Tossing stones – or spaghetti
Sometimes writing feels like tossing stones into a still pond just to watch the ripples. What effect will this phrase, this line of dialog, this scene have on the rest of the story? And sometimes it feels like tossing spaghetti at the wall just to see what sticks. It’s a pretty messy process. I’ve heard that words beget words, but they’re not always *good* words, and that can be frustrating. Still, we keep throwing them out there, hoping they eventually have just the right the effect needed to keep our stories moving forward.
~Christine
PS: Don’t forget that our flash fiction Super Challenge is open for registration, and don’t forget our upcoming Scarlet Quill Society meeting on Sunday, April 16! Both events will give you opportunities to examine the effect your words might have, both in terms of telling a story and examining how they reverberate.
This Week’s Writing Prompt is:
This week, your job, should you choose to accept it, is to write a story, essay, or poem incorporating the following prompt:
Trope: A town with a dark secret
We’re taking a cue from this year’s Scarlet Quill Society and getting some practice incorporating – or subverting – popular tropes. This week, we thought we’d take a relaxing long weekend in a small town where everyone knows each other and nothing ever goes wrong. Until it does… You know this trope. It’s Twin Peaks. It’s Hawkins, Indiana. It’s Sunnydale, California. And, of course, it’s Stepford, Connecticut. [Excuse you, you are forgetting Santa Carla. /rbg] Mundane or supernatural, there’s something dark lurking under the surface in these towns. You can read more about this trope on the TV Tropes website, and then share snippets of or links to your best story in Discord or on Facebook!
Stuck? Check out last year’s — no, year before last! — series on responding to prompts!
Share your response in the Coffeehouse, located both on Facebook or Discord, by linking your blog post, Google Doc, or other file. Check out your fellow YeahWriters’ responses, and don’t forget to leave them some love in the comments!
Looking for our weekly grids? After nearly ten years, they’ve been retired. Read more about the latest changes to YeahWrite in the #500 Weekly Writing Challenge Kickoff Post.
The Schedule
We will release a new prompt on our blog every Friday at 12pm Eastern. Then it’s up to you! Write your response to the prompt on your own blog or website and share the link in the Coffeehouse, located both on Facebook or Discord. If you prefer to keep your work under wraps (and away from the eyes of potential publishers), you can still ask for beta readers in the Coffeehouse and share your work privately! Every Monday, we’ll check in to see how you’re doing and what your writing goals are for the week. Wednesdays are “Work-in-Progress Wednesdays.” Share a few sentences or even a paragraph or two in the Coffeehouse (no more than 250 words, please). Even if you’re not done writing, this could be the boost you need to stay motivated. Did you publish a book? Do you have a story in a magazine? The First Friday of every month is for self-promotion, where you can share commercial links to your work for purchase. (You can always share the news that you’ve been accepted for publication, though!) And of course, the entire community is here 24-7 to share your victories and setbacks, challenges and accomplishments. So come on in, pull up a chair, and say hello. We’re all writers here.
Upcoming and Ongoing
Sign up for our email blast so you don’t miss out on any upcoming classes, workshops, or competitions.
Scarlet Quill Society (Free Workshop w/ Optional Paid Benefits)
Welcome to the secret back room where the Scarlet Quill Society meets. In this year-long workshop, we’ll be focusing on tropes! Love ’em or hate ’em, you can’t avoid ’em. For the purpose of this year’s workshop, we’re defining a trope as a building block of storytelling. It’s a device or pattern of events that is used to solve plot or character problems or communicate meaning efficiently and effectively. Check out April’s post, and then tune in to our in-person meeting on April 16 at 2pm US Eastern time, or catch it later on YouTube as YeahWrite’s Managing Editor Rowan Beckett Grigsby hosts a discussion about tropes that readers would be just as happy never to see again–and most writers won’t even miss. While it’s rare for a trope to be unsalvageable, it’s not impossible. Some tropes started in deliberate misconceptions about the humanity of others, and other tropes picked those associations up along the way and are now so inextricably bound with those assumptions that they can’t be untangled for your personal use until society itself advances a little bit. And some of these tropes started with writers genuinely trying to do better… but missing the mark in fundamental and harmful ways. Want to avoid this in your work? We’ve got you covered.
Scarlet Quill Society workshop posts are always free. In addition, we are offering a couple add-ons that we think you’ll find exciting and worth a few bucks a month: face-to-face (okay, virtual) monthly gatherings to delve into the topics and answer your questions, and an editorial backroom on Discord! And for a bonus, if you’re a paid SQS member and you can’t make it to a meeting, you can still send us questions beforehand and we’ll make sure to cover them.
Sign up for a membership today to join the Scarlet Quill Society and automatically receive the Zoom link and password for every meeting. One-off monthly meeting tickets can also be purchased on Kofi. At YeahWrite we believe information wants to be shared. If you can’t afford to join us for society meetings, we post the recording about a week later, and you’re welcome to leave the tip you can afford (even if that’s just a nice thank you comment). Check out our YouTube channel for more.
Super Challenge #28 (Fiction)
Did you hear the news? You asked, we listened. YeahWrite is publishing its first anthology for both fiction AND creative nonfiction, and the top three winners of Super Challenge #27 and #28 will be automatically published! Register now for Super Challenge #28 (flash fiction!) through May 3. Register for Super Challenge #28 (Fiction) Don’t want to miss out on all the fun? Be sure to sign up for our mailing list so you don’t miss out on any future Super Challenge updates.
WIP Write-Ins, AKA Co-Working Hours
Spontaneous Writing Challenges
About the author:
Christine Hanolsy is a (primarily) science fiction and fantasy writer who simply cannot resist a love story. She joined the YeahWrite team in 2014 as the microstory editor and stepped into the role of Editor-In-Chief in 2020. Christine was a 2015 BlogHer Voices of the Year award recipient and Community Keynote speaker for her YeahWrite essay, “Rights and Privileges.” Her short fiction has been published in a number of anthologies and periodicals and her creative nonfiction at Dead Housekeeping and in the Timberline Review. Outside of YeahWrite, Christine’s past roles have included Russian language scholar, composer, interpreter, and general cat herder. Find her online at christinehanolsy.com.
