Welcome to the jungle
I may live in the city now, but I grew up steps away from the woods. Our backyard was full of all sorts of charismatic critters—and a bunch of less charismatic ones, too. (Don’t ask about the night I mistook a skunk for our black cat…) From tiny salamanders to white-tailed deer, there was always something creeping, crawling, bounding, or trotting past the kitchen window. Rumor had it there was a bear somewhere out in the woods; I suspect that was a ruse to keep us from straying too far from home.
Now my kids are obsessed with all the animals we don’t get to see here in our precisely laid out suburban neighborhood. Sure, there are squirrels and the occasional raccoon, but it’s not the same as coming across a wild animal in its natural habitat.
No more horsing around
Lemme get right to it. This week, we’re looking for stories in exactly 39 words that contain a verb which is also, when used as a noun, the name of an animal.
Examples (You might need to scroll down to get to the verb definitions in the links.)
- Her sister dogged her every step.
- He was easily cowed by the people in charge.
- Don’t monkey with the settings.
Tips and tricks
- Be creative, but no making up words. I know English is flexible, but don’t verb a word that isn’t already a verb in the dictionary! Yes, like I just did. In other words, even if we can infer what you mean when you write “Jack chipmunked his cheeks,” the word “chipmunk” is not an actual verb.
- Be conscious of voice. Some animal-verbs don’t trip easily off the tongue, and they’ll stick out if you don’t adapt the language around them.
- You may change the verb tense and/or add words (“horse/horses/horsed around,” for example), as long as the result doesn’t change the animal name. (No turning “fly” into “flew”!)
- Your story doesn’t need to be about the animal in question!
This is the badge you need:
Below is the YeahWrite badge you need for this month’s microprose challenge. Under the badge is a few lines of code. See that? Copy it and then paste it into the “text” or HTML view of your post editor. If you don’t copy it exactly, the image will not appear correctly in your post, and you will receive an error message when you submit the post to Inlinkz. If you have any questions regarding adding this code to your post or website, please contact us at editors@yeahwrite.me.
Need a hand?
Microprose sounds easy. After all, how hard can it really be to write a story with fewer than 100 words incorporating a prompt or two? But it turns out it’s our hardest challenge to really get right. Whether you’re a seasoned micropro or a brand new microwriter, it’s worth taking a minute to glance through the tips and tricks our editors have put together, like this quick refresher on what makes a micro great, or this one on how to incorporate mandatory prompts into adjudicated challenges. Make sure you make it to the vote this week: check your wordcount (we count those footnotes!) and prompts!
The microprose challenge ends in:
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How to submit and fully participate in the Microprose Challenge
Basic YeahWrite guidelines: must be in response to the prompt found above; your entry can be dated no earlier than Wednesday, June 5; nonfiction, fiction, whatever, told in exactly 39 words. You may enter only one microstory per weekly challenge.
How to submit and fully participate in the challenge:
- Please grab the code beneath the microprose badge in the body of this week’s post and paste it into the HTML view of your entry;
- Follow the Inlinkz instructions after clicking “add your link” to upload your entry to this week’s challenge grid;
- Your entry should appear immediately on the grid if you don’t receive an error message;
- Please make the rounds to read all the entries in this week’s challenge; and
- Consider turning off moderated comments and CAPTCHA on your own blog.
Submissions for this week’s challenges will close on Wednesday at 10pm ET. Voting will then open immediately thereafter and close on Thursday at 10pm ET. The winners, as always, will be celebrated on Friday.
Thank you for sharing with us your hard work! Good luck in the challenge…
Loading InLinkz ...About the author:
Christine Hanolsy is a (primarily) science fiction and fantasy writer who simply cannot resist a love story. She joined the YeahWrite team in 2014 as the microstory editor and stepped into the role of Editor-In-Chief in 2020. Christine was a 2015 BlogHer Voices of the Year award recipient and Community Keynote speaker for her YeahWrite essay, “Rights and Privileges.” Her short fiction has been published in a number of anthologies and periodicals and her creative nonfiction at Dead Housekeeping and in the Timberline Review. Outside of YeahWrite, Christine’s past roles have included Russian language scholar, composer, interpreter, and general cat herder. Find her online at christinehanolsy.com.
