Collective Action
Community is critical. Humans don’t “lone wolf” well (and the lone wolf is a myth anyway). Do you know what “fittest” means in survival of the fittest? It means best suited to the environment, including the fitness of the collective. As we move into the second week of worldwide protest and the … it’s been ten thousand years since 2019, hasn’t it? … month of pandemic management, take a minute to reflect on your place in the collective. What can you do to give or get support from your community? And should you be comforting in, dumping out, or both?
If you have the extra energy right now, offer support (monetary, physical, or emotional) to the folks working to keep us safe* and make the world better. While you’re at it, consider a donation to independent media like The Guardian, Vox, or even Unicorn Riot (it’s Pride month, after all). Without consistent, accurate reporting, how will you know when there’s a problem to solve in your community?
–The YeahWrite Team
*this doesn’t mean police. Police have a limited repertoire of options and very few of them have to do with community safety. Where they have enacted community safety initiatives, that’s a good first step but ask yourself if it makes sense for police to be fulfilling that function or whether community organizations could use the funds instead to provide meaningful support. Overpolicing isn’t just a function of police grabs for power, it’s a symptom of systematically underfunding communities and then sending police in to clean up problems that can’t be solved with the tools available to police. Y’all, people are calling police on bees. While we’re at it, before calling police, ask yourself if your problem is something that can be solved another way–or if it needs to be “solved” at all.
Welcome to Week 478
We’re kicking off the week in style at YeahWrite with our competitive challenge grids in one post, plus prompts, tips, tricks and more. You asked, we answered! Keep scrolling down cause it’s all right here.
Submissions for this week’s challenges open on Saturday at 12 midnight and close on Wednesday at 10pm ET.* Voting will then open immediately thereafter and close on Thursday at 10pm ET. The winners, as always, will be celebrated on Friday.
*Note that our microprose grid now opens on Saturday at 12 midnight and closes on Sunday at 11:59pm ET. You’ve got a whole 48 hours to get your submissions in! Voting will open with the rest of the grids on Wednesday.
Having trouble getting started? Hop on over to our quick guide. And don’t forget to doublecheck the full submission guidelines before you hit that button.
Technique Toolbox: 20/20 Hindsight
For 2020 we’re looking back at stories. Didn’t get a chance to write one in January? That’s fine: jump in whenever you can.
If you have a story or essay to work on, tag in: June’s challenge is to do a little more. We’re giving you 2,000 words to play with. Add back those descriptions, put in the explanations, and squeeze in the plot point you’re missing! Just keep in mind the lessons you’ve learned in the past five months and make sure you’re adding what you need instead of just what you want.
Check out this month’s challenge and some suggestions for how to succeed right here.
Nonfiction: Optional Prompt
The nonfiction grid has no mandatory prompts. However, each week, we will give you an optional prompt in case that helps your mostly-true story juices flow. This week’s prompt, in coordination with the microfiction grid, is to write about your breakfast routine. How do you anchor yourself in the morning, to make a day happen?
Fiction|Poetry Mandatory Prompt
June is the gateway to…new writing prompts!
Last month we transformed flowering plants into characters. This month we’re transforming animals into characters. Give the qualities of animals to a realistic person or give animals human qualities. The Wind in the Willows gives us many examples of animals who behave like people and who enjoy human trappings (Toad of Toad Hall loved his new car, even if he was a terrible driver!). How, for example, would a badger would behave as a human being? Why is the bowerbird man building his home, and for whom? Whichever way you interpret this prompt, be sure to give the character a clear plot.
This month’s animal prompt is:
- Write a story with a character who is based on the tawny frogmouth. The tawny frogmouth is not an owl or a tree branch, but a nocturnal bird known as a ‘night jar’. They mate for life, are caring parents who take turns to look after their young, and don’t often move house. Use these characteristics and the ones found in the links to define your character, but help the editors out by drawing clear interpretations so that we can tell which character you’ve ascribed the qualities to.
The second prompt for June is:
- Since tawny frogmouth nests are made of sticks, mention sticks in your story. It doesn’t need to be integral to the plot.
Poets: For June, we’re exploring the ways poetry can be built in series. Check out our technique-based slam then explore that technique to write a poem of your own. Or write a different style of poem incorporating at least one of the prompts above. Or both? You might be able to do both.
Poetry Slam - Series
In 2020, we’re turning from “how to write a poem” to “what is a poem?” with technique-based slams. Since 2020 has apparently been happening for a thousand years, now that it’s Junetember we’re exploring poems that are series: two or more short poems linked to form a coherent work through commonalities and mindful selection of words or topics. Check it out.
Microprose Mandatory Prompt
It’s the first Saturday of the month, and that means it’s time for 48 in 48!
Here’s how it works: we give you a prompt, and you have 48 hours to write a response in exactly 48 words. Submissions will close on Sunday at 11:59pm US Eastern time. Voting opens on Wednesday at 10:00pm, which gives you plenty of time to read this grid—and the others!—before you vote.
Here’s the prompt: Tell us a story that includes an animal where there shouldn’t be one.
Think of an animal you have strong feelings about — either positive or negative feelings. Bring that animal into a story where they do not belong. For example, a swarm of butterflies materializes in a plane that’s about to crash. Or a wedge-tailed eagle suddenly takes up residence in your house when your child runs away. Maybe a leopard appears in your kitchen just as your partner proposes to you. How do your characters respond to this sudden animal appearance? Do they carry on as normal? Are they shocked? Does it interrupt the event taking place? Tell us a story in 48 words…
A few rules:
- Your animal must be literal, not figurative. None of this “there are two wolves inside you.”
- Your animal must be real, not imaginary. No unicorns or dragons, sorry!
- Your story may be fiction or nonfiction, but it should be a complete story.
- As always, we are looking for prose, not poetry.
- Surprise us: you don’t have to tell the most unique story ever, but don’t fall back on lazy writing and tired tropes that can turn off your readers.
That’s it! Happy writing!
A QUICK NOTE REGARDING OUR GRIDS: Inlinkz, which supports our grid format, is currently upgrading its offerings and website which can sometimes result in a glitch or two. If you upload a piece to the grid and notice it disappears later on, please email us and let us know. This has been happening to one or two pieces each week. We will happily add it manually once we are notified. We apologize for the inconvenience, and are looking into alternative services. Thank you for your patience!
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Loading InLinkz ...YeahWrite Super Challenge
Super Challenge #16 is officially underway! Good luck to our finalists as they anxiously await the final results. Miss out on registration? Make sure you also sign up for our email blast so you don’t miss out on any Super Challenge announcements.
Winners’ Round-Up
In case you missed them, you can find last week’s YeahWrite staff picks and crowd favorites all laid out for you on last Friday’s winners’ post. Leave the winners some love in the comments. They will love you right back, we guarantee it.
About the author:
Stacie joined YeahWrite as its Fiction Editor in early 2013 before becoming YeahWrite’s Executive Editor in 2016. She blogs at Stacie’s Snapshots and Tidbits and was thrilled to be honored as a 2015 BlogHer Voice of the Year (VOTY) for this post. Before retiring, Stacie’s career involved developing new medicines for cancer and autoimmune diseases, work that resulted in more than twenty publications in scientific journals. Now, she enjoys daily hikes with her dogs and spending more time with her youngest son while her oldest is off at college.
