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Welcome to the Super Challenge!
If it’s your first time here at this competition designed by writers and for writers (seriously we’d like to quit our jobs and enter, do you want to run this thing for a while) welcome. We hope you’ll have as much fun writing to the prompts as we had coming up with them.
Kidding. We know you’re going to spend 36 hours panicking that you don’t have an idea and 12 writing and yelling for a beta reader. It’s cool. We’ve been there too. Just don’t let that last-minute rush keep you from checking things like formatting, your title page, deleting the comments from your betas, and all that. Those count too, and those comments can have your name on them! No, but seriously, save a new version without your tracked changes.
Now that we’ve threatened to disqualify you, let’s talk about prizes! With this many writers entering the competition will be fierce but the payoff will be worth it: our first place writer will receive $180. Second place will receive $140 and third place will receive $100.
In order to get those prizes, though, you’ve got to write! Over the next 48 hours you’ll be working on a story featuring a two-prompt combo: a character and an action. A few tips and pointers about this round:
- It is not necessary to make the described character the main character, but they should be identifiable and important to the plot of the story.
- Any character may perform the action, not just the main character.
- HOWEVER: Both 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. If you feel that your work merits a content warning, it probably does (seriously, be kind to yourself as well as our diverse pool of judges and use a clearly worded CW on your title page so that if they’re worried they won’t be able to read your story with the care it deserves we can get you a better fit) and we won’t count that against your word count.
Now that that’s cleared up, let’s get to the assignments:
Group 1
- A person wearing jeans who is not gendered male or female. This character may not be the POV character in a first-person story.
- Climbing something taller than the climber.
There are two main ways to write a character without gendering them specifically male or female: explicitly (using pronouns like ze/zir or ei/em, for example), or simply by never using a gendered pronoun to talk about the character. Either is acceptable here, or a third method that you come up with, although again: your character may not be the POV character in a first-person story. Sorry, saying “I” for a thousand words is too easy.
The jeans don’t have to be blue, but they certainly can be. What we’re looking for is denim pants, not shorts.
“Climbing” can refer to walking up a slope or to actually scaling, clambering, climbing with ropes or a ladder etc. What it may not be is a metaphor. No corporate ladders, no aspirations. Move your character’s body upwards—even if they don’t make it to the top.
Group 2
- A talking animal that is not a mammal
- Painting a large structure
Your talking animal can be a bird, fish, reptile, or even an alien species that does not resemble Earth mammals, but it can’t be a furry live-bearing critter. Or a platypus. No platypi. It must actually speak the same language as another species, although it’s not required to do that well, and it may have mechanical assistance.
Painting a large structure means just that: changing the color of a fence, wall, or building of some sort by using paint. Not painting a picture on a canvas or board. You can, however, use a mural or graffiti, so long as the finished image is of a substantial size (writing your initials on the bathroom stall doesn’t count).
Group 3
- The imaginary younger sibling of a real or imaginary famous person
- Repairing an object
The famous person can be real or imaginary, but the younger sibling must be the product of your own imagination. If the famous person is real, they must have died at least 50 years ago. It is permissible for purposes of this story to create a younger sibling for a famous fictional character not created by you IF AND ONLY IF the original work of fiction is in the public domain. Gods and mythical beings are considered “famous people” for purposes of this prompt, as long as they’re specifically named in the appropriate canon.
The object must be real and physical, not metaphorical like a relationship.
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! Um, also you can disqualify yourself by revealing information to our judging team if you use the other addresses. So please don’t, we want you to make it through this round too!
You’ll receive your feedback on October 10, and we’ll announce who’s moving on to the next round that day at noon US Eastern Time.
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.
