Competition » The "New Blood" Contest · 12:05am June 23rd
[EDIT]: After some debating among the judges, we decided the minimum account age allowed will be 2020 instead of 2021. Makes more sense this way.
At Bean’s Writing Group, we have always done our best to help authors, be they seasoned or novice, struggling or not, take their writing to the next level. But now we want to put the spotlight on the smaller, more recent authors – those who had joined way after the end of G4, and who might find normal contests daunting because of the competition of established, more experienced authors.
This is a chance for you guys to shine and show what the new generation can bring to the table!
For this contest, entries won't be confined to a specific set of characters, a genre, or any other narrow set of requirements. Instead, we will employ the system BWG is most known for: prompts.
There will be a single topic all writers must employ in some way. Additionally, there will be four known bonuses (see next section), which the writers might attempt to fulfill. The best three stories will earn the three podium rewards. Furthermore, for each bonus, the best story (from those that did not place elsewhere) will earn a reward of its own.
And what is "the best story"? Simply the most original and engaging one. Your creativity of your take on the prompt will determine your success, combined with the quality of your technique and overall impact.
As far as the bonus goes, you will be judged for the quality of integration – that is, whether it’s tacked on or not – and the impact of the bonus compared to its absence. General story quality (as described above) will also play a role in the judgment, albeit a reduced one.
In the end, your writing will speak for itself – your notoriety and clout are meaningless.
Participation requirements
To preserve the spirit and aims of the contest, there are some entry rules that must be followed in order to qualify:
- All stories must state in their long description their involvement in this contest, with a link to the group.
- All Stories must be submitted to the group's contest folder. The ones from non-eligible participants must be added to an alternative folder created for them.
- No entries published before the official start of the contest (1st July 12:01 AM PDT) or after the cutoff (31st July 11:59 PM PDT). But you can start writing as soon as this announcement is posted.
- Participant accounts must not have been created before 2020, as this contest is for newer members of the community. Participant accounts must also not have been created after this announcement was posted. This is to prevent older authors joining under an alternate account.
- Participant accounts must not have ever reached 100 or more followers before the announcement of the contest.
- No alts, of any kind, created at any point in time.
Past and current members of BWG discord server may submit entries, as can any other writers excluded by the clauses above, and they will count towards the total number of participants. These entries should be submitted in this folder. However, they will not be eligible for any prizes as stated above to avoid a potential conflict of interest.
General rules
These are the general rules, which may experience changes and revisions during the course of the contest if the need arises (although we do not expect they will). The rules are as follows:
- Only one entry per participant.
Only entries submitted during the contest period.
- If your entry is awaiting approval on the queue, you may notify the contest hosts as well as provide a password for the story in case it won't make it in time.
- Maximum length of the story is 4444 words. Anything longer will be considered invalid as a submission. Stories must be at least 1000 words as imposed by the site.
- Editors and proofreaders are allowed, including existing members of BWG.
- No usage of machine learning algorithms is allowed, for writing, editing, brainstorming, or anything else outside the scope of regular spellchecking tools.
- Collaboration and co-authorship is not allowed.
- Allowed settings are: G4, Equestria Girls, G5.
- OCs and AUs are allowed.
- Stories can have any rating.
The following is not allowed::
- anon stories or self-inserts
- porn or fetish stories
- (explicit or not) incest, foalcon, non-con
- anthro
- crossovers
- Each story can only attempt to fulfill two bonuses. If your story is contesting for a bonus, you must mention which bonus it is in your story's long description. This does not include the secret bonus.
- One story can only win a single prize (podium, bonus, or secret bonus). If a story is eligible for multiple prizes, it will win the highest prize.
- Any prize may be exchanged for “special prize” (see below). If the author does so, the monetary value will be distributed equally among all other winners.
- Absolutely no alts are allowed, as this is not in the spirit of the contest.
Judges
For impartiality sake, the judge pool will remain secret until the contest results are out, so as to prevent participants from potentially playing the judges' tastes and biases. Rest assured there will be up to 8 secret judges involved in the judging process.
Note: A minimum of 4 judges is guaranteed, accounting for cancellations and dropouts.
-Thesmokinguy (yours truly)
-Secret judge #1
-Secret judge #2
-Secret judge #3
-Secret judge #4
-Secret judge #5
-Secret judge #6
-Secret judge #7
Prompt, bonuses, and rewards
Contest topic is: “A Secret Life”
List of bonuses:
1 "From the beginning, you know the end.."
2 "Include a bug."
3 “An unusual matchup.”
4 "The main character’s name and identity is never mentioned."
5 Secret bonus related to the group’s history.
The rewards scale with the total number of participants. All dollar amounts are in USD. The standard payment method will be paypal, but other alternatives can be entertained if need be. I personally will be responsible for handing out the rewards in a private manner. The prize list is as follows:
Additionally, every podium finalist will be posted on the main page of the group, and any eligible contestant who did not receive a prize can claim a 100-word mini-review of their story if they wish.
Special prizes
Any winner can exchange their prize for one of the special prizes (until capacity lasts). If a win is thus forfeit, the money will be distributed equally among all other winners. The list of special prizes is as follows:
1 - Youtube reading of the submitted story, courtesy of TheLegendaryBillCipher.
2 - Art piece based on the submitted story, courtesy of Short-tale.
3 - Cover art for any story, courtesy of Starcoder.
4 - Reading of the submitted story done by Bean.
To sum up:
Contest topic is: “A Secret Life”
Start and end: 1st July 12:01 AM PDT - 31st July 11:59 PM PDT
List of bonuses:
1 "From the beginning, you know the end.."
2 "Include a bug."
3 “An unusual matchup.”
4 "The main character’s name and identity is never mentioned."
5 Secret bonus related to the group’s history.
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/215333/folder/80379/the-new-blood-contest
And that's about it! Any questions please ask in the comments section below or alternatively send me a PM here or via discord, whatever floats your boat.
We are excited to see how this goes, good luck!
Note: Wanderer D is not part of this contest. Please contact the organizers through the group if you want to DM any questions.
Well done.
I look forward to this!
Monk
“They may have been a pair of idiots, but the true test of intelligence is how you stick the landing!” -The Dimensional Traveler
Oh that sounds pretty cool and it's very interesting if the young six meet the Mane 5 of g5 since they never seen creatures like that for a long time
Ah, dang. I was so close to qualifying for this contest until I saw that it said accounts must not have 100 or more followers. I think I have 101 followers. XD Good luck to all involved~!
Shoot! I've had my account since 2019....
This looks fun
What happens if a winner can’t get the money for any reason? Does it go to the next person?
I wish good luck to all participants.
I wish I could participate... but not fate.
I've actually been thinking of doing something like this as a sequel for my A Dragon's Soft Spot Stories. A sequel after my current story, A Dragon's New Home.
I think I'll give this a shot
5734521
If the winner cannot receive the money, the amount will be distributed amongst the other participants, equally, as if the winner forfeited their prize. The winner is also eligible for any of the special prizes, but we'd of course deal with this individually.
5734519
Sadly, a line has to be drawn somewhere. We really appreciate you being forward about this instead of trying to cheat the system. Maybe you'd be interested in the prompt system in general, and would like to join the group? The entry is just a story away.
Ah a new writer contest, that's cool. Shame I've been on this site for a while, I joined...
*check's account*
Jan 13th... 2020...
...oh.
lol! just qualified by the skin of my teeth!
(I don't have to worry about follower count, I haven't even got half that much)
As a representative of the old fogies of the site barred from this contest, let me just say...
...best of luck to you all. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
2022 account, nowhere near 100+ followers, I can totally enter this. A Secret Life. Sounds like a character living a double life, with one kept hidden from most others. In a way, almost like a superhero, although I doubt I'll make that the reason for a secret life. At least G4 and EQ are allowed, for a moment I thought it would be G5 only which I really need to catch up on. Bonus 1 is kinda confusing to me and bonus 2 is really confusing. The word limit of 4,444 also means not getting too crazy with a long story so that actually helps me out. Hmm... maybe romance? Hard to say what I'll go with just yet. The last contest I entered I originally planned romance but then it turned out that friendshipping was the better call.
Now that's a cool idea! Good luck to the participants. The prizes are nice, and the options for getting a reading or art are a nice addition.
By the "No Crossover" rule, are we talking about in-general Crossovers like [Insert Popular Crossover Story Name Here], or does this also include the "Fallout: Equestria" Style of Crossover: Where the Crossover in-question is in the form of the other settings' Genre superimposed upon the world of My Little Pony? We might need some clarification on this rule.
So... my account is from 2021, I have zero stories and two followers, but my name is on stuff from 2019, as the editor. My first co-writing credit is from July 2021. I still feel like writing something, regardless, I'll probably just post it to the ineligible folder.
Alright, it's been 4 hours. I have an idea, and a 700-word outline. Feeling pretty good about this.
For those wondering, I made a comment just about twenty minutes ago, but I deleted it because I realized that I was probably wrong in what I said. I asked a friend for their input and they had a different viewpoint than me, so yeah~
No idea what BWG is but I will attempt to do this!
I mean, if you fudge the tens digit...
In all seriousness, very much looking forward to seeing what comes of this.
Dang, “A Secret Life” feels meant for me, but my account’s too old.
Interested to see what’ll come of this.
Oh, bummer.
I started writing in 2020, but my accountʼs been here since 2017.
Nevertheless, Iʼm very excited to see what will come of this. Itʼs always good to read from fresh, new authors. All the best to all participants!
5734581
BWG. Beanʼs Writing Group.
5734563
You qualify actually.
Technically, fits the rules; Editing is not writing and your account is young enough. Besides there is always the chance new accounts are actually experienced authors from other communities or fandoms, or otherwise people who have been writing for years but never published.
You are all good. Good luck!
5734562
It does include all kinds of MLP settings or universes influenced or interwined by media outside of MLP that some of the judges may not be familiar with. So yes, Fallout: Equestria would fall under the crossover category in this context.
You can find the FAQ here.
You know what? I was planning on writing a story that would heavily include A Secret Life themes. So aside for the length, I can pretty much just write what I was going to write before and it should be valid for this contest. Now I just need to get motivated to write this sooner than later and to figure out the missing details beyond the reveal so that I have an actual story.
I have a question, I know that for the stories has to be my own account. But for the PayPal account, can it be another account? Honestly I believe that this account has more virus than a swamp, and I don't trust money in this account.
Another question, it is a requirement to have a PayPal account? Sorry, is the first time I'm gonna participate in a contest.
This is a fantastic idea. I love seeing newer writers can come up with great stuff, so I hope this will encourage more of that. Good luck to all entrants!
5734598
You could always write for the invalid participants. It's basically in-spirit writing:
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/215333/folder/80381/extra-invalid-participants
I'd really like to read some stories from both folders!
5734629
There is no problem with sending you the money to other paypal account of yours or entertaining other alternatives to deliver the reward. What matters is the fimfic account itself.
We would be honoured to have this contest be your first stab at posting on the site, good luck!
What an awesome idea! Good luck to all the participants.
I’ll give this one a shot.
We could use one for OLD writers. Only people from 2011 to 2013. The contest could be to add a chapter to a fic that has not seen an update for at least 3 years.
Can I create a fake account for myself, publish a story under it, submit it to the contest under false pretenses, and essentially defraud everybody everywhere at the same time
5734655 I feel attacked
This might be the thing that gets me to finally finish up a story.
5734659
yes and not only that but we will pay you and send the money to one of your swiss bank accounts completely undeclared to the tax authorities so we can perpetuate the cycle of fraud.
5734655
5734659
Yes, but for the sake of completeness, you should be doing this in a contest that you are running for this purpose, and then award yourself 'last place' in the contest so no one suspects the connection.
(big brain)
5734655
Maybe forgo the account age requirement and just make a contest for people to continue a story that has been on hiatus for more than 3 years. Anything to trick them into getting back to the keyboard.
5734797
Well, such a contest would be a community service -- there are lots of fics out there on permanent hiatus that I would love to see get that one more chapter... And it isn't a trick. It is an encouragement. Prizes, kudos, exposure, and the like. I'm sure there are a lot of people who haven't done that one more chapter because they think it won't be viewed as much as before. They just need a little push.
5734798
Sounds like a plan.
I don't even care about what the event is, I just wanna poke fun at the illustration. Like the ones on the left are just straight-up ripped from a G4 model sheet, but the G5 characters on the right.... The artist clearly tried to do a de-make from the 3d models, but only had a partial understanding of the G4 design philosophy, they missed the mark bad! They look more like centaurworld characters jesus christ.
5734800
This might make it better (or worse, depending), but the G5 characters are pretty much ripped-out models of the My Little Pony: Tell Your Tale webseries, which are official, roughly 2-5 minute ish episodes set alongside the 3D episodes. For what it's worth, I think it's pretty enjoyable, but the art style leaves a lot to be desired
Love this contest idea! Can't wait to see what all the new young lions come up with :)
I'm in I guess... The only question I have is how do I submit a story to a folder. I know dumb question but I'm new.😏
The contest has now officially begun!
https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/1017374/the-new-blood-contest-now-open