Round One Closes in:
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This is not a long recipe post
If you’ve met the Internet, you’ve met someone on it complaining that they had to read a 5,000 word blog post to get to a recipe. Leaving aside the underlying questions of recipe copyright (they’re not) and anecdotes about grandmothers cooking (love ’em or hate ’em, we won’t judge you either way), that is not what this post is. It might feel right now like you should be scrolling down to find your prompt as quickly as possible because, um, do you see that countdown timer it’s already counting down but… don’t. Trust us. It’s worth the ten minutes it’ll take you to read through the post and gather the actual, specific information that our judges will be thinking about when they read your story. If you absolutely must, go ahead and scroll, then come back here. We’ll leave you a bookmark.
Got your prompt or willing to wait? Great. Let’s remind you what you could win at the end of all this:
First place: $200
Second place: $150
Third place: $100
Now that the best part is over, let’s talk about the prompts. You should already have received your email with your group assignment, but before you check your number again and dive in, let’s take a quick look at how to handle prompts in general, and get a refresher on the rules.
This round you’ll be writing a story in 1,000 words or fewer with two prompts. In order to get the highest scores from our judges, both prompts should 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.
Now, for an object prompt, it’s easy to tell if something’s integral. Use the banana test. Could you replace the object prompt with a banana without changing the story?
For the prompts you’ll be working with this weekend, it’s a little harder, but not much. If you replaced the prompt with the prompt for a different group, could you tell the same story in the same way? If you could, your prompt isn’t well integrated. For a setting, that’s going to mean working within the parameters of the setting. If it’s a bustling city, the resources and ambiance of the city should play into your story. If it’s a tropical island with no people, the same rule applies: your characters should operate within the weather and resources of the island. If you put a resort on the island and place your whole story within a hotel room that could just as easily be in Antarctica, just casually mentioning the name of the island? Not integral. Similarly, for a character, that character’s, er, characteristics should matter. If your very religious doctor could be replaced with an atheist mechanic, they weren’t well integrated into the story. Who they were didn’t matter to the story.
Now, the whole story doesn’t have to revolve around the prompt. And as we’ve mentioned, it doesn’t have to be super innovative. 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 setting image and a character.
PROMPT STYLE 1: Setting image
The image prompt must be the setting of at least one scene in your story. You don’t need to describe every detail of the photo prompt when setting your scene, but you should give enough detail that someone who has never seen the image could produce a reasonable sketch resembling the scene based only on your description, or summarize your description in an image description adequate for accessibility purposes. Feel free to add reasonable additions to the photo – fish to a river, a carving on a tree – but do not make it an entirely different scene by adding, say, a city to an empty tundra image.
Not sure how to approach an image prompt for a setting? Don’t worry: we wrote you a primer.
PROMPT STYLE 2: Character
It is not necessary to make the described character the main character, but they should be necessary for and important to the plot of the story. A reader should be able to readily identify which character the author intends to be the prompt character. The writer is free to change superficial characteristics such as the character’s clothing or what they are carrying so long as they appear at least once in the story exactly as described. The writer may not change immutable characteristics such as skin color, described moral compass, disability, culture, religion, etc. without a significant in-story justification and mechanic. (Stories should not be centered around the permanent alteration of these characteristics; however, a character might disguise themself or obfuscate their mindset or culture to further a legitimate story goal.) Characters should be of the gender identified in the prompt at the time of the story, although there is no requirement that the character be cisgender; if the author is free to choose a gender for the character the prompt will state this.
Character prompts can be tricky: it’s tempting (especially with a tight word count) to rely on stereotypes and oversimplifications. And while you’ll need to take some shortcuts, watch out for those traps. We’ve talked about handling character prompts well in our Navigating Prompts series, and again in this year’s Scarlet Quill Society topical posts and meetings.
If you’re at sea with either of the prompts you’ve been given, why not check out the post written by the people who wrote your prompt? That’s right: you can scroll back, follow the links, and get a sneak peek into the brains of the judges and promptwriters. You might also want to check out our post specifically about combination prompts—that is, what to do when you have to incorporate two or more prompts into your story!
Questions?
As always, if you need clarification on a prompt, don’t contact our general email! That means don’t use the contact form, don’t email or DM the editor you’ve talked to personally, just use superchallenge@yeahwrite.me. You can also get in touch with us using the Super Challenge channels on our Discord server. Please don’t use any of the other channels, as many of our judges are on the server and may accidentally see your post. We don’t let the judges into the Super Challenge channels, though, so you should feel free to discuss the prompts, ask for beta readers and editors, and chat about your story ideas in there.
Remember: while you’re welcome to get clarification on the prompt on general principles, “Can I….?” type questions are about your work, and we can’t answer those. Ask yourself if the answer to the question would benefit everyone in your group, or just you–the judges will have the final say on your individual story. (Example: a prompt with the setting “woods” – a valid question about the prompt might be “is woods necessarily a wild space or would any large cluster of trees count even if it’s groomed like an orchard or park?” On the other hand, the answer to “Can I set my story in Central Park” would benefit only you.
Ready for your prompts? Let’s get to it!
Groups and Prompts
Group One
Your setting prompt is:
[Click for full size photo. Image description in alt text for screen reader accessibility.]
Your character prompt is:
A young person (between 17 and 23 years old or the relevant equivalent if they are nonhuman) with a large musical instrument (any, but it must be cumbersome) and a small knapsack containing a change of clothes and a packed meal. They wear boots and durable but unremarkable clothing for the area. They are in the racial majority for the setting. Their hair is cut unevenly and unprofessionally. There are no gender restrictions for this prompt.
Not sure where to start? Scroll back to the bookmark!
Group Two
Your setting prompt is:
[Click for full size photo. Image description in alt text for screen reader accessibility.]
Your character prompt is:
A tall person who is past middle age, wearing high heels (not platforms), and an elaborate, brightly colored, knee-length coat. The rest of their clothing is up to the author, as well as their race and gender. Their hair is very short- no longer than a pixie cut. They are Deaf. (The story should not center around the loss of their hearing; this is simply a descriptor for this character, not a plot prompt.)
Not sure where to start? Scroll back to the bookmark!
Group Three
Your setting prompt is:
[Click for full size photo. Image description in alt text for screen reader accessibility.]
Your character prompt is:
A man with dark skin and medium length hair worn in braids. His clothes are noticeably anachronistic for the setting of the story (they could be traditional, or vintage, or even futuristic, they just can’t be “modern” for whatever time period the story is set in). His fingernails and hands are very clean and well kept. He carries a Gladstone-type traveling bag (you may call this a satchel or a doctor’s bag if the characters in your story would think of it that way; the link is there for your visual because “satchel” is a very broad term). The contents of the bag are left to the author.
Not sure where to start? Scroll back to the bookmark!
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! If you’re dying to chat about your WIP, our Discord Super Challenge channel is open! Just remember to STAY IN THERE so our judges don’t have even the slightest chance to see what you’re working on. If you’re going to need a beta reader for your SC material, remember to arrange it ahead of time and trade contact info so that you don’t end up posting in the main channels!
Your stories 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 be a separate page and should include: title, group number, 1-2 sentence summary, and any applicable content warning. Your title page info does not apply to your word count total.
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! We felt so bad for that guy!)
Note: If you experience trouble uploading your your submission, contact us via the methods above and the admin team will give you instructions for emailing your submission instead.
You’ll receive your feedback on Wednesday, November 30, 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.
