Lets see what our Judges have to say!

The Honorable and Pontificating PegasusKlondike... Chimicherry or Cherrychonga?

Isn't it obvious? Cherrychonga!

The Young and Net-savvy Not Dan... Chimicherry or Cherrychonga?

My lawyer tells me not to answer that question.

The Rising Star and Insightful Master Mourning Zephyr... Chimicherry or Cherrychonga?

Chimicherry. A Cherrychonga killed my parents.

Hmm... Well, there you have it folks! The answer should be clear as cupcakes! And that answer is:

BeauZoe: Thank you Pinkie. I'll take it from here. Last month our contest was centered around Description of Setting. This month we're flipping the coin and focusing on Use of Dialogue. As a category, it will be graded by the following:

We have a pair of tasty prompts for you to sink your teeth into:

Prompt #1: An Equestrian market is a busy place. Ponies come and go. Wares are bought and sold. Above all though, they're always loud and exciting. Your task is to send this little pony to the market. The character can be canon or an OC, but the objective is to have them talk to a pony (or ponies). Gossip, haggling, the weather, or the latest antics of Pinkie Pie. All are valid topics of discussion at the market.

Prompt #2: "Don't talk to strangers." Everybody's heard that phrase before, and it's good advice. Let's totally ignore it. Write a story about two ponies who have never met or heard of each other before, having a conversation. What's the cause of this idle chat? Where will it lead? You decide. At least one of the ponies must be a canon character.

Of course, that is not to say that you should focus on dialogue to the exclusion of all else. A balanced story is a far better achievement. Just make it a goal to do better at that skill as you write. That's all we ask, and all we are looking for as your Judges.

For the most part, we'll be using the official SFNW contest rules. If you've read it already, check it again. I've updated the entry rules and submission guidelines to make it easier for members to submit.

There will be a significant change to the prizes for this contest.

Stories which place in the top three will be honored and given the review/summary they deserve, plus these prizes.
~ First Place: The winner gets a prominent spot on the group main page, with a hyperlink to both the story and the author's user page and a thumbnail of their avatar. Their story gets placed in the Main folder of the SFNW, to be seen on the feed of every member who has their notifications on. Their story gets a unique art award which can be placed in the stories description.
~ Second Place: Their story gets a hyperlink and a mention as second place winner, below the winning entry. Their story gets a unique art award which can be placed in the stories description.
~ Third Place: Their story gets a unique art award which can be placed in the stories description.

All story submissions go to me, BeauZoe, who will be handling logistics but not judging. Any questions regarding the contest or the prompts can be posted here, where they will be answered by either me or the judges.

THE DEADLINE FOR STORY SUBMISSION IS...

Pinkie: I'm so nervecited!
BeauZoe: That's not even a word.
Pinkie: But it works!
BeauZoe: Sigh... she's right.

Pinkie's snout looks like an evil face.

Just thought you should know that, man who is overly addicted to Pinkie Pie.

1054530
*sniff* am not.
Are too!
You stay out of this.
I'm being adorable and you can't stop me!
God I love her...

How long do the stories have to be? Does it matter?

1055017 In the Official SFNW Contest Rules it says that "an entry should be no more than 5000 words long". And since the stories have to follow Fimfiction rules too, I think the stories should be about 1,000–5,000 words.

1055017
The answer is in the rules (link)
But the short of it is that we're hoping entries won't reach to far past the 5000 word mark, because the judges all have short attention... oh, a shiny!

The entry is also allowed to be incomplete at the time of judging. Meant to allow an entry to simply be the beginning of something bigger.

1055059>>1055075 Oh... thanks... I went straight to writing and kind of skipped reading the rules. I read them for the last contest (although I didn't get to submit anything...) and I guess I figured they'd be the same. Unless I just missed it the last time in which case I should probably read them more carefully...

1055132

Oh silly. You gotta read the rules Dashie!

The May contest was the first time I've done anything like hold a contest, so there are bound to be some changes as I gradually become a master at this stuff. I'll state in each contest if I did make any changes though.

1055075

A shiny?! Where?! I love shiny things!

1055204
I found a bunch of shiny boxes over there. Oh, and this cake, which tastes awesome by the way.

1055189 Right. I'll remember that. I mostly just scrolled down to the prompts... Now I know what NOT to do...

What's with the slice of life prompts? ;a;

1055525
Who says they have to be Slice of Life? You are free to make them black markets (dark - but no gore) Have the two characters fall in love at first sight (romance - but no sex) Adventure is just a single step from SoL, and no one has forbidden the use of Humans or Alternate Universes. Are these prompts really slice of life? Or do they merely look like it? Nay, your mind is simply closed around the idea of SoL. You now shall have the power to decide!

1055594 and i decided they all sound like slice of life

Going to give this a go, should time allow for it!

1056082

Since that would still follow the prompts, I'm going to say yes.

I'll give this a go. Usually I'm horrible at these things, but maybe I can manage to write something half-bad.

Hopefully this won't end up with only one submitter like some of the older ones did.

1056516
The older ones weren't run by me.

As you can see, massive ego

The May contest got a total of 4 entries. 4! I feel so proud.

So according to the official SFNW contest rules the story must be on fimfiction. But does it need to be submitted to the site or are we allowed/are we able to send a link to something published but not submitted to the site? And would one be preferable to you?

1060200

Your story doesn't have to be submitted to the site. We just, obviously, need to be able to access it. My personal preference would be unsubmitted, but it's purely your choice.

1056560 The first contest Goldy ran had 4 entries, I think. :P

1060310
The first one had four. The second one had three. The third one had only one (I felt lonely). Then I can't remember how many the fourth and fifth one had.

1060387 My first one had one, and my second had none, I think.

1055075
if it is part of something bigger
is the story allowed to be longer that 5k but ask that only the fist x chapter be considered for the contest?
ie. let's say we have a +5k story that is not published and the scene happens in the first chapter (<5k)
by the time the month is over are we allowed to publish extra chapters that are not for the contest just for the story itself.
ex. Longs story name published june 18
chapter 1 3500words published june 18
chapter 2 5000works published june 22
PM for contest

author name
story name
only first chapter is to be taken into account, thank you

or something like that, or are we not only supposed to have the story chapter published until the contest expires

1061342

From the Contest Rules:

~ An entry must not, at any time prior to the contest, have been submitted to Fimfiction, period. You may post the story during the time of the contest. However, your stories reception on Fimfiction will have no effect on judging.

~ For time-constraint reasons, an entry should be no more than 5000 words long. We may accept a little overflow... but not much. It is also allowed to have stories which are significantly shorter, but they will be judged with the longer ones, by the same rules. If your story turns out to have significantly more than the allowed word count, we will judge only the starting chapters, up to the point where it exceeds the count.

Judging only begins after the deadline for submissions has come and gone. If you add chapters before then that do not make the story exceed 5,000 words, those chapters will be taken into account for judging.

1063651 thank you, should have read the words more carefully

another question concerning the story's length.
how much is a little overflow. my story is done and I am now at 5134.
should i tell my proofreader/editor to try to trim it down. or can I mess around this value.

1081674

See if you can trim it down to the limit, but just over a hundred words of overflow is fine.

1081808 down to 5098 and sent in

Question on Prompt #2, must the canon character have an established personality?

1087206
Nope.
Edit: But it might help.

1054421
Question, can your character talk to multiple strangers?

Do we submit the stories to the site ourselves? Or should we (Royal 'we' I guess, as in 'I.') Send them to one of you guys?

1112325

It's covered in the official SFNW contest rules.

1112354

My bad.

Thanks, I'll check it out right meow.

1112283
Yes. Assuming you're referring to prompt #2, it is certainly allowable to have the character talk to multiple strangers. Then again, the prompt does ask for a conversation to happen between two strangers specifically. Perhaps if you had one particular conversation stand out above the rest...