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Welcome back, shortlisted writers! The twelve of you are already the best-of-the-best of a very good field, and our judges are looking forward to seeing what you do with this round’s prompt.
This final round is for either personal or persuasive essays. Personal essays are the mostly-true stories of your life, but a persuasive essay utilizes logic and reason to show that one idea or position is more legitimate than another. The prompt this round is open-ended: you’ll be incorporating it into an essay about… well, about whatever you want to write about, as long as the prompt appears somewhere in the essay. Since I personally would find that description of a prompt so broad as to give me a fit of procrastination that lasted until about 3pm Sunday, here are a couple tips to help you narrow it down:
- The prompt shouldn’t stick out or sound unnatural. Words should flow, nuance should be on-point, and our judges shouldn’t be able to tell where your writing ends and our prompt begins.
- Consider working the prompt into a section of your essay that’s structurally important to the story you’re trying to tell or the point you’re trying to make. You don’t have to make it the plot twist, but the more inspiration and flavor you take from the prompt, the easier it will be to incorporate it smoothly.
Hope that helps. Oh, and I should probably give you the prompt:
Fragility
That’s it. The word fragility. No limits but these:
- The prompt doesn’t have to be (but can be) literal. Fragile eggs or fragile egoes are welcome; broken dishes and broken promises can make an appearance.
- No changing the prompt word: “fragile” isn’t the prompt. If you use “fragile” you still have to say “fragility” somewhere in the essay.
- You don’t have to capitalize the prompt word and it doesn’t have to be a standalone – go ahead and stick it in a sentence somewhere, we know how to use “find” to look for it.
- Using the prompt word as your essay title is not adequate, although it can be part or all of your title as well as appearing in the essay.
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 having a separate title page, using the correct font, and how to name your file. 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.
Don’t forget to turn off Track Changes when you’re making your last round of edits, accept all the changes, and delete any comments. Seriously, don’t forget, we don’t want anyone to be disqualified because a judge saw your name on a tracked change or comment!
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!
You’ll receive your feedback on Wednesday, February 20, and we’ll announce our winners at 3pm on Friday, February 22.
We hope you have as much fun with the prompt as we had picking it. 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.
