Hey there, buckos! How about that S6 Premiere, huh? Some crazy stuff in there, pretty cool, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about the SFNW's first contest in a long, long time: the S6 Premiere Short Story Contest!

It's simple enough. Any willing contestants may write a short story about this random nameless crystal pony in that picture there. She shows up a little after the fifth minute of episode two. There are only four rules:
1. The story must be at or under 2500 words. No exceptions. I don't care if Lauren Faust herself descends from her throne to write the most glorious fanfic ever at 2501 words, anything over 2500 words will be disqualified.
2. The story must have at most a PG-13 rating. No stories with mature tags will be allowed.
3. The story must be published on FimFic between 3/26 and 4/16, and a link to this thread must be placed somewhere in the long description. You have three weeks.
4. The story must be about the pony in the picture above. You may include as many other characters as you wish, but she must be main character.
5. The story must take itself seriously. No crackfics. That doesn't mean that comedy isn't allowed, though!

And that's it! Beyond that you're free to write anything you want. You could explore her history, her future, her daily life, anything! Why is she so intent on watering these random flowers during a fatal blizzard? What is her cutie mark? Who is her long lost love? How does she secretly help to save the Crystal Empire? What is her opinion on apples? How did she beat Rainbow Dash in a flying race without any wings? How is her sister in Ponyville doing? The sky and a teen rating is the limit!

We don't have a name for this pony yet, but as of now we are referring to her as "Garden Hose." I challenge you lot to come up with something better. No, seriously, please do come up with something better.

Master18 has cleverly discovered that Garden Hose in fact has a page on the MLP wiki. Luckily she still just has a placeholder name there, but this wiki could be useful for aspiring contenders! After all, nothing makes a good background pony story like loosely strung together unrelated scenes!

Submissions should be published on FimFic and then PM'd to Mourning Zephyr, with the phrase "S6P Short Story Contest Submission" in the subject line. They will be graded by the SFNW staff, including but not limited to Mourning Zephyr, Darklordcomp, Piercing Sight, Space Jazz, and Goldenwing (that's me!).

And rewards? Well the winner will be featured on our glorious group, placed in our coveted Contest Winners folder, and reach the eyes of all of our 3500 students! The winner and two best runner-ups will also be allowed up to ten thousand words worth of personal coaching with SFNW staff for any of their other stories. Help yourself to us helping you with your own Great Equestrian Novel! Note that although there is an official 10k word cap on this coaching, we can still voluntarily choose to help you along further if we like your stuff!

So there ya have it! Anyone with questions or comments related to the contest may feel free to post in this thread, and we'll do our best to help out.

Now get out there and write some horse words!

5135122 Psst! The image isn't appearing, just so you know.

5135124
It is for me.

5135125 And this sitewide problem continues apparently...

Noo! The picture!

5135132
Yeah, a bit odd. It wasn't working for me one time I refreshed it, but now it is again. Apparently it's some issue specific to imgur or something.

Picture's fixed! Crisis averted, lads!

Nailed it!

5135137 Yep, I can see it now.

Loved that little bit with that mare and her freezing water in the background.

5135136 Imgur blacklisted Fimfic a month ago, that's why.

5135162
Just make sure you have Garden Hose in there, or it won't be eligible for the contest!

5135155
Yeah, we talked about that in the SFNW Skype chat.

5135122

Great Equestrian Novel

Already wrote it.

5135122

We don't have a name for this pony yet, but as of now we are referring to her as "Garden Hose." I challenge you lot to come up with something better. No, seriously, please do come up with something better.

Ba bump

Follow that link, my dear friends, and embark on the magical journey to meet the fair crystal pony mare, Amber Waves

5135596
While Amber Waves is a far, far better name than the random-flank one we came up with in two seconds, it's also much less amusing. We will probably be sticking with Garden Hose, though submissions are free to have Amber Waves as her name!

5135643 Bah, everypony's a critic *throws hooves in the air*

5135648

5135711 Exactly

Deadlines in nine days guys, and we still don't have any submissions! Don't make me look bad!

Two questions:

One, are we allowed to submit our fic before the deadline to make sure it gets in on time, but then re-submit it later but still before the deadline if we did some more editing and/or polishing?

Two, despite the wiki page with the placeholder name, are we still allowed to give her a different name?

5135122

Hmm.

I might have an idea. Maybe.

I'll try and get it within the time limit and word count.

5165190
Deadline's the deadline! Submitted stories will be judged based on how they are when the deadline's up.

And yes, you can give her any name you want. That's part of the fun, after all!

Gosh darn it , just when I needed something to get my creative, I show up late ugh. -grumbles annoyed-

Guise, the deadline is in like, two days.

My latest reports tell me that we have no submissions.

I mean c'mon, yer killin' me here. Is there not a single one amongst the four thousand of you that want a free in-depth review of one of your stories and some coaching? At this point you could submit complete dribble and win just by virtue of showing up.

5174495
Not yet you don't. I've still got two days, a lot of caffeine, and tests for which to avoid studying.

5135122 I completely forgot about this. Guess that explains why I have an extra story.

EDIT: Comedy's allowed, right?

5174655 Same, mate.

5174767
All genres are allowed!

5174809
That is roughly correct, aye. As to whether it's worth the attempt or not, I'm afraid that's a question only you can answer. 2500 words against your peers for the chance to win fame, fortune, and some personalized tutoring. It'd be worth it to me, but then I'm just The Man.

Damn it.

I'm sorry. I have a story idea I want to do -and probably still will- but there's no chance of getting it done in time.

Sorry!

5175076
So just for clarification, 'between 3/26 and 4/16' means that the date must read 4/15; or do we also get until the end of the 16th?

5175968

It means you have 33.5 hours.

CRAP. Gottagofast! (Totally not a Sonic reference.)

5175971 GUYS I FINISHED MY WORK!!!!

Now, wait... I'll post the link to this comment once it's done.

Link: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/325006/just-watering-this-plant

5177016

Don't forget to PM it to MourningZephyr, too!

9 hours left! Make sure that submissions are PM'd to Mourning Zephyr and meet all of the requirements!

Don't tell me what to do!

5177372 CRRRRRRRRRRRRR. IFORGOT! fast! Fast! Fast!

Edit: Done!

5175076

DONE!!!

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/325245/no-fungus-among-us

5178517 Did you, y'know, PM'd Mourning Zephyr?

5178532
Yes mom...

5178570
Yes Mr. Sassin

DEADLINES COMING UP!

Alright! Deadline's come and gone, ladies. By the final tally we've had a grand total of five submissions for this here contest, which I'm sure were all hastily written within a few days of the once-forgotten deadline!

Us judges shall be deliberating over the entries, and will be back within a few days with a declaration of the winner!

Oh yeah, here's my entry if anyone in the contest wants to check it out:

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/324672/reagent-reaper-really-resents-wrecked-relics

I already read No Fungus Among Us, and Just Watering This Plant, and look forward to checking out any others!

5178738 Mine was hastily written. I couldn't sleep.

5178773 Gud 4 u m8.

Alas! Not enough caffeine.

5178902
No; but I have to retake the class spring semester anyway so it wasn't too high a priority.

Gosh darnit. Just looked over mine again and there are several mistakes I could've fixed if I'd given it one more look over after the rush edits to bring the word count down. :P
Oh well, nothing for it now as far as the contest goes. Just have to wait and see.

Also, I've read the three submissions besides mine that had links posted here, I don't suppose the other submitter would be willing to put a link up so we can have a look? I've enjoyed seeing what others did with the prompt.

5178927
Don't worry dude, I was playing fast and loose with my verb tenses towards the end :P

5178859 You tried your best, private! You will be remembered...