Welcome to Super Challenge #6
Are you ready? We are. You’ve got your group assignment in hand and you’re prepared to turn in that prompted story in 1,000 words and 48 hours. You can do it!
Remember: if you’ve got any questions, please only send them to superchallenge@yeahwrite.me, not to our Twitter, Facebook, or regular email. That way we can make sure to get you an answer as quickly as possible and maintain your anonymity.
Welcome to the first round of the YeahWrite Super Challenge. You’ve already received an email with your group assignment. Over the next 48 hours, you’ll be writing a story of 1,000 words or fewer combining prompts describing a character, an action and an emotion.
Rules for using the prompts:
The character described need not be the main character.
Any character may perform the action, not just the main character.
Any character may experience the emotion, not just the main character. However, the emotion must be clearly exhibited by whatever character you choose to assign it to.
You may not use the emotion prompt word (or a conjugation or declension thereof) to describe the character’s emotion. That is, if your prompt is “Anger” you may not write “I felt angry.” It is permissible to write “I felt rage” but we strongly encourage you to show, rather than tell, the reader what emotion the character is feeling. As always, try to avoid clichés like “a single tear rolled down my cheek.”
HOWEVER: all three prompts should be important enough to your story that the plot could not happen in their absence. That is, 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 on your story. However, as always, we do remind you to respect the dignity and diversity of the audience for which you are writing. Our judges are drawn from all over the world and from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences.
If you feel your work may merit a content warning, please feel free to add that on your title page under your summary. It will not be included in your word count. A good content warning will give a direct but not explicit description of what the reader may encounter: “CW: sexual assault” but not “CW: graphic.” (graphic what? violence? sex? design?)
Group 1
A black-eyed clerk
Predicting the weather
Fear
Group 2
A sword-fighting librarian
(Making or receiving) a phone call that hangs up without the caller speaking
Joy
Group 3
A park ranger who is afraid of the light
Running out of batteries
Guilt
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.
