Round Two Roundup Time!
When you’re writing for a prompted competition, do you ever take the time to sit back and ask yourself what the competition is trying to “test” in your writing? For example, Round One and Round Two both were two-prompt rounds, but the prompts were very different. This round you had a very precise (down to the punctuation, as we reminded everyone!) prompt, and a semi-casual one, where you were trying to capture a recognizable feel but it didn’t matter if a hill in the picture was located in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere, or even on Earth at all. Doing a little meta-analysis of the prompts can help you hit them dead center every time.
For example, our next round combines two genres. Some genres are very style-driven, like high fantasy or epistolary. Others are content-driven, like steampunk or western. Don’t forget to think about what really makes your genres tick as you sit down to write.
Before we announce who’ll be moving on, let’s take a moment to remember that anything that went right is entirely due to our admin team’s untiring work behind the scenes, and anything you hate is probably my fault. No, really. So go ahead and yell at me on Friday night when you see your prompts – I don’t mind.
With no further fanfare, let’s see who’s going to be hitting “refresh” on that link come Friday night:
Congratulations to Our Advancing Writers
Last round saw some thrills, chills and spills, but it also saw some great writing. Let’s have a hand for the following writers, who will be advancing to the next round of the Super Challenge:
Colette Bennett
Myna Chang
Laura Duerr
Josh Flores
Jessica Gilmartin
Christina Grant
Stephen Matlock
Cayce Osborne
MM Schreier
Trish Tuthill
Wait, wait, there’s more!
Writers, if you don’t have your feedback, please send us an email at superchallenge@yeahwrite.me, ’cause that email should have reached you about twelve hours ago.
A few tips and pointers for your final round:
- Look. Up. Your. Genres.
- Even if you know one of the genres well, even if your name is actually Ngaio Marsh and we assigned you “mystery,” it’s good to think about not only what you believe is in the genre but what your judges might be expecting to see. Both genres need to be easily identifiable, so think about which elements of the two will work together and which will not.
- Don’t go offroading with your genres. Sure, there are fairy tales that don’t incorporate magic… but this isn’t the time to be trying to write one. Stick to the main tropes for your assigned genres and let the interplay between the two provide the sense of freshness and innovation you’re looking for to show off your creativity.
- There are no character, plot or setting restrictions, beyond what is necessary to demonstrate each genre.
Now that this round of the competition is over, you’re free to post your work anywhere on the Internet you like, or take our judges’ suggestions and rework your submission to send on to that anthology you’ve been excited about. Or grab the Super Challenge badge out of the Announcements section, stick it on your blog, and link your work up right here for future Super Challengeers!
Loading InLinkz ...About the author:
Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.
