Finally, after a lot of contemplation with the judgments, struggles with my schedule, and also missing the 2 week deadline by an entire hour and a half, I am proud (and really sorry for the delay) to present to you the result for the Self-Isolation Writing Contest.

This is one hell of a contest to judge, as there are many interesting and different ideas and approaches among the submissions. The three main prizes are pretty close to each other, each has their own strengths and weaknesses that I had to spend a lot of time considering and elaborating on, and I think we can all learn a lot from them.

Without further delay, let’s begin.

TMares, Metaphors, and Maybes

• MLP: FiM
• Comedy
• Drama

Cadance and Blueblood try to stave off boredom on a snowy day. Or, at least they try to. Every time the matter of going outside comes up, Blueblood sure finds ways to come up with more excuses.

• Prince Blueblood
• Cadance

Ice Star · 3.6k words  ·  84  10 · 1.6k views

This story is a delight to read.

The best part of the story is definitely the way the author constructed the (for the lack of a better ponified word) personalities of Cadance and Blueblood. They feel very matching with what we know about them from the canon show, yet also show fresh and unique aspects of their characters. Blueblood in this story especially impressed me. He is still very much the stuck-up inconsiderate rich boy we all know. And yet the author made it impossible for me to hate him, which is quite a feat. The dynamic relationship between him and Cadance are the icing on the cake.

However, the main reason I give the honorable prize to this story is because of the valiant attempt of the author to deliver the theme in a fun, lighthearted way. There are tidbits here and there, hinting at the newly-arrived and friendless Cadance desperately wanting someone to play with, and the tradition-bound, loveless Blueblood denying his own heart. This story shows that it is totally possible to tackle a supposedly tragic theme like isolation in a playful and humorous tone.

Unfortunately, I feel the story has not pushed it far enough. There is quite a bit more that could be done. Let Cadance tell Blueblood about her boring days with dull etiquette lessons. Let Blueblood lecture her about all the family reputation, social status and expectation that forces him to lock himself in a shell. Let them compare and compete their situations with each other, in that witty, playful banter of them of course. It would further emphasize on the theme, yet keep the lighthearted, comedic atmosphere the story has built very well upon.

EAlone Together

• Equestria Girls
• Slice of Life

Two girls. One room. As few words as possible.

• Marble Pie
• Wallflower Blush

TCC56 · 4.9k words  ·  63  3 · 906 views

This story takes on the theme of isolation in a very unique way: the main character, Wallflower, was not actually excluded or isolated in anyway. On the contrary, she was showered with attention, what she had craved for all this time. And yet, somehow because of that, she felt overwhelmed, uncomfortable, not belonged, and withdrawing back into her shell. And then, she found something, or rather someone, that was just right for her, that bonded with her, that impelled her to reach out again, to embrace it.

It is a very real, very genuine take on the way introverts feel and think. It strikes home the message that the feelings of isolation and socialization are much more complex than people think. One can be drown in friendship, in adoration, and yet still feels isolated, and one can feel at home, content, love and be loved when one has a right other, even if they are alone in their secluded world. It is a beautiful and very realistic concept that, sadly, is rarely explored in literature in my opinion.

However, I would hope for the story to dig a little deeper into the character’s feelings to emphasize more on that concept. The story should explore more on what Wallflower felt and thought, what about the others that prevented her from fitting in, the dilemma and frustration she was in when she craved for relationship but could not hang on to what was offered to her, why she felt at ease in that locker room, what she saw of herself in the other girl in that room, how sympathy stroke her because of that, what drove her to reach out herself, etc. The story does touch on some of these but too lightly, and it needs more elaboration.

Third prize

The Window by FabulousDivaRarity

TThe Window

• MLP: FiM
• Slice of Life

Someday, they would be on the other side of the window.

• Celestia
• Shining Armor
• Twilight Velvet
• Night Light

FabulousDivaRarity · 3.6k words  ·  31  0 · 1.1k views

For what would you give up your freedom? For what would you endure the isolation? For what would you shoulder on, as layer and layer of it crash down on you?

For whom would you break through the glasses?

If trying to take on the theme of this contest once is hard enough, this story takes it on four times, in completely different angles to boost! The pain of separation between a mother and her newborn child, the physical confinement in the house, the disconnection between husband and wife, the social segregation. They keep piling upon the character, one after another, as we follow her thought through the story. It was hard. It was crushing. And yet, the character held out and persist with her motherly love, with fervent conviction and devotion that spread fire to our hearts.

The best thing about this story is the flow. Sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, it leads you on seamlessly, driving you through the hardships, the thoughts and feelings of the character on a continuous stream. There are very few sentences and paragraphs that feel disconnected from the others, even as the thought and mood of the character changed direction several times. That shows how well the story was sewn together.

What also really touches me is the optimistic tone of the story. The unshaken love of the character for her newborn child makes a beautiful foundation for her strength and conviction to go through the isolation. And she was not alone, as amid the harsh world, there was still someone else reaching out a hoof, encouraging her on. It is a nice touch, delivering the message that there is always positivity and kindness in the world we live in.

Another thing I would commend is the way the pain and hardships were laid out and interlaced with optimism. For every time we are shown the character being faced with another hardship, we see her find another conviction, another reason, another encouragement to keep on fighting. That is not to say, the challenges were easy. That is not to say, the character did not lament, or falter. The story, however, does not simply bury the character and the readers in sorrow right from the start. This is a good example of how to write tragedy, regardless of which note you end on. Do not simply blast your characters off the cliff. Let them take a step forward each time. The more they fight on, the more it emphasizes the pain, sorrow and despair when they are pushed back.

However, as one can easily realize, the main weakness of this story is that it is quite heavy on telling instead of showing in the first half. It takes some of the immersion and feel out of the story. While I am not a vehement advocate of “showing is better than telling”, the story can indeed benefit from some more vivid scenes and images in the first half to give a break from the one-sided delivery of emotions and let the readers feel the emotions themselves.

One suggestion I would give to improve that, is to connect the thought of the character with what she saw on and through the window. Let the window glass remind her of the glass of the NICU that she held her hoof on as she stood for hours outside, looking longingly at her child. Let a couple of birds on the tree remind her of her husband as he came back home the night before, exhausted and silent. Let the buildings over the fences make her think of all the judging looks she received on the streets of Canterlot. Let the sun remind her of Celestia. That way, not only does it play really nice to the character’s flow of thought, it sets a frame to easily draw the flashbacks out, and also provides the readers with a more vivid image of the scenery which she was seeing. The connection between the inner thought and reality would further emphasize the symbol of the window, making it more touching.

Second prize

Wisp by darf

EWisp

• MLP: FiM
• Sad
• Slice of Life

Derpy wakes up one day to find she's no more than a breath in the wind, invisible and virtually non-existent to everypony around her.

• Derpy

darf · 4.1k words  ·  40  2 · 854 views

Have you ever seen a sad, lonely, piteous person walking by you, who did not seem to understand their misery and kept smiling? Did you feel pity for them?

Imagine you were that person, as the world looked at you, thinking you were oblivious.

Imagine you were that person, but no one bothered to even give you that pity look anymore.

This story is haunting, to say the least. Not really because of the predicament our protagonist found herself in, but because we gradually understand throughout the story that this was not the first, but rather the last straw that broke the camel’s back. We are horrified to realize our protagonist, as innocent and optimistic as she appeared, was very much aware of and acquainted with the sadness and loneliness she had spent her whole life in. And as her final condition snapped off the last strings to cheerfulness she had been clinging to, we painfully witness the shell she had hardened around her for all her life slowly crumbled apart.

Yet she hang on.

The writing is the thing I would praise the most about this story. It is an exemplar of how to write misery and sorrow in a refined, elegant way. The seemingly random thoughts and actions are actually very much well-planned and meaningful, delivering very subtle bits and pieces of flashbacks and contexts that may be easily lost on a casual first read-through, but hit the feeling very hard when you recognize it and look for it.

I also really appreciate the way the story maintain the integrity of the protagonist. In settings where the character is put under boredom and frustration, and their actions are bound by few consequences, very frequently we’ll see the trope that the character stoops to wrongful acts to entertain themselves. I am very glad that this story does not follow that route. It adds a lot to the protagonist’s character.

Unfortunately, there are a few major problems that cause the story to lose out on the first prizes. The ending is too random, the type of random that, unlike the previous one, does not connect with and complement the rest of the story. More importantly, the protagonist was too passive. She hanged on, yes, but did not actively try to fight against her situation. I had hoped for an ending where our protagonist stopped trying to draw attention to herself, instead focusing on giving inputs back into the world, like planting some flowers on the side of the street, decorating some walls, fixing someone else’s broken cart, etc. And while nopony noticed her, they noticed these inputs, these positive influences she had on the world, and gradually, everypony saw her again. Not only would it make the protagonist more proactive, but it would also deliver the very meaningful message that the world recognizes you not by who you are, but by what you give to the world. The story could have been a heavy contestant for the top prize had it gone for that route.

First prize

Away by The Cloptimist

TAway

• MLP: FiM
• Dark
• Slice of Life

A unicorn with an unwanted special magical talent isolates herself on a remote hillside, away from other ponies, for their sake and hers.

• Death
• Celestia
• Luna
• OC

The Cloptimist · 8.2k words  ·  110  4 · 1.6k views

What would you do if you find yourself cast away from the world, stranded on an island of solitude by your own destiny, thrown back on that shore of isolation again and again by the tide of fate every time you try to swim back home?

Would you give up, one day?

If the previous story gives you a haunting, uneasy, surreal feeling, this story gets you real, gets you personal. Time and time again, you find yourself having the same thought as the protagonist, pondering the same idea as her, seeing yourself doing the same thing in that situation: singing to yourself, reading the same books again and again, rationing a newspaper, writing your own story, trying to remember the names and faces of long-lost friends that have started to blur... Even though it has never happened to you, you find it hard to say you would do it differently. Without realizing it, you put yourself into the protagonist’s position, experiencing the isolation like you are going through it yourself.

And because of that, it gives you more pain each time you see her fail. It becomes something personal, like seeing your own failures.

Because of that, it makes you smile and fills your heart with a warm, bittersweet feeling when fate catches her, and you, off guard, unexpectedly floating on that shore a life-saving boat.

Instead of being meticulous about words and sentences, this story owns its immersion by the wise selection of writing style. The first person point of view is a very appropriate choice, getting the readers to become more intimate with the protagonist. More importantly, the casual, nondramatic tone, focusing heavily on showing the protagonist’s actions and thought process while deliberately skipping on describing the protagonist’s feelings themselves, allows the readers to project their own feelings onto the character instead of imposing the author’s own interpretation of the character’s feelings on the readers. This lures the readers in to let themselves merge with the character and the story.

Another thing I would praise immensely about this story (which is a little spoiler), is the clever way it resolves the conflict using some very popular elements from the show and/or the fandom’s interpretations of the show itself. Yet, I believe they would catch most readers off guard. Perhaps it is because of how well the story draws the readers into the immersion, making them forget about looking for a possible solution from a different point of view. That is of course unless you read these lines and deliberately watch out for it while reading the story. So this is kind of a spoiler for those who have not read it.

I also really appreciate the proactivity of the character throughout the story. While she (spoiler again) ultimately gave up and was rescued by others, she did actively try to break out of her curse. That only hurts us more every time she failed, and makes for an even more bittersweet ending.

However, there are still some issues with this story. While the majority of the story is very immersive, the section of the past before our protagonist settled in that explains how she ended up in this situation requires quite a bit of suspension of disbelief regarding her actions and her ability to survive on her own. There are also some plot holes as to where she got money to buy books and hire a lumberjack. I do realize these problems are mostly due to the length limitation of the contest, and with more words, the author could elaborate further and get every piece into place, which I strongly hope for after the contest is over.

Besides that, there are also the issues with the choice of present tense, the back-and-forth time jump and the arrangement of the sections. While I understand the author chose the present tense to further increase the immersion, and by itself it is absolutely not a problem, the author seemed to get confused or forget to revert back to past tense in sections that are clearly flashbacks of the past. This, coupled with the frequent back-and-forth time jump, and the arrangement of the story which sometimes puts the reason or explanation way behind the event itself, creates quite a bit of confusion during the first read-through. It would be nice if the story receives some refinement in these aspects.

And there you have it everyone. I hope this contest had given you great entertainment and optimism amid this difficult time, and helped you gain a lot of experience in writing on a very challenging but deep and colorful topic. I sincerely thank everyone who has taken part, followed and supported the contest by spreading the news. I hope to see you again in another contest in the future.

7222179
This is awesome! Thank you so much for hosting this contest. Congrats to all the winners and other honorable mentions.

7222179
Congrats to all the winners, and thanks for hosting this!

It's been a fun contest, folks. Thanks for hosting it, Secret. We got some great stories out of this - congratulations, everyone. And thank you!

Oh my goodness. Thank you so much, I'm honoured!

This was such a great idea for a contest - I've really enjoyed reading the other entries, and to say I'm surprised would be a pretty massive understatement; I've never placed in a Fimfiction contest before, let alone won one. Well done to everypony who managed to get a story in, and especially to everyone else who got highlighted in this thread. If you haven't read all of these stories, go and read them, they're all excellent!

I had a great time writing the story, and while it hasn't done very well in terms of views and votes and whatnot, it seems to have struck a chord with people, which is just lovely. I think the contest's emphasis on finding the positive really helped, both with writing the story and just with coping with lockdown in general.

(edit: I've gone back and made a few changes as suggested above, adding around 500 words of fixes and general tidying-up - hopefully the result is a better and tighter story, and I've not just ruined it!)

Thank you again! 💚 Stay strong and stay safe, everypony!

Congrats to the winners!

congrats to all the folks and thanks for letting us participate <3

Great job to the winners! There were stories I was surprised didn't even place, but that goes to show how tough the competition was.

7222210
I believe the reason all the top prize stories have low views and upvotes is because they are all very hard to read for the casual readers. Their excellence lies in very subtle aspects of writing and constructing a story. Like your story in particular, the readers must be able to get through the confusion of the first 1000 words to start feeling the immersion and get into the story. Most readers usually don't commit that long to a new story without something to catch their eyes.

I will give your story a reread during the weekend and will give some comment about the added part.

7222242
I would like to give a special shout-out to your story MayhemMoth. It is an excellent story about loss and love, and I believe it would do very well in a different contest. Unfortunately, it does not emphasize a lot on the theme of this contest, which is why I couldn't give it a prize. Really sorry about that.

7222400
Well, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts of course, but please don't feel obliged or anything - I'm already grateful you put so much time and effort into judging the contest and reviewing these stories, especially in the middle of your Ph.D studies. And I'm blown away to have actually won.

The changes (all pretty minor, mostly just patching identified holes) are sprinkled throughout, rather than just adding a new section, so it's over the word count now (it was almost exactly 7777 when submitted and judged, if anyone's looking at this in the future and wondering why I wasn't disqualified!)

7222403
Fair enough! I thought that isolating yourself after loss seemed like a good concept, since it is something I have been majorly guilty of, it just felt like it worked to me? Idk, you just feel really alone when you lose someone, so I thought it fit the theme, but I guess experiences can be very different. I'm still recovering from some of my own losses, and though not anything like what I wrote, it helped me get some of my own emotions out.

Eh, guess that's what I get for bending the concept a bit too much. Glad people seem to have felt something from it, at least.