We’ve had three informative posts designed to infuse our reading with more objectivity than subjectivity this week during Week Five of the yeah write summer writer’s series: becoming a more critical reader. Flood G gave us the three different types of readers who may stop by your post to browse. Erica M reminded everyone how the yeah write audience likely has a different set of expectations than your regular readers. Kristin W helped us understand bringing your best stuff isn’t just a tagline, it’s an imperative.

As you go through the grid preparing to vote, you’ll need to take notes, whether digitally or on paper. Create a numeric scale if you’re math-y like that. Five points for the writers hitting a particular element out of the park down to zero for, in your opinion, the writers completely missing the mark.

Score each element, add ’em up, take an average, then move to the next entry on the grid. Rinse and repeat for each entry and the three highest scores should be the three that get your votes. Surprised by the results? Go with them anyway. 

What I like to do is treat the grid like I’m in the bookstore with enough money to buy one book. I read the first paragraph, if the first paragraph holds my interest, that book goes in the maybe pile. If the excerpts I read while flipping pages seem to follow the basic rules of writing, yet are rather awful, that book goes in the hell no pile. With my stack of maybes, I use my mental scoring spreadsheet, select my favorite, then head to the checkout counter.

 Reading as a reader

The writing should be inviting and the story should flow effortlessly.  Did the writers keep your interest, especially on topics you knew nothing about before reading their stories?

Reading as a writer

Is the post written the yeah write way?  Remember, the writer has the rest of his or her natural days to write whatever and however. When writing for yeah write, there are guidelines to follow.

[bullet_list]

• It needs a clear introduction, a reason for telling the story.
• It must have a central conflict: the one problem or event moving the story forward. If there is no problem, there is no story.
• It has to be more than a journal entry written for one person, the writer. It’s supposed to be a personal essay/work of fiction/work of non-fiction/piece of creative non-fiction designed for a specific audience, the readers and voters of the grid.

[/bullet_list]

Reading as a mechanic

Pull out your purple pen. Your yeah write editors have given you a head start by only allowing posts with 500 words or fewer onto the grid; don’t worry about post length. But do worry about clear language, correct spelling and correct grammar unless, of course, the writer is using well-crafted dialect or slang as a stylistic choice. Does anything interfere with the readability of the post such as an overzealous application of freakish typefaces? The writer’s content should be the focus of the space, free of distractions.

How yeah write voting works

[arrow_list]

• Everybody gets three votes. Yes, yes, I know: when the grid has 50 entries, you get five. Today, the grid has fewer than 50, you get three.
• Unless there is a program glitch on our end or willful treks to various Starbucks for new IP addresses on your end, voting for your own post should be disabled. If I added your post for you, the app won’t recognize your IP address as the owner of the entry, so please be on the honor system about it. I do validate each vote like a crazy person, redistributing those pesky self-votes evenly among the poor at various food banks.
• Click on the thumbnail to read the post, click the yellow star to vote for that post.
• The page is gonna refresh after each yellow star click, so you’ll have to work your way back down to the grid to do it again.
• Sometimes, it will seem as though the Inlinkz app isn’t registering your votes. Refresh the page manually, and you should see the yellow stars have disappeared. You may have to change browsers. Keep calm and carry on.
• After you’ve voted three times, all the yellow stars will disappear and the current vote tallies will show under each thumbnail.
• You are free to campaign for your favorite entries on Twitter, Facebook, your blog and any other social media, but please please encourage your visitors to read through a few submissions first. They may find something they like about us and stick around awhile. Plus, yeah write voting day is not Internet clicking contest day—no flashing your submission number to the camera or scrawling it on your boobs. We read, we consider, we vote on merit.

[/arrow_list] 

Yeah write #68 voting is open…