It's about taking your skills to the next level. To have friendly competitions with rewarding outcomes. And best of all, to produce amazing works for everyone to enjoy. You’ll be tasked to produce serious works numbering no less than a minimum of 2,500 words. Be sure to use a proper word counter as Fimfic counts individual quotation marks (" " and “ ”) as words. Stories that don’t meet the requirements will be rejected until requirements are met.

Word limits may vary with each event, but the minimum will not change. You may have a cap of 5k words on one event, while another might have none at all. There is no favor given to those who write more or those who just meet the minimum. Try to make it the best you can within the time allotted.

Each event will last either 2 weeks, or throughout the month. Sorry, but extensions will not be made for anyone. This is for those who want to compete and test their imagination, versatility, to think outside the box,, and work within the limitations given.

These will be the majority of each given prompt. A picture is worth a thousand words? Well I think it can do more!

Events will span two week some months, others Month long. Prompts will be in the form of a picture, a simple theme description, and/or a more expanded prompt. Some themes may even be as simple as a single word like a season or even a Holiday, such as Fall or Hearthwarming . Some might be more complex. Its goal is to put all your gathered literary skills to the test.

Some prompts might end up having special rules and restrictions. Others might give you more to work with. Be sure to check for any of these specifications on each new prompt and read them carefully if they do.

Submission Rules & Legalities:

1. You will Private Message me through Fimfiction with a link to a copy of your unpublished story on fimfic or GDocs (docs.google.com/), with the proper format, if any, you'd want to present it in. Names, and on occasion, if a story title is too revealing, story titles will only be revealed after voting rounds on fics have concluded. No exceptions.

2. You agree to allow your story to remain a permanent part of the The Diamond Refinery Published Stories Collection that you submitted to special events, “The Diamond Refinery”, held by The Diamond Cutters group, will remain there once a Winner has been declared, your story will stay unaltered, or be asked to be removed for any reason short of plagiarism.

"Special Events: The Diamond Refinery" will only showcase works and all stories are by their respective Authors. The Diamond Cutters hold no claims as to the creation of these individual stories.

3. If you don’t want your name next to your submitted story, you can have it changed to anonymous, but once a story is submitted — prior to announcing a winner — it shall remain a part of that Special Event’s contest submissions. Removal of submissions are solely up to administrator(s).

4. If you feel you don’t want to partake in the event for whatever reason and wish to retract your story, please PM me before voting begins. No questions asked.

NOTE: These events hold prizes. You may publish your work on your own account after a contest, but you agree that Diamond Refinery is allowed to retain its original submissions and will not be asked to alter or remove the story anytime after announcing a Winner. You also agree to forfeit any claim to a prize, should you earn claim to any, if proof of publishing and/or promoting your submission outside or within Fimfiction leads to any form of abuse/exploitation of fair play rules. Your stories are supposed to stand on their own after all. Only stories unpublished will be eligible for prizes during the events. Only hard and irrefutable proof will be accepted into consideration for any disqualifications.

Restrictions:

1) You must have an active account on FimFiction of more than 1 month old to have your vote counted.
2) Only INDIVIDUALLY POSTED votes will be counted, no Likes or Dislikes on someone's posted vote will not be seen as a valid vote towards or against any stories in the competition.
3) Those with accounts less than 1 Month old, will also have their votes go uncounted unless they’ve had a story published on Fimfiction that total more than 5000 words.
4) You must have a valid mailing address for certain prizes which may involve shipping. Most cases you will be given 3 choices. None are cash. No exceptions.
5) If for any reason a Contest Winner is unable to claim their prize within ONE MONTH, it will be offered to a runner up.

How to submit an entry:

•Stories must be unpublished until event concludes
•Send all submissions through Private Messages to Telaros
•Include either link to or a copy/paste of your submission, formatted or not to how you'd like it presented, via PM.
•If you wish to use an alias other than your FimFic account include it in the PM

Where your story ends up: Special Events: "The Diamond Refinery"

•Submitted stories that have passed the filters will be shown as chapters.
•Chapters will be named: #Entry Number #Prompt #Story Name #Author name
•Author Name will only appear by the story name after voting has closed.

We will screen all stories amongst ourselves and present all readable, with as much clean grammar from the lot, creating a sort of filter, before public voting opens. Stories rejected will get a PM of why your story may have been rejected. You will be given a chance to clean up your story for resubmission, long as corrections are made before the Public Voting phase begins.

How to Vote:

•Choose between 1 or whoever many stories you like from Top Pick to Least.
•Only post your preferred choice(s) in your post. Do not attempt to sway people's opinions.
•Unless event is stated otherwise, everyone is free to vote for their favorite stories..
•Must be an account older than 1 Month by Event's start.
•If an account is less than 1 Month old, account must hold at least one published story of at least 5,001 words to be considered a valid voter.

How the Judge(s) work:

•If the Judge(s) can’t make out what you’re trying to convey, it will be filtered out.
•Stories will be judged more on execution of a concept first and spelling second.
•If your story is exceptional but has too many spelling errors, it may be sent back for corrections or filtered out. Please spell check your story before submitting them in!
•Judge(s) will then select their picks to each other and passed through for public voting.

How prizes work:

•Prize(s) will be digital or physical.
•Prize(s) can be pony or non-pony related.
•Prize(s) value will be determined by entries. Some events will have a set prize value. There may be smaller prizes for second and thirds if enough entries.
•Prize(s) can be many things. Steam Game. Art Commission. Pony Comics, Toys, and even Pony Clothing. Including pony customs such as plushies or molds or jewelry. You just never know!

Note: Some restrictions apply. Such as whether a store or commissioner are willing to ship overseas or not. I will work with you to come up with an alternative, but I will not exceed the value of what the contest afforded you. Worst case scenario, you’ll just have to pick something else within your reach if you can’t find a place that ships to your country for the given prize.

For further prize examples please see Prize Tiers and Unlocks

If you have further questions not listed here or need help clarifying anything, feel free to ask.

Hmmm... well, I do like competitions that put me in my place. Color me interested.

1237808

serious works eh? Does this mean that comedy's are not allowed?

1238086 No. That refers to entries having to meet the event's minimum word count requirements and follow the theme's guidelines for any given prompts.

If the prompt itself says no comedies, then no comedies. Each will have it's own set of rules and restrictions. This includes stating whether certain genres are allowed or not.

The first Prompt will show up this coming Saturday, July 13th and will be stickied at the top of the forums till event runs its course.

Okay then...

I'm in

1239357 Short answer: Prompts will state whether a story will allow Sex and/or Gore categories next to Teen or Mature ratings.

1240179 Prizes for this event are already taken care of for the most part. No one offering prizes are technically allowed to compete much like judges wouldn't be allowed to judge and compete.

I apologize for the slow responses. Perhaps the next event once I have a more solid evaluation on how this one goes. I'll let you know. For now there is no telling how big or small the event will be.

Updated rules and guidelines. Link to Prize section added.

Possible event in 4 to 11 days. if I manage to recover from this cold fast enough.

The Diamond Refinery #2 is Officially Open. One Week buffer added to event.

Minimum Themed Prize value for each is set (fiction and art) is set at $60, with Grand Prize Unlock of Nintendo 2DS with One 3DS title of their choice with a minimum of at least 20 Qualifying Entries. Sorry but that grand prize is for Fanfiction only currently. They are still free to opt for the Pony equivalent of One Hug Me Pony Backpack, Any Tsitra360 T-shirt or print, and a Pony Scarf (RD or Derpy.)