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You’re on your own
Just kidding. While by the time you see this post I’ll have fled the country (just to Canada, don’t worry), you’re never really on your own as a writer at YeahWrite. Don’t believe me? Head over to the Super Challenge Discord channel and find yourself a beta reader for this weekend. I’m not saying it will make you the winner, but I am saying that typos and grammatical errors (you know, the unintentional ones, not the ways you play with grammar to sound more like yourself) will cost you, and why give up the easy points? Your beta reader can also help you check your title page and add content warnings. You don’t have to lock yourself in a drafty garret and mourn for the next 48 hours. Why not lead some sprints, brainstorm together, and get ready to tell the best story you can in your essay?
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, or 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
Topic: A (grocery) market
This can be a supermarket, street market, farmer’s market, or any similar compact area where a broad selection of groceries and ingredients to make food can be purchased. The primary purpose of the area (or sub-area, if there are other parts of the market) is not to sell prepared food, although prepared food may be available for purchase. It’s to sell you things to take home and cook with or reheat.
Group 2
Topic: A street fair, carnival, or festival
Picture an area that’s in or near a city or town. There should be music, games, maybe even carnival rides, possibly a small parade. We’re not looking for a singular outdoor concert, although a music festival could probably be shoehorned in here. It’s a celebratory gathering like Mardi Gras, Carnavale, or a Lunar New Year fair. It could be a state fair with crafting and food competitions and a spelling bee and ferris wheels. While an amusement park is not a festival, some festivals are held at amusement parks. Chicago or Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities would count.
Group 3
Topic: A library or bookstore
The place we’re looking for is open to the public, and people go there to acquire books on a temporary to permanent basis. The castle’s giant library in Beauty and the Beast absolutely does not count, but the town bookstore (how did that place stay open with only one customer who never paid anyway?) definitely does. A college library still counts even though many of them are somewhat restricted: the people who go there for the books don’t own them already.
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, February 12 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 and should 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 8, 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.
