Round One Closes in:
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Friday is the first day of your work week!
Fine, that’s a horrible sentiment. But like most freelancers, I work weekends too. So just know that while you’re working on your story, I’m working on something horrifically boring and academic.
Still, I get excited every time we kick off a Super Challenge, and I’m hoping you do too. I’m also excited to announce our FINAL PRIZE AMOUNTS:
First place: $250
Second place: $200
Third place: $150
So now that I’ve chattered at you about me, and about you, let’s talk about the prompts. You should already have received your email with your group assignment, but let’s talk a little bit more about it before diving in.
This round you’ll be writing a story with two prompts. In order to score high with our judges, those prompts will need to be integral to the story, so let’s take a minute to talk about what “integral” means. (Some of you will have read this or something like it already. You know what? You still shouldn’t skip it. It’s a good reminder.)
First of all, here’s a long, unpacked version of what I’m about to say, and it’s worth a read if you’ve never seen it. Second: integral means that if the prompt were changed, the story would necessarily change.
Does that make sense? If for some reason your prompt was Batman (which it isn’t because that’s a copyright violation), the story would have to be designed so that if you inserted Superman instead, it would have a different plot, outcome, feel, etc. So a story where Batman intimidates your main character into abandoning a life of crime? OK. Because if Superman caught them he’d probably use guilt instead. On the other hand, if your story is a fight between spouses and Batman swings past the window… having Superman fly past wouldn’t necessarily change anything about the story! So that’s the difference between an integral and a tangential prompt. We’re looking for integral.
Now, that doesn’t necessarily even mean innovative: that Batman or Superman scenario? Not very inventive. Oh look, a confrontation between a hero and a criminal. But you’re going to tell your story in the way only you can tell stories. That’s what makes it unique, not necessarily the plot or the characters. Don’t worry too much about coming up with a unique take on the prompts or pushing the limits of what the prompt might mean. Worry about telling a good story, the way you tell it, edited well and with the prompts integrated.
Now that that’s cleared up, let’s talk a little more about these prompts, specifically.
For this round, you’ll have two prompts: a location and an object.
We’re actually pretty excited about these location prompts, because instead of being absolute, they’re relational. That is, instead of being “on top of Kilimanjaro” the prompts are described in relation to your main character. They might be something like “on the bus home” or “at lunch with your sister.” So in the first case, you’d need a character who is on a bus – any bus, whether a school bus, regular transit, or a long distance bus like Greyhound – going home, wherever that is for them. Not “to any old house” but “home.” Got it? Great.
The location doesn’t have to be the only location in your story. Depending on room, your story might have several different settings. Or your character might be in that location outside the action of the story – the location might be a flashback or a sense memory. So you’re not constrained in that way, just by having to make the location integral to your plot.
We’ll do our best to describe the object, but this, too, is a pretty flexible prompt – within limits. So if your object is “bread” then you might have leavened or unleavened bread, crackers, etc. depending on the description, but we might also carefully point out that we do not want you to use the definition of bread that’s slang for money.
As always, if you need clarification on a prompt, don’t contact our general email! Use superchallenge@yeahwrite.me
Ready? Let’s get to it.
Group 1
LOCATION: A place the character can’t leave
OBJECT: a ticket or token only valid in a place that the character is not.
Prompt notes: The reason the character can’t leave needs to be integral to the place, not the character. That is, they can’t be unable to leave because they’re tied to a chair; there needs to be a physical obstacle (like a rockslide at the mouth of a cave, a locked door, no atmosphere outside) or an emotional obstacle (a promise, a geas, a magic spell, family dinner) preventing them from leaving.
The ticket or token is something that is used for access – like a bus ticket, or a carousel token, or a fare token – not an airplane ticket or a parking or speeding ticket. The ticket should be still good; that is, if the character were in the right place, they could redeem the ticket or token to access the thing.
Group 2
LOCATION: Outside a family member’s residence
OBJECT: A pretty rock
Prompt notes: We don’t care which family member, or if they’re home, or if the character is out-of-doors or in a hallway. We’re looking for your character to engage with a setting that isn’t inside the place where a family member lives… quite.
A pretty rock can be a regular stone that the character thinks is pretty, or a gemstone, or a crystal, or just a pebble- it doesn’t need to be valuable but it can be. It can’t be part of jewelry; it needs to be just a stone.
Group 3
LOCATION: Lost
OBJECT: A single sock
Prompt notes: We know this is vague, but the main characteristic of this setting is that the character can’t know how to get to a known location from it. That means no trails of breadcrumbs, no maps that the character can read, no string to follow to the center of the labyrinth. Where your character gets lost? That depends on the character. Are they the sort of person who gets lost in cities, the woods, or even outer space?
The sock can’t have a mate, although it may have had one once. Or it could just be a sock that there’s only been one of ever. HOWEVER: it needs to be a sock that can be worn by someone.
Group 4
LOCATION: In a crowd where the character doesn’t know anyone
OBJECT: the smallest denomination of coin available
Prompt notes: We mean it, the character should know nobody in this crowd. That means if it’s Christmas at the mall they can’t be in a store with their coworkers. If it’s a party, they can’t be a member of the catering staff. See why? The situation doesn’t have to be static – they can later encounter a known person, but they should spend a meaningful amount of your story (however much that means to you- it might be brief but wildly important, or it might be the whole story) in a crush of people that they don’t know.
The coin should be of a type that has been generally available to the character. So, not the smallest denomination of anything ever, necessarily, but for example it might be a penny in the USA… but not in Canada, where they don’t use pennies. It might be “a copper” in a fantasy story, or “a bit.” The character doesn’t have to be in a location where the coin is actually useful (it’s hardly unheard of to get a weird coin out of a vending machine, or come home from a trip with unused currency).
Group 5
LOCATION: A long way from home
OBJECT: Cheese
Prompt notes: The distance doesn’t have to be physical, but the character should have a defined home to be away from.
Cheese is… well, it’s cheese. Here’s a database of almost 2,000 cheeses. Cream cheese is fine, but sour cream is not. It doesn’t have to be dairy cheese- vegan substitutes are fine as long as they’re clearly cheese-natured. Nutritional yeast is not cheese-natured. Almond “cheddar” is cheese-natured. Curds are fine, either the squeaky kind or the tiny cottage cheese ones.
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! Using any other contact method or email address could be grounds for disqualification.
You’ll receive your feedback on November 13, and we’ll announce who’s moving on to the next round that day at noon US Eastern Time. We’ll be moving the top two writers from each group, for a final round of 10 writers.
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.
