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You may not be able to make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, but apparently you can’t make a Sherlock Holmes movie by looking up how to make an omelette, either.
So, ok, I’m a huge Holmes fan. Huge. I spent three Halloweens as a genderswapped Sherlock with my magnifying glass tucked into my backgammon-game briefcase and a deerstalker made of two baseball caps shoved together awkwardly on my head. Holmes (and, by extension, Batman, and if you don’t see how it’s the same thing you’re dead to me) is My Thing. So when I watch a movie I have certain… expectations.
One of those expectations is that Holmes will demonstrate a high base level of competence.
See, I’m not bothered by the idea of Holmes as combatant – it’s borne out in the books. (I also think the BBC/Cumberbatch series does a phenomenal job of taking the original stories and updating them while preserving elements of the original canon that got lost in the Rathbone years, like Watson’s military service, Holmes’ drug (ab)use, &c.) I am, however, extremely bothered by the fact that, in A Game of Shadows, Holmes is not only thinking of his combat strategy in metaphor – something I doubt Holmes would do, but I’m willing to play along for the sake of this very pretty fanfic I’m watching – but that the metaphor is fundamentally incorrect.
Maybe Holmes would think of fighting in terms of making an omelette, maybe he wouldn’t – but he’d know how to make an omelette. He’d never scramble the eggs in the pan, nor would he flip it at the end. I had to go soothe my troubled soul with some Rex Stout after that. At least when his fictional Nero Wolfe serves a meal, the details are right.
It’s not even that the script writer didn’t know how to make an omelette, ok? I don’t need everyone to know everything about everything. It’s that whoever they were, they didn’t even bother to look it up. If you’re writing a character with a different knowledge set than you. If you’re writing about a landscape where you don’t live. If you’re writing about a scientist and you’re an Economics major. Those are all great things – but in order to make your stories and characters believable you need to get the details right. In many cases, thirty seconds with Google is all you need. The odds of someone reading your story and knowing you’re wrong go up with every additional reader, especially if you’re describing a relatively common skillset like sewing, cooking, or making explosives.
I’m judging you, anonymous scriptwriter, for not Googling “how to make an omelette.”
Look for that balance when you’re reading the grids this week: did the writer get so bogged down in little details that they forgot to tell the story? Did they skip the details entirely? Are the details right? All of these things contribute to a good story or essay, and you’re looking for the best of the best when you vote.
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.
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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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. Voting closes on Thursday at 10 p.m. US eastern daylight time. [-4 GMT]
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