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Vote for your favorite nonfiction, fiction and microstories here

Welcome, captive audience!

Happy 5th birthday to all of us here at yeah write. It’s great to see all the new and old faces mingling on the grids this week. Welcome, or welcome back, to our special week. Special month, really. So I’d like to take a minute to talk about what makes yeah write special. It’s not just the love letters, although they’re part of it. Where else do you get feedback on your writing without paying a fortune or just hearing “try again next time?” That’s part of our commitment to you and yours to us, to always be working together toward better writing. Writing that’s just a little more artful at capturing that elusive so what.

Last week as I watched one of the other editors rip typos out of my “five minute essay” post we started talking about that so what, the thing that is really the heart of any good essay, story or even poem. I’d like to share a little of that conversation with you. One of the benefits of mostly talking via instant message is that I can do that verbatim, so here goes:

“I think for most people it doesn’t occur to us that we don’t have to write about monumental things every time. Having a so what doesn’t mean you have to have a major revelation or epiphany,” she said. Typed. Whatever.

I probably made a face. I know I gave that some hard thought before I replied, because it certainly wasn’t what I’d been trying to say.

“The funny thing is that you are writing about monumental things every time if you have a so what. The small is monumental,” I replied, “it’s just… monumental in the aggregate. That’s how the so-what operates. It aggregates reader and writer experience into something bigger.”

Then we got distracted for a minute by how much static electricity it would take to power a dirigible the size of the Graf Zeppelin, and when we came back to the original conversation we summed it up like this:

The so-what is the bridge between reader and read.
The more readers you get to your side of the bridge, the “bigger” the thing you’re writing about. Like if your bridge is about a shoelace but it goes out to thousands, your thing is monumental.
If it’s a personal letter full of in-jokes that only goes to one, it’s smallish…
But it’s always bigger than just you.
That’s how writing works.

Isn’t it?

Look for those bridges as you read the grids this week. How effective was the writer at luring you across? If you’re a writer, have you put any obstacles in the way like whole paragraphs about something else entirely or piles of adjectives and adverbs that they’ll stumble over?

If you’re new in these parts, here’s how our schedule works: our three challenges open on separate days – Monday for nonfiction, Tuesday for fiction and poetry, and Wednesday for microfiction – but instead of separate days for voting, we’ve combined them all into one big voting post every Thursday.

All three challenges are open below for your voting pleasure. If you want to vote on a grid, please take the time to read all the entries on the grid before voting for the best three. To do that, you might have to take a step back and read the rules for each grid: for example, does that microstory really answer the ultimate question, or did it just make you laugh? Please- if you’re torn between two posts, vote for the one that has better writing. That means grammar, punctuation and spelling as well as sentence structure and concept. The hard work of becoming a better writer structurally is important, and we want you all to feel like you earned every vote!

You get three votes on each separate grid. We’ll reveal the results after the vote closes, but they won’t be official until the winners’ post goes up on Friday. That’s because our intrepid vote monitors have day jobs too, and we need to give them a chance to finish their review and tallying.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Where’s my post?

Under the yeah write grid structure, all submissions (unless they don’t meet the basic requirements for word count, badge, etc.) are visible on the InLinkz grid for the challenge they are submitted to. Then our editors read the posts, looking for the best of the best: good writing, good ideas, and good execution. Posts that make the cut each week will move to the voting grid on Thursday; the other posts will still be visible on the submission grid but will not be eligible for voting.

If you submitted your post but don’t see it on the voting grid, we may not have had a way to contact you to make corrections or fix your word count. Please make sure you always give us a valid email address when you submit, and check your email. If you just have a misplaced footnote, a broken link, or another minor error or two, we may still be able to move you to the voting grid if you can make corrections before the grids close.

I got a love letter. Now what?

Trust me, it’s not any more fun to write love letters than it is to get them. I know that on the other end of that letter is someone who’s hearing “my post wasn’t good enough this week.” I’m not going to say this hurts us more than it hurts you, but we do know what rejection feels like. That’s why we never tell you that you didn’t make the grid without explaining what you need to improve. We also have a fantastic writing help section where we’ve collected the best of our summer series and the posts we think give the best advice on improving your writing on all three grids.

Did you break a rule? Miss too many typos? Just skip that last proofread? Remember, there are no points for being first in line. All the entries you see on the grids down there are in random order. Take the time to reread the submissions guidelines and to give your post that last bit of polish that makes the difference between “okay” and “great.” Read the rules one more time before you submit to make sure you are following all of them. If you know you have trouble with those pesky homonyms that spellcheck doesn’t catch, see if you can find a friend to proofread for you. Bring your best, most careful work to the grid, and it will pay off.

If you are reading your love letter and you think the advice conflicts with other advice you’ve received on your writing, remember that we’re not the absolute overlords of writing but we do know what’s going to improve your chances in the voting and competition here at yeah write, from structure to grammar to visual elements in your post. Take a minute to listen carefully, even though it hurts, and see how you might be able to use that advice.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Thanks to those of you who took the time to write and submit to our grids this week. Thanks also to those of you who may not have had the time or inspiration to write a new post but who dropped by to read and vote – we love you! And welcome to those who may just be showing up to our little corner of the web. As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email us or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.

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yeah write #260 popular voting

Writers: thank you for entering this week’s challenge! If you see your post below, you’ve made it into the voting round. Please make the rounds: read the other entries and leave a footprint for the writers. You love comments? So do they!

If you don’t see your thumbnail, please check your email for a love letter from our submissions editor. Your letter will contain valuable, detailed feedback you can use for your next submission. Thank you for sharing your hard work; please stick around as a reader and voter.

Readers and voters: thank you for dropping in on this week’s challenge! Remember that you need to read all the entries on a grid before voting for your favorite three. Click on the thumbnail to read, then click on the heart icon to vote. Can’t decide between two entries for your third vote? Technical merit (such as compelling narrative or persuasive writing) wins over emotional subtext. But you can (and should!) leave your fourth place finisher a very nice comment.

Remember: targeted voting or voting for your own entry is not allowed.

What does this mean?

First, please don’t tell your friends to come and vote for your piece without reading the others. We love to see new faces reading and voting, but they should only vote for your submission if, after reading everything, they think you’re one of the best three.

Second, don’t vote for yourself. If you vote for your own submission, we’ll remove your votes. All of them. If it happens too often, we may have to ask you to take a break from the grids. If you vote for your own submission accidentally, please send us a message letting us know what happened and who you would like to vote for instead. Mistakes happen to everyone!

We monitor the vote to make sure our writing challenge isn’t inadvertently turned into a clicking contest, and we will remove any targeted or self votes.

Good luck in the challenge, everybody! Voting closes on Thursday at 10 p.m. US eastern daylight time. [-4 GMT] The winners’ post, including our editorial staff picks, will be published by Friday at noon.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Voting closes on Thursday at 10 p.m. US eastern daylight time. [-4 GMT]

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