some cash! Last chance to write something before everyone's hands will turn into hooves at midnight on 11/11/15!

I may think up a question or two later, but I have to say right now, that this was the funniest post I have ever seen!

4775338

And I've been wanting to write a new transformation fic

And may I ask: can a collab fic be sent in?

Oh man, I just found out that TVTropes has a random trope button. First, that probably counts a warcrime against productivity. Second, now I really want to see if I can't generate my three tropes at random. Let's spin the wheel and see what I get!

Tropes:
1)Ferris Wheel Date Moment
2)Anti-hero
3)Full Circle Revolution

Okay, that's not a great first attempt. This was either the worst idea I've ever had, or the best. Let's try again and see what comes up.

1) Quirky Curls
2) Differently Dressed Duplicates
3) Divine Assistance

Awesome, that's a lot easier to work with! So we have someone being turned into Pinkie Pie during the whole mirror clone and... damn it! That's already a story.

Okay, last time.

1) Manly Gay
2) Tin-Can Telephone
3) Public Domain Soundtrack

I think the random button is trolling me

What if I'm dumb and can't figure out the whole tropes thing... I'm asking for... A friend...

4775338

Last chance to write something before everyone's hands will turn into hooves at midnight on 11/11/15!

If I used a speech-to-text program, could I ignore the deadline?

I think this would probably work better if you gave a limited list of those tropes to choose from. Like, tvtropes has become so bloated and fidelous (not that that is inherently a bad thing) that I don't think it's possible to write a three thousand word story without being able to find three pages you could hypothetically stick it on. I think the fun of a themed contest is seeing what new directions people will take with stuff when they're a bit limited, so singling out a couple of TF cliches to choose from would make me more interested.

Actually, uh, I note that there's absolutely no mention of it being a transformation related fic at all, heh. I'm almost tempted not to mention that and write something exploiting that loophole myself, but...

4775483 That would be hilarious. Or write a story where the protag uses loopholes to avoid all the transformation attempts XD
Maybe this list? http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShapeShifting

4775338 You say no deliberate bronies. As in no specific individual or no bronies?

4775483
Agreed. I haven't been able to write properly since forever ago and when I saw this I was hoping it'd get my creative juices flowing, but I'm not really hype about this one. I might join, but I can't make any promises.

4775483

I personally disagree with this.

If its 'just' three different tropes + transformation, we should see some really crazy variation in stories. Shouldn't that be more fun for both readers and writers than a more narrow theme?

I'm in, it's about time I did something new.

4775483
I concur with this. Stories are quite literally made of tropes. You can write anything, as long as it's more than a few sentences, and there will be plenty of tropes to choose from. Even trying not to use a trope… is a trope. It's too general to be a theme; you might as well say the theme is words.

Hey. I want to donate $100 to the prize pot. You can distribute it however you like.

4775755
Well the point of the contest was not to make it a narrow spectrum of stories, if anything we are trying to get *more* people to publish new and unexpected things, not constrain people into only being able to publish the same story using the same template. Throwing in the "name your tropes" thing was to just a way to encourage people to deliberately plan out a blueprint for a new story, and to write something new in the next 30 days and not just submit some old story draft they wrote 6 months ago and forgot to publish.

That being said, I do see your point about this maybe being "too vague" I talk with the other guys organizing this and see what they think.

4776103
See, I think that 4776353 is right in regards to this: if you tell people to try to use tropes intentionally, they're likely going to do stuff very by-the-book, and we'll get some forgettable examples of unoriginal stories. There might be more variety in the contest, but that just sort of makes it harder (or easier, in a way) to compare them, and people will vote just based on who picked the tropes they liked.

I think if you lay down a more explicit framework, people are going to do their best to break out from it and do something that subverts the basis and lets them stick out from the crowd. I'm interested in seeing someone - a bunch of someones - take an old template, and see what kind of new story they can fit into it.

Maybe it's just coincidence of the things I've seen, but I feel like every time I see a prompt where there's a really obvious interpretation, everyone does their best not to write that.

4776448

Maybe it's just coincidence of the things I've seen, but I feel like every time I see a prompt where there's a really obvious interpretation, everyone does their best not to write that.

Except for that one guy who anticipates exactly that and writes it straight to stand out from the stand-outs.

4776353 4776448 I see your points, though we are trying to allow considerable freedom while having some challenge for the writers so we'll see into how much we want to tighten guidelines.
4775978 Note taken. We'll get back to you on that.

4775495 We mean that the story shouldn't include bronies. We aren't particularly interested in seeing the contest becoming crowded with self insert stories (also, we're preserving transformations contest tradition with the prohibition). But including a human in your story is fine.
4775419 Tropes are common writing conventions that (literally) everybody uses. TVtropes is dedicated to cataloguing them. Just look for some tropes to use, as well as at least one transformation trope under current rules, and you should be good to go.

4776554 Would 'pony on earth' be frowned on?

4776597 If you have an idea along those lines that fits the contest's guidelines, then go for it. As a certain youtuber has said, there are no bad ideas, only bad executions.

4776614

Quietly writes pony on earth okay down

And as I asked earlier: are collBodations okay?

4776642 The main problems with that are that we'd have to split the prize money between the collaborators and it might give an unfair advantage against most other writers, who probably aren't going to do that. I'd personally advise against it myself, but if other admins don't have a problem with it, we might allow it.

4776658

Okay, I just wanted to ask since it didn't mention

A TF writing contest? Tropes? Cash money? Our lord and savior TwistedSpectrum?

When I see a human world that deliberately excludes bronies, I keep wondering what was wrong with those humans, such that unlike in reality, they didn't come up with the show? Sure it excludes terrible narcissistic OC self inserts, but it also takes away a feeling of reality. Like, this is a world of human-like creatures who are incapable of dreaming up the pony show, generally due to being super serious and larger than life. I rarely see a world where other similar shows exist for instance, and the pony show just coincidentally was never a thing.

"Wow! You look just like Herplight Derple from My Little Llama!"

Just my thoughts. I don't think you need to change the contest or anything.

4776751

I'd hardly call the absence of one show—even a excellent one like FiM, the same as the world being devoid of creativity.

Could just have been a shift in trends or something, that caused what to us become a decade long franchise to just quietly wither from disinterest. A fantasy show during a sci-fi wave, for example. Or in some ways even more tragic, just plain old miss-handling.

Like, say, The Centurions. Solid animated action show for the time, but it just never took off due to a horrible time-slot giving it only middling ratings. Quite a few networks just quietly dropped it for that reason despite those that did see it generally liking it.

But you can tell, the core of the same deal as MLP could have been there. Merchandise driven. Solid characters. Good action. An interesting world.

Just with cyborgs, power-armor and jet-packs instead of ponies, magic and friendship.

At least for me, its not that hard to imagine a world were we just got The Centurions: Camaraderie Is Nano-tech or whatever, while the pilot of The Adventures of Meggan and Friends collects dust in a basement somewhere because the wrong boss didn't think it would sell.

And neither of that would be because one is and the other isn't creative. One story just got a bit luckier during the early years, letting it build cultural momentum enough to reach franchise status. For Want of a Nail, so to say.

Still, I'm digressing rather heavily from the topic. Just wanted to say my two cents on the topic.

4776984
Yeah, I didn't mean devoid of creativity. I meant like... Lauren never existed, Bonnie never existed, maybe not even a toy culture, or stuff about collectibles, or animals. It's just a really different situation, generally in browner shades, deeper into nihilist suburbia, or with more metal plating on everything. It's really easy to underestimate just how much of an effect MLP has had on our culture... and fantasy animals in general. It doesn't even have to be ponies, but, with pieces taken out of it, even a human world just starts falling into the realm of unreality. ...which can actually be kind of cool. Just, doesn't have that hit home punch that "Oh hey that could have happened just down the street" stories have.

4776994

When you put it like that, I get what you mean. Inspiration is one of those 'butterfly effect' things that's almost awe inspiring if you think about it.

Still, I liked how All American Girl did it. MLP in that universe happened, but as one of those cheap-ish children shows with actors next to puppets. It hung around for a few years, but only became a household name and revived years later when 'the alien horse girl' (read: earth pony filly) got pushed into the lime-light and somebody made a conectoin.

So in that universe MLP happened, and eventually became a franchise, but FiM never happened.

In other words, there's always a way to have your cake and eat it too on ideas like this. You just have to be creative enough.

4775338
→Goes onto TV Tropes, intent on finding a list of transformation tropes
→Spends half an hour reading about gender benders
→Leaves TV Tropes, satisfied that he accomplished something
→Realizes that he never found that list

TV Tropes is fun.

Edit: After getting lost for another half-hour, I found it. Here is the shapeshifting trope list, for anyone who doesn't want to venture in without a map.

4777026
Ah, yeah I kinda never read that one on account of I reeeeeally don't find ironically unironic jingoism to be very entertaining. Or My Little Dashie scenarios. or canon/oc pairings *dodge* Off topic though. Only thing I was saying is a no bronies "tradition" excludes some worrying false positives, and people adhering to it should be aware of how the existence of the my little pony show is sorta important to some of us around here.

4777380

You could read the first chapter of it no problem, the backstory is really well thought out and presented well.

The Jingoism is a reaction to events that occurred in the past. Not 'America, FUK'YA!', but rather 'After what people did trying to get me to go to Equestria I really like my home country instead. No really, I do. I'm being really serious, please stop asking me to go visit Equestria!'

There are issues I have with the story but the background was one of the most brilliant parts, in chapter 1.

4779082
I'd discuss it with you over PM, but I really, really hate debating things, when I could be writing stories instead.

4775385
I had that idea too upon seeing the contest! I'm tempted to do random tropes too, but I guess if at least one of them has to be a transformation trope I might as well just pick them by hand.

Anyways, even without the cash prizes, this is a fantastic motivation to get me writing again and to stop lurking. Thanks for hosting this, TS!

4775338 Oh, quick question. What is the stance on pre-readers? I know we're supposed to be maintaing some level of anonimity, but how hard and fast is that rule?

4836493 Yeah, I want to know if pre-readers are okay as well.

4840549
4836493
Pre readers are totally okay! Obviously we can't stop you from sharing your story with your friends and asking pre readers for feedback, that much is basically expected.

We just didn't want people to publish their stories and for some stories to be on the front page and get tons of views due to an author's followers or something, it makes the contest a bit less fair to new authors.

Also, HUGE NEWS guys!

The contest has been upgraded!

Prize pool massively increased!

Deadline extended for three more weeks!

Stay tuned, I'll be making a new post tomorrow explaining everything. And keep writing! The contest rules still apply, things are just getting fancier and the rewards are higher!