Competition » Dialogue only contest! · 8:16pm May 2nd
Yahallo! The premise of this contest is very simple: dialogue only! Which means no prose, no descriptions, no ‘saidisms’, nothing like that. Otherwise, you may get as creative as you feel like! No limits on what the story content can be. Below are the rules. Please, if you have any inquires, ask me or one of the judges in a dm.
The contest will last from May 15th-June 15th, giving little over a month for writers to plan out and write out whatever they like! :D
Here is the group where fics should be submitted.
1. Dialogue only.No descriptions, prose, saidisms, or paragraphs that are outside of someone speaking.
2. The word limit, considering the unique case of this contest, will be 3.5k. However, if you want to do just 500 words (which is the minimum) and post the story(s) as an anthology, you are more than welcome too.
3. Any premise is allowed. Human, EQG, comics, aus, crossovers, anything as long as it fits the site rules.
4. Mature rated fics are allowed, but porn is not. This is also to be said about fetish fics.
5.Multiple submissions are allowed per author, however the total word count for your submitted stories cannot exceed the 3.5k word limit.
6. Collaborations are allowed, but they will count as one submission for both or however many are involved in the collab.
7. Thoughts do count as dialogue for this contest.
8. Only new fics are allowed for submission.
9. Short and long descriptions are not restricted to these dialogue only rules, however you are welcome to use only dialogue for them if you wish!
10. In terms of character tags, you are allowed to tag your characters if you wish.
11. No colored dialogue.
12. Narration type thoughts are iffy. The general idea with thoughts is it being used in a way people would actually think, so stuff like 'heres what I'm doing, how I'm feeling, how I'm doing it, etc' are usually not going to be accepted because that's not how people think. However, if you're creative enough with it and can make it work in such a way it makes sense and is realistic, exceptions may be made on a judge-to-judge basis.
13. No using bold/italics formatting exclusively for a character.
14.underlines/strikethrough are allowed if used sparsely.
15. excessive use of smaller/larger fonts for a character's dialogue is a no.
16.differently aligned dialogue is allowed.
17. emojis used in dialogue are not allowed.
Rewards:
1st place: 100$
2nd place: 50$
3rd: 25$
4th: A reading from the Legendary Bill Cipher!
5th: a small commission from Rayne, either a drawing of your oc or a drawing from the fic that one (as long as it doesn't have more than 2 characters.)
Money will be sent via paypal/cashapp/kofi/whatever other method is available for the winners.
Judges:
Perfectly insane: Hi! I write sometimes, but am mostly a fresh site staff trying to contribute to this wonderful website however I can.
Lunaria: Some new hotshot writer that wrote some popular fic or something, idk. Probably just a complete Sunset fangirl if we are being perfectly honest. Why are we having her as a judge again?
Second Prances: Poetry and Romance author. I’ve written around 50 stories for Fimfic from novellas to anthologies since 2014.
Teardrops: Written zero, read many hundreds if not thousands. Must Read Fics: Prey and A Lamb, The Age of Hunting, Flurry in Time, and Empty Horizons.
Runic: “No, writing Anon will not earn you brownie points.”
Lucky Seven: Romance and Slice of Life Author with 45+ stories since 2012. Featured on EQD and judged for several competitions over my decade on Fimfic.
Muggony: “An incredible writer on Fim known for swallowing a dime and almost choking to death when he was twelve. He's also hosted contests about bad parenting. Really, he's a cool guy, I promise."
Judging guide (courtesy of Second Prances). Partial points may be considered.
Follows Contest Rules: This is a fail condition and will result in disqualification
- The story does not follow judging rules of only dialogue or internal monologue
- Story follows rules and only uses Dialogue/Monologue/Internal thought
Overall /2
Characterization - how well the dialogue characterizes the characters being used.
- Characters are flat or static, not easily distinguishable from each other, and are not believable. If canon, they are hard to believe as their canon selves and could virtually be any other character with a name replacement. Makes repetitive usage of character ‘catchphrases’ or taglines. (0 points)
- Characters sometimes act or speak in a believable and consistent manner and occasionally feel realized. If canon, they occasionally talk or act like their canon selves with small deviations. May occasionally use canon ‘catchphrases’ or taglines. (1 point)
- Characters feel realized, are clearly defined, and always speak in a believable and consistent manner. If using a canon character, they are virtually indistinguishable from the show or material they come from without overusing colloquialisms. (2 points)
Flow - how well the dialogue works together as a conversation.
- Flow of the story is repeatedly broken up and does not feel like real conversation. Inorganic. (0 points)
- Story feels like real conversation with occasional breaks. Occasionally inorganic. (1 points)
- Story is immersive and the dialogue is indecipherable from real organic conversation. (2 points)
Storytelling - how effective the dialogue is at telling the story by itself.
- The story has no overarching narrative or the judge cannot tell what it is supposed to be. (0 points)
- The overarching narrative or story is present but it is weak and the dialogue doesn’t do a good job of reaching this goal. (1 point)
- The overarching narrative is clearly defined and its intent is clear and well-executed. (2 points)
Clarity of the speaker - how clear it is who is speaking and when.
- There are numerous or many instances where it is not clear who is speaking (0 points)
- There are a few instances where it is not clear who the speaker is. (1 point)
- It is always clear who the speaker is. (2 points)
Grammar/Spelling
- There are many spelling and grammar problems throughout the story, breaking immersion. (0 points)
- There are a few grammar and spelling issues throughout the story which would probably be overlooked by the reader. (1 point)
- There are zero, or only 1, examples of grammar or spelling issues and the story is near-flawless in this regard. (2 points)
Overall /10
Judge Picks: Each judge will have the ability to elect their top three submissions based on which story they enjoyed the most, factoring in style, substance, readability and subjectivity. This is a separate non-scored category that will be factored into the final decision. The top pick for each judge will be given an honorary reward for Judge’s Pick.
Also, special thanks to Second Prances for coming up with the criteria for this contest.
“This is an interesting premise for a contest,” I said.
I've heard of talking heads but this is crazy
Is using formatting within the dialogue allowed? Like using italics to emphasize words?
5779094
Yes. People are as allowed to get as creative with the dialogue itself as they like.
I’m so doing this.
What is a saidism/genq
5779098
"Wow, I love saidisms!" Pinkie said with a nod.
The "Pinkie said with a nod' is a saidism.
Oh, hell yeah
this is one of the contests ever
Rule 5:
What happens if an author submits more than one story? Is only one story judged, for example the first or the last submission? Are all stories judged and only the best awarded a prize (if it earns one)? Or is the author simply disqualified?
Rule 7:
So, can I just put a first person story in quotes and call it a day? Curious as to what wouldn't count as dialogue.
5779109
Dramatic monologue clearly the way to go here
5779109
Rule 5: There will be a top three and then honorable mentions/picks from the judges that will get shown. I haven’t decided quite yet but will likely make a blog post when the contest ends showing the top ten fics submitted.
Rule 7: No narration is allowed. In regards to thoughts it would be things you’d think to yourself, like if you saw someone do something and you thought to yourself “wow that was weird”, that would be allowed. Whatever makes sense in the context of thinking. This will ofc be judged on a case by case basis in terms of what makes sense.
5779090
Talk about eye candy!
5779112
Thanks for the clarification on Rule 7.
For Rule 5, I'm afraid that doesn't really answer my question about how the "one submission per author" rule will actually be enforced. Preferably this should be clear as early as possible so nobody accidentally disqualifies themselves (if that's on the table (which is again part of the question)).
Also, I have a new question about Rule 2:
The anthology rules are very confusing. In what sense is 500 words the minimum? Is this saying that a 500-word chapter in an anthology story otherwise unrelated to the contest would be allowable as a submission?
At first I read word limit as word minimum (don't know why), so 3.5k words shocked me at first. 3.5k max makes more sense, but still, might be too short for some imo. But whatever, not my contest to decide.
Uhm, doesn't that go against the premise of only dialogue? Feels for me a bit weird to include that to it. I guess it leaves more room to declare a narrator of the story, so I guess that was the argument for that inclusion.
"It's a writin' contest that that says what now?"
"That everything has to be in dialogue, silly. That's why it's called a Dialogue Only contest!"
This sounds fun. Not a setup I've seen here before, either. Might give this one a whirl.
5779112
What are the rules about meta? I've read occasional experimental fics here where the narrator is an active character in the story.
5779115
So for rule 5, yes someone can submit multiple fics if they want to. I'm going to say that the total will be matching the wordcount limit, so if you write three stories they all have to total 3.5k and no more than that. The first story a person submits is the one that is judged, while the others will be read but not measured in terms of winning a prize. And, yes, the best ones will win the prizes, no the others will not be disqualified if they don't 'win'. I don't really want people writing for the money itself thats just like an initial incentive.
For rule 2, what I mean is that you can write an anthology where you have two stories that fit the criteria of the contest but both are chapters that are a minimum of 500 words totalling 1k. This is because of the sites rules that a fic must be 1000k more than anything. No matter what, submitted fics must meet the criteria of the contest.
5779118
This will be judged on a case by case basis.
Wait, isn’t there a site-wide rule that prevents script stories like this from being published?
Do all the submissions need to be Google docs?
5779123
That rule is against script format specifically. Which would be like.
Pinkie: Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie.
A while back I wrote a pony-related dialogue-only writing doodle, never published it, mostly just did it for the heck of it. If I were to fix it up and rework into a more proper final draft, would it be acceptable as a submission or would you prefer something completely original created specifically with the contest in mind?Oops, just noticed Rule 8 literally two seconds after posting.
5779126
New story is used in every contest as in never published anywhere, so that's fine to use
Good way to jog me to finally write this dumb fic idea I had. It actually fits directly into this contest!
Oh, this looks fun. I'll have to give it a whirl.
5779099
Is Pinkie allowed to scratch her
~ass~backside?Pinkie scratched her own backside. "Wow, I sure like cupcakes!"
fascinating
I request a rules change: please permit people to start publishing contest entries before May 15th.
While I'm still hyped, ig, idk.
5779132
I mean, they can I’m not stopping them. It’s just judges will not be looking at any of those submissions until the 15th.
"Ohhhh, fuck yeah."
Very interesting, this is perfect for me since I just came back to write more.
I guess I gotta do dialogue only. It’ll be good practice! :D
Doesn't this somewhat conflict with the rule about posting stories in script format? Or at least, the format of stories for this contest is probably going to be close enough to be a point of concern for the people entering:
5779146
No, you can write dialogue without using a script format.
Challenge Accepted.
5779090
Guess this contest could be considered "Once in a Lifetime."
(The Talking Heads song.)
Either I sound really lame, or you guys won't know what I'm talking about.
Ooh, this is gonna be fun. Count me in!
Hm, for this point about the Clarity of the Speaker, would it work if we simply had the characters’ defined by very simple formatting; i.e. one character speaking only in italics, while the other speaks only in bold?
It’s definitely an easy away out, but obviously it’s more about clarity rather than an atypical format, so I wanted to ask about it.
I may participate in this. Maybe write a horror story of a pony having found a journal at an abandoned site and is reading it into a recorder, all while something is planning on taking them the same way it did the writer.
5779155
I mean, that's possible, but it sounds like a crutch.
Also, it means that you would be unable to use italics for emphasis.
5779157
Yeah, and I’ve imagined as much, but I feel like if it’s used in a way to only make certain who’s speaking, while still keeping the individual ‘voices’ of the characters distinct, then it could really work.
Just wanted to make sure, though.
(And, btw, one could use extra formatting within the usual formatting for that to work, e.g. “Only this word is emphasized.”)
5779160
Eh, it isn't nearly as hard to give characters a consistent, distinguishable voice as you think.
5779155
No, I would consider that a cop out. You’ll have to make do through speaking style and other hints. I would only consider italics for internal thought/monologue.
5779157
Or emphasis, yeah.
5779169
Well, fair enough.
Did want to make, at least.
How does characterization work for characters that don't have speaking lines in the show? Does it work if the dialogue/thought sets a defined character.
E.g. Princess Flurry Heart, but decades later (the finale showed her in a stained glass window, but that was about it).
I guess that'd be the same as scoring non-canon characters if that much time had passed as long as canon circumstances were accounted for?
For distinguishing characters, accents might be a good tool to use, within reason of course.
What about non-word vocalizations? like say Character A says "hey, up and at 'em?" and Character B responds "murrgh..." would that be okay with the rules?
5779174
Yeah vocalizations are acceptable.
To think, I actually had a couple of dialogue only stories way back when, very likely lost to a hard drive crash. In one of them, there were an unclear amount of characters speaking along with whom was speaking. The other one, shipping focused, only had dialogue back and forth between two characters. I know this would violate rule 8, just saying.
So I'm not unfamiliar with this format. Although getting in more than two characters will be really tricky unless I really go out of my way to highlight the differences in dialogue. Like for example, having all of the Mane 6. Easy enough to give Applejack an accent, but I suppose the rest of the ponies would just be specific words. But that really risks repetitive dialogue if say, every one of Rainbow's lines included some variation of cool being said.
Using different colors could be a way to go, but that might just come off feeling cheap more than anything else so I'll refrain from that. Will likely just use two characters.
5779176
Using different colors would be allowed but I feel like that’d be a cheap way of doing so and really stifle creativity, however if that’s how you want to do it you are certainly allowed to.
5779171
It's pretty easy to distinguish a character that feels like a living, breathing person from one that is flat and wooden and not very expressive. So you're correct in that not every character is going to be canon, obviously, but that doesn't mean they can't respond like a real person would, and I feel that it is possible to weigh characters on whether or not they pass this metric or only sometimes do.
5779179
Update on this: after a discussion with judges colored dialogue is not going to be allowed, this will be added to the rules.