I HATE EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WRITTEN AND I SHOULD STOP FOREVER
It’s hard not to to feel like that sometimes, right? Especially when you get your feedback. And especially when it looks like you got a lot more negative than positive. But think about it: to write good negative feedback a person has to explain what is wrong, why it’s wrong, and how to fix it. That’s a lot of things! Whereas when something’s right, all they have to do is say “this is a thing you did well.” Look, this won’t keep you from waking up at 3am with every piece of negative feedback you’ve ever received running through your head, but it might help you get back to sleep.
If the thing that makes you feel better is being less alone, here are some general things our judges noticed for Round One.
- There’s nothing wrong with having unlikeable, even abusive, characters. That’s how some stories are told. But if they’re your main characters, you should find a way to interrogate that in the text rather than leaving their behavior unchallenged and normalized.
- The rules are there so that you can be judged fairly. On the other hand, they also give you a few easy points for some really mechanical things, so don’t skip that last check of the formatting rules.
- A thousand words is not a whole lot of words; that means that you’re not going to have a lot of space to clearly signal changes in tense or point of view. Consider picking one and sticking to it to avoid looking like you’re making mistakes.
- If none of the characters are described, it’s hard not to assume that it’s thinly veiled fanfic, because that’s such a convention in fanfic–everyone knows what the characters look like already so you don’t have to describe them.
- Sadness as a point of interest in a story stands out if it’s the only story like that, but you can’t guarantee that you’ll be the only story about a missed opportunity in a competition or submissions pool. If you’re one among many, it’s almost the hardest conceit to lean on.
- There are so many ways to establish emotion. It’s refreshing when people don’t lean on tears dripping down cheeks to show sadness, or a clenched fist or jaw for anger.
- Make sure that if something’s happening in the story it happens in the story, not just in someone’s mind. If your whole story is a flashback consider just telling that story instead.
- Does your story fit in the word limit? Are you sure?
- You should assume that at least one of your judges has read the material you’re about to borrow from.
- Having a diverse cast in your story is more than a matter of using a checklist. Make sure that your characters are fully realized and have a chance to have different backgrounds and experiences and narrative voices as well as just skin colors.
Folks, a couple of the groups had not one or two but as many as half of their stories separated by only a point or two, so while you may think some of these notions don’t apply to you or are too finicky, Those couple points could make a big difference for you in the next round.
As for this round, as usual, 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 posts on genres: element-based genre prompts and style-based genre prompts.
Sound fun? Let’s see who’ll be taking on that, er, super challenge this weekend:
Congratulations to Our Advancing Writers
Let’s have a hand for the following writers, in alphabetical order, who will be advancing to the final round of the Super Challenge:
Alyssa Beatty
Chad Frame
Kate Goodheart
Jennifer Gunner
Corrie Haldane
Jennifer Huckabay
Jordan Lopez
Oonagh McBride
C.A. Raine
Kristen Ray
Dan Scamell
Jessica Vergara
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.
