Hey, Super Challenge writers! I guess I could just say super writers – this round had some great personal essays. Your feedback should be in hand.

One thing we heard back on a recent survey was that it’s confusing to get negative feedback and then advance. Here’s the thing: no writer is perfect. Each judge was asked to identify something you were doing well (so you can do more of it!) and something you needed to spend a little more time on, either by yourself or with some resources and your beta readers or editors (yes, those are different roles, and a person who’s good at one might not be good at the other). We believe pretty strongly in constructive criticism here – so much so that we’ve put together a guide for interpreting it.

Once again, 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.

Before we announce who’ll be moving on, let’s take a moment to chat about the next round of the Super Challenge. Starting Friday, the advancing writers will be working on persuasive essays. A persuasive essay utilizes logic and reason to show that one idea or position is more legitimate than another. It attempts to persuade a reader to adopt the writer’s point of view on the topic. The argument must always use sound reasoning and solid evidence. It can do this by stating facts, giving logical reasons, using examples, and quoting experts. It can also utilize emotion effectively, but it should not depend on emotional appeal or require the reader to find the writer sympathetic in order to make its point.

Our round two prompts are open-ended questions. We’ll be judging these essays on how thoroughly and convincingly the author answers the question. The judges don’t have to agree with the answer, but the answer will need to be supported by more than my mom’s old standby of “because I said so.”

We know the persuasive essay can feel like a trial by fire, but it’s really not that bad. We promise. If you’re still nervous, you might want to spend some time reading through this post before Friday at 10pm.

Sound fun? Let’s see who’ll be taking on that, er, darn, I already made a super challenge pun:

Congratulations to Our Advancing Writers

Well, folks, we’re down to fourteen writers. They’ll be working on the persuasive essay questions in two groups of lucky number 7 (which ties in nicely with today’s microprose prompt, actually).

We are thrilled to announce a very special guest judge for round two! Cindy Reed is a professional editor, writer, teacher, storyteller, and speaker. She is a multi-year recipient of BlogHer’s Voices of the Year award, and her work has appeared in multiple venues across the web, including Brain, Child magazine, The Huffington Post, Aiming Low, I Just Want to Pee Alone, In the Powder Room, WhatToExpect.com, and more. Check out her Month of Writing e-course on creating a sustainable writing practice in 30 days!

Let’s have a hand for our round two writers, in alphabetical order:

JJ Mikel
Nisha Mody
Jennifer Palmer
Robin Quackenbush
Eleni Sakka
Jolene Smith
Paige Vest

We often get asked why we don’t rank our writers in order. We’re working on a FAQ that will explain the math of it better, but the simple answers are

• you can’t actually compare writers across more than one group, because if you get the group with the judge that likes to score low, even though it won’t affect whether you advance, it will affect how you “compare” to the writers in a group with a judge that likes to score high. You might have written a much better essay, score first in your group, and look like you came in 7th.
• nobody wants us to announce to the world that they ranked last. Yes, even you. Yes, even if you think you’d rather know. We don’t know a single person, including some of our editors, who hasn’t changed their mind about that once the scores were in.

So that’s why you see those names in alphabetical order. We don’t carry your ranking forward to the next round, so a pass-fail system really does give you almost every bit of usable information you can get. Now go read your positive feedback and pat yourself on the back, because you’re moving on!

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.

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 other venues. If you’d like to post your work as an example for future Super Challenge writers, you can add it to our archive by clicking the little blue button below once you’ve put it somewhere with a permanent URL:

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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.

rowan@yeahwrite.me