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Put a bow on it
We’re wrapping up the year (see what I did there) with our last Super Challenge round of 2022. We apologize in advance for making you go through pretty much any holiday you might be celebrating this month while waiting to see who won, and congratulations in advance to the three folks who’ll get a little extra spending money for last minute Christmas gifts, if that’s their thing. This is the place where I’d normally put in a bit about how just getting to this round makes you a winner. And it does, honestly, but I also know that sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. So our gift to you is hopefully a great prompt combination that will give you a story you love no matter how this round comes out.
Our other gift to you is a reminder to read the prompts and rules carefully. Our judges said some extremely nice things about the stories they read in Round One, which means the points on this round are probably going to be really close. Don’t lose easy points by leaving off your title page, forgetting to run spellcheck, or spending so much time getting one prompt in there that you forget about the other one and have to jam it in at the last minute.
This round, you’ll be combining tropes from two genres to make a blended-genre story. Here are a few tips and pointers about this round:
- Look. Up. Your. Genres.
- Pay attention to our definitions. The ones we give you are the ones the judges are going to be using.
- Even if you know one of the genres well, even if your name is actually Ngaio Marsh and we assigned “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.
- You don’t need to include a group number on your title page; just the title, summary, and any applicable content warnings.
- If you’re frustrated, remember to check out our free workshops on analyzing genre prompts from May and October last year.
Ready? Here’s the prompt you’ll be swearing at us about all weekend:
Final round prompt
GENRES: Science Fiction / Picaresque
We’re not joking about taking the time to read these definitions, because we’ve put some limits on them and cleared up some things that have confused writers in the past.
Science Fiction is a genre based on writing rationally about possible worlds or futures. It is related to, but different from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imagined elements are plausible within scientifically established or postulated physical laws, depending on technology rather than magic for its novelty (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation–sometimes called “handwavy science”). While in science fiction the imagined future might be as near as next week or as far as millions of years from now, we are asking you to restrict your definition to “far enough in the future that we are not solving current problems using current technologies.” While thematically current problems like racism, poverty, overincarceration, fascism, etc., are recurring issues and you should feel free to deal with them, current issues like specific leaders taking specific actions, or the fallout from specific judicial or legislative decisions being made in the present day should be moot (although they may affect your imagined future: don’t write about Putin invading Ukraine, but you could write about Putin’s brain in a jar making land claims in the new Martian colonies). New and different technologies and sociopolitical systems are fair game: neither utopia nor dystopia is off-limits here.
Science fiction is often divided into “hard” and “soft” categories, with hard science fiction depending heavily on realistic or at least thoroughly detailed and plausible principles of physics and technology. Soft science fiction doesn’t care how the spaceships work, although you know they’re not traveling faster than light because of magic; there’s some kind of “positronium drive” at work. Either will do for purposes of this prompt.
Science fiction is not alternative history; it is a possible future based on starting from the present day. For the purposes of this round, time travel stories set in the present or past are not permitted. In the same vein, your story may not envision a future based on a fundamental change to established history like Pol Pot failing to come to power.
Picaresque sounds like a fancy intimidating genre (especially if you read the Wikipedia entry) but you already know several examples of extremely popular storytelling in this style, we promise. For this round, you may feel free to ignore Wikipedia’s definition and use ours. This is partly because Wikipedia focuses on the picaresque novel and you are writing a short story. So for the next 48 hours you should think of your story as a chapter in a picaresque novel. The word picaresque comes from the Spanish “pícaro,” for “rogue” or “rascal.” This is a genre of prose fiction that depicts the adventures of a roguish hero/heroine of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society. Picaresque novels are episodic tales with each chapter being essentially a standalone adventure with a recurring cast of characters that don’t particularly change or grow (especially the main character) over the course of the larger book. Modern examples from media include The Mandalorian, Firefly*, Andor, Robin Hood*, Our Flag Means Death*, Wednesday, Black Adder, The Boys, and many many more. Was that list reassuring? We hope so. (Starred series are marked because not all episodes perfectly fit the description but enough do that the series as a whole qualifies.)
The critical elements of a picaresque story are:
- Usually written in first person. We know, we opened with a fuzzy rule. We’re sorry. The tight point of view afforded by first person is important, so if you’re not writing in first person you should keep that in mind.
- The main character is not of high social class (or has left high society permanently). They do not usually hold a regular sort of job, choosing instead to survive on their wits.
- Recurring characters. While it’s unlikely you’ll be able to write more than one adventure in the space you have, consider writing like your “central cast” could do a lot more things together than just this one goal. Think Scooby Doo, not Avatar the Last Airbender.
- Society, and we cannot stress this enough, is the main antagonist, rather than a person. This can be brought out through satire, or through showing that false social rules or corruption are forcing the main character and even the people nominally opposing them to act as they do.
- The use of simple language and realism rather than fantastic elements. A protagonist might be lucky, but they can’t have a lucky charm that actually works. Now… a cheating device, that’s fair game. For some meanings of fair.
- The protagonists should be able to at least make a case that they are not criminals. Sure, it might be the difference between a pirate and a privateer, but their immorality shouldn’t be about lawbreaking for the sake of breaking laws. On the other hand, laws are pretty bendy if you look at them just right, aren’t they?
You can see that we’ve taken out Wikipedia’s “no plot” rule. That’s frankly confusing. If you’re curious, each chapter in a picaresque novel has a plot; the whole book doesn’t need to have a metaplot (although it can). Since it’s not relevant to you this weekend? ignore it.
That was a lot! But hopefully it gave you a clear idea what’s in-bounds and what’s not this weekend, and maybe you even got some ideas as you were reading through those picaresque elements about how they’d fit into a science fiction story to blend the two genres. If you didn’t, go to bed or take a shower or a walk, or brainstorm with the other Super Challenge writers in our discord channel (please just the one locked channel, don’t DQ yourself). You’ve got this!
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! You can also discuss your story in the judge- (and judgment-) free Super Challenge channel on Discord.
Your stories are due Sunday, December 4 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.
For the final round, the title page should include only your title, summary, and any content warning you think is appropriate. (No group number is necessary.) Don’t skip the title page, y’all. At least one person has failed to move on or place because they missed out on those points in a close round!
Email your questions to superchallenge@yeahwrite.me or post them in the Super Challenge channel on Discord—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, December 21, and we’ll announce the winners on Friday, December 23, at 3pm US Eastern Time.
We hope you have as much fun with the prompt as we had picking it 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.
