It’s a big week at yeah write, and our fictioneers are the real winners – all of them.
We opened the week with a special microstories challenge, and a lot of you took us up on it! Then we gave you a sneak preview of the fiction super challenge that’s coming up. Registration opens today for the super challenge, so go check that out if you haven’t already. Finally, we’ve got our popular vote winners on not just the fiction|poetry but the nonfiction grid as well!
But it’s not all about the popular vote at yeah write, folks. We also have our editorial staff picks to hand out. See, while there’s a popular vote winner every week, we don’t always give out a staff pick. Picks are based on writing quality, how successful the author is in conveying information, and just plain style. If you got a staff pick this week, grab your badge from the sidebar and wear it with pride! The great part is that we don’t have a finite number of picks to hand out. That means that if two, three, five, or even all the works on one grid are fantastic, we can give them all kudos.
Speaking of reading the grids, keep an eye on our roundup for a quick rundown of trends we see each week. We try to highlight the good stuff and point out problems that more than one writer is struggling with. There’s probably a handy tip in there for you right now, so check it out!
Once you’re done reading through the staff picks and roundup (and congratulating the winners in the comments), keep scrolling down to check out who won the popular vote on both grids. If you earned the highest number of votes in any challenge, you are this week’s crowd favorite! If you came in first, second or third, you get “top three” honors. Grab your badge from our sidebar!
Looking for your badge? Both grids have the same winner, staff pick, and top three badges. It doesn’t clutter up our sidebar, and they’ll still look pretty on yours!
Yeah write #282 weekly writing challenge staff picks: fiction|poetry
desolation by the moving quill
Shailaja was almost more a photojournalist than a writer in her microstory this week. From the title – Desolation – on we are prepared for stark graphic images, and like the title those images can have more than one meaning. She follows through in the story, using paragraph breaks like page turns to separate her images. First we have a snapshot of broken buildings, bullet-pocked concrete. But that’s not all that’s encapsulated in this paragraph: sounds start to filter in. Next she builds on those sounds, presents us with an image of women picking over looted corpses. Does it happen in the same space as the buildings? It might. It might not; the ambiguity lends a timelessness to the image. The final two paragraphs really highlight this sense of senselessness and almost catapult us back to the beginning: we don’t know what war is over. We don’t know who won or lost – and maybe neither does anyone else.
the poet’s complaint by jennifer knoblock
Writing is hard; writing about writing, and writing it well, is even harder. Jen skillfully reinforces this theme – exploration of the written word’s limitations – through this month’s poetry form, the triolet. The repetition of the first and final couplet serves to remind us that the very act of putting words to paper robs a vision of something sacred. “Once it is written,” in being written more than once, demonstrates with each usage how words fall short. However, the beauty of her diction almost negates her whole premise.
Through word choice the celestial, as “magic” and “galaxied dreams,” becomes mundane terrestrial forms, or “rocks” and “stones.” This creates some lovely tension within the poem, reminding us of writing’s inherent paradox: that though our words may seem insufficient, the exercise of trying to capture a vision is worthy enough to attempt again and again.
Rowan’s roundup: yeah write weekly writing challenge #282
nonfiction
This week in nonfiction I learned not to get on the grid first: it scares y’all off. Just kidding (kind of). Actually, when I was done submitting and saw that Nate had just posted as well, I totally put my face in my hands and said “well, crap, why did I even bother?” So why bother writing when there’s something on the grid that you think is better than your post? Because it encourages you to stretch yourself. It creates both a goal – writing something that’s as good and as personal to you as the piece that’s already up – and a kind of freedom. After all, if you didn’t have to worry about how you did in the vote, what couldn’t you experiment with?
fiction|poetry
Today’s fiction|poetry roundup is brought to you by Christine:
One of the biggest challenges of microfiction is: how do I tell a complete and interesting story with so many restrictions? Prompts inspire, yes, but they also constrain. In Thursday’s voting post, Rowan summed up exactly what I look for in a good microstory, and I was thrilled to see so many pieces that really delivered. Your stories ran the gamut from slice-of-life – bus stop battles and the inexorable marching of time – to the fantastic – space wars and superheroes. It goes to show how many different ideas can spring from the same prompt. Here are a few of the things that stuck out for me.
I want to get my one complaint out of the way first: using the prompt as your title or titling your microstory “a microstory” or “a story in 46 words.” It’s a pet peeve of mine, because I think the minute the reader looks at the story – especially when it’s on a grid created specifically for microstories – they know what it is. Bland, redundant or wordy titles prepare the reader for an unimaginative story.
In contrast, Melony used her title effectively to set the context of her story. By the first line we already know that her War was an uprising, a breaking of chains, not a conquest. In a similar way, Nate’s very specific vocabulary (bio-grenades, ansible, posthuman) gave us a sense of setting without shoving wordy descriptions in our faces. So much story can be told through details. In your next story, see if there are places you can substitute one or two words for a longer paragraph to get the same effect.
As with personal essays, there’s a tendency in micro fiction to try to end with a zinger of some sort. A good micro doesn’t require a twist at the end, but when it’s done skillfully – as in Lisa’s Hide and Seek – the story unfolds into something much more complicated, not to mention interesting. It’s less of a punchline and more of a shift in perspective. Of course, Michael used the punchline method, as well as another of my favorite microstory techniques: using the micro as a snapshot from a different perspective of a story you’ve been telling in a longer form (Rowan did it too).
That’s it for this week! Remember, we don’t always give out a pick on both grids; if we were impressed by several posts on one grid we’ll give them all picks, and if nothing really stood out for us we’ll hold off. If you didn’t get a pick this week, read back through the roundup to see if you can use some of this week’s tips and tricks.
If you’re lost in the middle of the grid and wondering how you can get a little more feedback on your posts, check out our membership perks!
Everybody: before you go, please take some time to leave your favorites a little love in the comments, and don’t forget, our weekend grid opens tonight at 6pm Eastern US Time!
Congratulations to the crowd favorites at yeah write #282
The thumbnails are now sorted in order of most votes to fewest. Ties in the overall number of votes are broken by number of editor votes.
Congratulations if you’re at or near the top! Writing well is hard work, and we’re honored you’ve chosen us this week to showcase your entry.
If you’re at or near the bottom, don’t be discouraged. You’re in the right community for learning and growing as a writer, and we are always available with resources for those who ask nicely.
To our readers and voters: thank you! See you next week.
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