• Writer's Training Grounds: "Make New Friends but Keep Discord"

    Wow, we had one wacky episode this week.  I hope that means we get a hoofful of equally wacky stories in this week's Training Grounds!

    Prompts, submit links and due date for this week are below the break, as always.  Let's see some Smooze-tastic stories!

    Important! Equestria Daily does not accept stories containing the use of illicit drugs.  We are aware of how many people interpreted Tree Hugger, and ask that you please keep any interpretations of her that you are planning to submit blog-appropriate.

    (Update) Tree Hugger can do anything she wants with random plants she finds! Rule rescinded.


    Write a story about Discord and the Smooze's college days.

    Discord decides to take Tree Hugger up on her offer of going out to dinner with her, Fluttershy, and the Smooze.  How does it turn out?

    The Writer's Training Grounds is a weekly writing exercise in which authors of all skill levels are invited to craft a story based on the prompts provided above. Responses to these prompts are posted directly on Equestria Daily in a weekly compilation post that bypasses the pre-reading process. Authors are then highly encouraged to read comment on, and promote each others' stories -- if you've ever prepared a copy-paste comment for an episode followup, consider doing the same for a fellow WTG participant!

    If you have any prompt ideas for next week's WTG, feel free to chuck them over to fanfiction@equestriadaily.com with the subject line "WTG Prompt Idea" or something similar. We just might use it that week and give you credit!

    Da Rulez:
    • Keep the content appropriate as defined by our submission guidelines.
    • Keep it between 1,000 - 7,000 words. >Greentexts and doorstoppers should apply elsewhere!
    • Keep it to two genres maximum. For the roundup, fics will be grouped by their primary genre.

    When you finish working on your fic, use this form to submit it to the Training Grounds. However, we will require much of the same information as if you were submitting a regular fic as follows, and this document explains what these requirements are.

    1. Story title
    2. Author name
    3. Story description (~1 paragraph maximum)
    4. Word count
    5. Genre tags (2 tags maximum)
    6. Character tags (3 tags maximum)
    7. Story URL (must be hosted on FimFiction, GDocs, dA, etc.)
    8. Email address

    The deadline for submission is >>>Friday, May 22, at 11:59pm EST<<<

    As always, please continue to leave us feedback with what works well for these events, what's not working well, your general satisfaction with these, etc. etc. and so on. Now get writing!