What a round! The prompt was a little bit of a departure for us, and we hope you enjoyed writing to it as much as we enjoyed reading your stories. Once again, anything that went right is entirely due to our admin team’s untiring work behind the scenes (I know, it’s a mystery to me too how they do it), 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 combining tropes from two genres to make a blended-genre story.
A few tips and pointers about this round:
- Look. Up. Your. Genres.
- Even if you know one of the genres well, even if your name is actually Ngaio Marsh and we assigned you “mystery,” it’s good to think about not only what you believe is in the genre but what your judges might be expecting to see. Both genres need to be easily identifiable, so think about which elements of the two will work together and which will not.
- Don’t go offroading with your genres. Sure, there are noir stories that don’t incorporate crime, femme fatales, or hardboiled main characters… but this isn’t the time to be trying to write one. Stick to the main tropes for your assigned genres and let the interplay between the two provide the sense of freshness and innovation you’re looking for to show off your creativity.
- Think about what you’d need to include in your story for a reader to file it under each genre if they hadn’t been told what to look for.
- There are no character, plot or setting restrictions, beyond what is necessary to demonstrate each genre.
Sound fun? This is the prompt our editors talk about most when they talk about wanting to quit working for us so they can enter the Super Challenge. We know it’s a tricky one: some genres seem to have a list of elements that you have to include, others have a required structure, and still others are a “feeling” or “voice.” But we won’t just throw you to the wolves: you’ll get the same starting points and hints for genre definition that our judges get, and we’ll tell you if you need to include everything on the list (that hasn’t happened yet, ever, because you only have 1,000 words) or just enough for the reader to be able to solidly identify the genre. We’ll also tell you what not to include. For example, steampunk uses… “coal or wood fires to make steam, and clockwork and Victorian tech, not petroleum fuel and WWI-WWII tech (that’s dieselpunk).”
Congratulations to Our Advancing Writers
One judge commented that this was the tightest group of scores they’ve ever given; another said this was probably overall one of their favorite rounds they’ve judged. Even if you didn’t advance, you should be patting yourself on the back and probably looking for a place to sell your story, after a few touchups (and maybe a few more words, if you ran out of space!).
But for right now, keep both hands off your back and put them together for the following writers, who will be advancing to the final round of the Super Challenge:
Myna Chang
Laura Duerr
Christina Grant
Beth Greenberg
Michelle Hanley
Anna Hiller
Jolan Marchese
Cayce Osborne
Trish Tuthill
Gail Webber
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 markets. If you put your work on your blog or website, we’d love it if you took a few seconds to click the blue button right here and share it with future Super Challenge competitors!
Loading InLinkz ...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.
