The waiting is the hardest part, isn’t it? Well, the wait is over: Round One of YeahWrite’s Super Challenge is officially OPEN. Writers, check your emails for your group assignments and prompts. For those of you playing along at home (seriously, though, sign up next time), here’s the deal:
Round One:
In this round, writers will be working with an action and an event. What’s the difference? Well, an action in this context is generally performed or experienced by a single character, whereas an event happens to a lot of characters at once and may or may not be created or directed by the main characters.
A few tips and pointers about this round:
Any character may perform the action, not just the main character. The event does not need to be the plot or setting of the story. HOWEVER: Both prompts should be important enough to the story that the plot could not happen in their absence.
That is, if your event is “a robbery” you could write a story about burglars breaking into a house, a detective investigating the scene of a crime, or even Batman having a flashback to his parents getting mugged. If, however, your main character walks past a mugging in an alley on his way to a wedding and the mugging exists only to establish that you are in New York City, that is probably not going to be integral to the plot as there are a thousand other ways you could have established that.
Similarly, if your action is “find a coin” you could write about someone literally stumbling over a pile of gold coins, looking for pirate treasure, or holding onto the lucky coin they found in order to do well on a test. On the other hand, a character digging through their purse and finding two pens, a quarter, and a movie ticket is probably going to be considered tangential to your plot unless they then use the quarter to break out of jail or something.
There are no genre or setting restrictions.
Prompt Assignments
Group 1: Breaking a dish / A flood
In this context, “a dish” means any type of dishware or crockery, such as a mug, a plate, or a wineglass. What it doesn’t mean is a satellite dish, a beautiful woman from 1940, or gossip.
Group 2: Putting shoes on someone else / Opening night at the carnival
In this context, the “someone else” need not be human, but the action cannot be putting on one’s own shoes, nor putting shoes that belong to someone else on oneself. A carnival can be anything from a state fair to Mardi Gras but not a rock concert or similar gathering, nor a permanent installation like Disneyland.
Group 3: Paving a road / Armageddon
In this context “a road” can be any pathway meant for foot or vehicular traffic, but not a waterway or airway. Armageddon need not adhere to the Biblical description but must be an event broad and destructive enough to be readily described as “the end of the world” even if the planet itself is not completely physically destroyed in the process.
Wait, wait, there’s more!
Don’t post your story anywhere on the Internet until after our judges are done and you get your feedback! But if you want to talk up the competition or live-tweet your writing process, use the hashtag #YWsuper. Just remember not to include identifying details about which story is yours!
Your essays are due Sunday at 10pm US Eastern Time. Remember to check the rules for formatting, including all those fiddly details like title page, font, and filename. Don’t get disqualified on a technicality! We know it seems really useless at times, but all those rules have a purpose, from helping get your file where it needs to be to making sure you’re read anonymously and fairly.
Email your questions to superchallenge@yeahwrite.me—we will not be reviewing other email addresses or social media for your questions over the weekend and we want to make sure you get the answers you need!
We hope you have as much fun with the prompts as we had picking them out. Good luck, and good writing!
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.
