Edit: Stories can be submitted from websites other than fimfic.
Hey, guys! Equestria Daily's running a writing contest again.
To celebrate the advent of Season 5 come spring, we're bringing you a blast from the past with the More Most Dangerous Game! Check down below the break to see what this entails.
The first Most Dangerous Game, run by author Obselescence, was a contest which challenged to do the impossible and prove that there’s no such thing as a bad idea. It was a rousing success, and received an incredible number of stories from simply incredible authors that proved that you actually can write brilliant stories with OC alicorns, humans in Equestrian, and a second-person perspective.
This time around, Equestria Daily and Obselescence have teamed up to make things even More Dangerous! Almost everyone knows the great classics that kicked off the MLP fanfiction scene. Cupcakes, Past Sins, and so on. Many people are big fans of these stories, but many believe that these stories’ transcendent fame is only because they came first. “Perhaps they were the best in their time,” some will say, “But MLP authors have come a long way since the days of yore—we can write better now.”
Well, now’s the time for you all to put your money where your mouth is! The Second Most Dangerous Game is about “Revamping The Classics,” where the authors of today can write their own takes on the great story ideas of old. Five prompts, corresponding to great tales of the past, have been crafted, and you are challenged to pick one of them to re-imagine.
Take note that the idea here is not to “fix” the old stories. You shouldn’t, say, wholesale copy the plot of My Little Dashie, but write it better. The idea is for you to use the prompt to write your own take on the original idea. How you would approach it, given the same basic premise. The old story provides the aged spirit of the story—but the body is new, and comes from you.
How will you take on these classic tales?
The Rules
-Word Count Minimum: 2500 words. Word Count Maximum: 15,000 words. Some slight allowance may be given to stories that go over, but in general you should strive to fit within 15,000 words.
-Submissions must be complete when submitted.
-Submissions must have been written for this contest, meaning no old fics.
-One entry allowed per contestant.
-Use only one prompt, please. In the previous Most Dangerous Game, we got an awful lot of people trying to score as many prompts in their entry as possible. It was an admirable effort, but this time please try to do your best work possible using only one of the prompts.
-No crossovers, unfortunately. While one of the prompts is based on a crossover, this isn’t really the contest to submit a Fallout: Equestria sidestory or similar crossover attempt. Both because the audiences/judges may not be familiar with the source material, and because we feel it’ll encourage greater creativity for each contestant to come up with original concepts to tackle the prompt, instead of everyone going to the Fallout universe for ideas.
-Standard Equestria Daily rules regarding sex/gore apply (Find them here). One of the prompts is based on Cupcakes, so we are expecting to see some blood and such, but try not to go too far overboard. You can go the distance without in-depth descriptions of Pinkie playing skip-rope with someone’s organs.
-You may see a way to interpret any of the listed prompts in ways that run entirely contrary to the stories on which they were based. While you can try to do this, keep in mind that the goal of the contest is to “revamp” the classics, and create your own take on the original idea—which does suggest sticking at least a little bit to the spirit of the story. This being the case, the judges will probably look a bit askew at your entry if you try to, say, twist the Cupcakes prompt into a story about Pinkie building a spaceship to promote scientific discovery and goodwill. So just keep that in mind.
-Have fun. This, if anything, is the most important rule. Don’t stay up and chew your fingernails off to make your story perfect. We want this to be a fun contest for everyone.
The Prompts
-"Pinkie Pie invites a friend over to Sugarcube Corner. Little do they know that they’re in for a dark surprise." (Cupcakes)
-"A human finds a young pony abandoned in a cardboard box, and decides to raise her as his own." (My Little Dashie)
-"An old foe is reincarnated in the body of a young pony. What will the Mane Six do when they find out?" (Past Sins)
-"Lyra has always suspected that humans are real, and doesn't care if everyone else thinks she's crazy for it. She's about to find out that she was awfully, horribly, spectacularly, right." (Anthropology)
-"In an Equestria devastated by an apocalyptic war, the few that remain try their best to survive or rebuild--however they can." (Fallout: Equestria)
Submit Your Entry at the Form Here!
Contest runs from today (Saturday, Jan 3, 2015), for three weeks, until Saturday, Jan 24th 11:59 PM CST. Any entries sent in later than that won’t count, so make sure you finish in time!
Prizes
Because every contest should have prizes!
To Our Top 8 Winners: An art prize from one of the following artists — first place gets first choice, second place gets second choice, etc. Two honourable mentions will get to pick from two prizes.
- -Harwick (two characters, simple backgrounds, PG rated at most)
- -Tetrapony
- -MoonlitBrush (Not comfortable with humans)
- -Left2Fail (Best with Ponies and EQG humans)
- -NekoCrispy (“I can offer sketches, color sketches and detailed sketches as rewards, two characters in a piece at most and no complex backgrounds. Stuff I'm not comfortable drawing is gore or anything gross like scat or farting. I'm cool with drawing anthro and human.”)
- -NCMares (“Not comfortable with humans, keep background simple”)
- -James Corck
- A fully-cast radio play style reading by the amazing ObabScribbler. You can find the youtube channel here, but be aware this prize comes with some conditions:
- No Clop
- Story must be 7k words or fewer
- Story is winner's choice, so they aren't limited to their winning story.
- These things do take some time, so you'll need to be willing to exercise patience.
Our two Honourable mentions will get to choose between
- A rehaired Octavia Funrise plush (Pics coming soon)
- A copy of the amazing game Shovel Knight Kindly donated by Stopwatch
More Prizes as we get ‘em. Feel free to contact us if you’d like to help sweeten the pot!
Contact
If you have any questions, feel free to contact Obselescence on Fimfiction or via email at fifthanthem@gmail.com
We’ve also decided to use the Equestria Daily group on Fimfiction so feel free to come over and brainstorm ideas and discuss things with everyone here, or ask questions regarding the contest.
That’s everything, guys. Now get going!
