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Sowing the Seeds
My seed order came today. A whole manila envelope filled with little packets of hope. I don’t know yet what the fate of all those seeds will be. Some will sprout; some might not. It’s entirely within the realm of possibility that my cats will eat some of the baby plants before I can get them in the ground. Of the ones that grow, the summer might kill them with heat and drought. But some will make it to the fall, and become soups and sauces and jack o’lanterns and alguashte and pickles. Stories are a little bit like that, too. We’ll plant the prompt with this post, but how far your story goes and the fruit it bears are a little bit up to luck, and a little bit up to you. So we’ll wish you luck, and you’ll bring your skill, and on Sunday night we’ll look forward to the harvest!
This round you can write a personal or persuasive essay, wherever the prompt takes you, in 1000 words or fewer. So let’s talk about those essay styles:
- personal essays: the mostly-true stories of your life. Make sure that you center the prompt, although the entire essay doesn’t have to be about the prompt. For example, if the prompt were horses, you could write about your first horse, about how much you wanted a horse, about a plastic toy horse, or about your summer camp experience in the Rockies. What you shouldn’t do is write about a road trip your family took and casually mention that you drove past a horse in Nebraska along the way.
- persuasive essays. A persuasive essay utilizes logic and reason to show that one idea or position is more legitimate than another. It attempts to persuade a reader to adopt the writer’s point of view on the topic. The argument must always use sound reasoning and solid evidence. It can do this by stating facts, giving logical reasons, using examples, and quoting experts. It can also utilize emotion effectively, but it should not depend on emotional appeal or require the reader to find the writer sympathetic in order to make its point. We’ll be judging these essays on how thoroughly and convincingly the author makes their stand. The judges don’t have to agree with the answer, but the answer will need to be supported by more than my mom’s old standby of “because I said so.”
Note: If you choose to use citations or footnotes to credit your sources (and you should credit your sources, if applicable), remember that those will count towards your overall word limit. You are also free to use hyperlinks to refer to external material, but your essay must stand on its own merit. That is, it can’t be necessary to read the outside material to understand the point you’re making. (Unless you want us to count every word in the outside material which, trust us, you don’t.)
Now that that’s cleared up, let’s get to the assignments:
Group 1
Sleeping alone
Love it or hate it, you’ve probably slept alone at some point in your life. Tell us about it. Persuade us that it’s the best, or the worst, way to sleep. Tell us a mostly-true story about the first time you slept alone after moving in with your partner. See where the prompt takes you!
Group 2
Weather you hate
It’s no secret that our editor Rowan hates the summer, or that Christine hates winter. Whatever “bad weather” means to you, we want to know about it. Tell us a mostly-true story with some bad weather in it, or take this chance to explain why everyone should hate the weather you hate!
Group 3
A meal cooked by someone else
As we enter the third year of a global pandemic, some folks are eating out in restaurants with their whole face out like nothing’s happening and others are still wiping down their delivered groceries. Whether a meal cooked by someone else is a fond memory, a luxury, or an everyday occurrence, we want to know. Maybe you remember a meal your parent made, or the first time your partner cooked for you. Maybe you need to explain why prepared food is more than a luxury. Wherever this prompt takes you, our judges will follow!
Group 4
How to fall asleep
Whether you’re able to drift off in the middle of a sentence or it takes you five hours, a bottle of melatonin, and a carefully curated ASMR playlist, we want your tips for how to fall asleep. Not when, not where, but how. Maybe you’ll write a tutorial essay. Maybe you’ll tell us about your journey through doctors medical and homeopathic. Maybe the answer was within you all along. But we want to know a methodology, not an anecdote about falling asleep once. Got it? Good luck, and good night!
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 1000-word 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.
Your title page should include: title, group number, prompt, and any applicable content warning. Don’t put your title page in a fancy font, you don’t have to underline anything or make it pretty. We just want the information. (Protip: you can separate your title page from the rest of the document with a hard page break instead of just hitting enter a lot!)
Email your questions to superchallenge@yeahwrite.me or post your question in the private (judge-free) Super Challenge Discord channel—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! (Also, we don’t want you to accidentally email your questions to a judge; it’s happened! Don’t be that guy!)
You’ll receive your feedback on Wednesday, March 2, 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.
