A token of our affection
As the token gamer of the team, I’ve been playing a lot of, well, stuff lately. Some to relax, some to catch up (first of all, the Hugos have a video game category this year; second of all, I have a lot of Zelda to replay before all the anniversary stuff is released), and some just because I like a good story and games are a wonderful storytelling medium. Cozy Grove falls into the first and third categories- it’s cozy (who would have guessed) and it’s got some great visuals, but mostly the thing I like about it right now is that I can’t binge it to the exclusion of my other work. The game lets you have about a hour’s worth of play toward plot points a day with a handful of quests to restore memories to the ghost bears, and then that’s it. You can hang out as long as you like in the soft ambient music kicking leaves and catching fish, but you won’t get any more plot than that.
Casual segue: y’all know that was a metaphor for flash fiction, right? The trick to flash is that you only get enough room for a little bit of plot, so you need to balance the sense that there’s a wider world the reader wants to spend time in with this perfect bite of enough plot to satisfy them for the time they spent reading. If you do it right, they’ll sit there, immersed in your world, and thrilled to chew on that bite of plot.
But enough about storytelling – I want to talk about scores for a second. Because the crummy part of a competition is, you’re getting scored, and you’re about to compare yourself to the other folks in at least your group. If you didn’t move on this round, I assure you (I’ve just come from staring at the spreadsheet) that there’s quite a good possibility that one or two points are all that separated you from the shortlist. Yes, no matter how many people were in your group: the middle of all four packs was VERY tight. So grab your feedback, your red pen, and your favorite beta reader and see what you can do about polishing that work up for publication.
As always, anything that went right this round is entirely due to our admin team’s untiring work behind the scenes, and anything you hate is probably my fault. Unless it’s your feedback—hating and loving your feedback is just kind of part of being a writer.
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. This is one of my favorite prompts, and the one that makes me REALLY wish I could write for this challenge. It’s also incredibly fun to judge! 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.
Need a little extra help? Check out our Navigating Prompts post on genre prompts.
Sound fun? Let’s see who’ll be taking on that, er, super challenge:
Congratulations to Our Advancing Writers
Let’s have a hand for the following writers, in alphabetical order, who will be advancing to the next round of the Super Challenge:
Susannah Carlson
EJ Sidle
Melinda Hagenson
Jen Mierisch
Laila Miller
Kristen Ray
Alex Otto
Chrissie Rohrman
C. M. Rourke
MM Schreier
Johannah Simon
Gail A. 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 venues and anthologies. If it finds a home, we’d love to hear about it in the Coffeehouse! And if you choose to post it to your personal site or blog, you can share that link in the Coffeehouse as well.
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.
