March kinda snuck up on me
Hey, who knew February only had 28 days? This week found me cursing the Gregorian calendar and frantically trying to wrap my February end-of-month details like invoices and those new Technique Toolbox and poetry slam posts. In my defense, it was snowing last week and I can’t be expected to think of it as spring yet, even if I did drive around with my car windows down yesterday. At least Voting Day was on March 1, right?
But it’s not all about the popular vote at YeahWrite, 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. Our editors comb the grids to find, not just the best writing on our grid this week, but what we think is pretty darn great writing anywhere anytime. 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.
The other benefit of the editors’ pick, of course, is that unlike the popular vote we’ll tell you why we liked that post. So don’t just skip reading the blurb if it’s not about your post; you’ll pick up some handy pointers about what makes good writing great that you can apply to your own work. For more of that critical feedback, 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 Editorial 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, Editorial Staff Pick, and Top Three badges. It doesn’t clutter up our sidebar, and they’ll still look pretty on yours!
YeahWrite #359 Weekly Writing Challenge Staff Picks:
Fiction|Poetry
What I liked most about Ruby’s story is her relaxed approach to world building. A lot of stories out there front load the world building, detailing a bunch of new technologies and social structures to establish the setting that ultimately don’t factor into the plot of the story they want to tell. Ruby gives the reader a few world-specific terms in the first paragraph to signal that they are in a foreign world, and then describes the DNA analyzer tag, highlighting the cyberpunk twist to this criminal case while not getting in the way of the plot.
Rowan’s Roundup: YeahWrite Weekly Writing Challenge #359
I often talk about making your mostly-true story more than a journal entry. But how do you do that when the story spans a lot of time and many events, and you’ve only got 750 words to tell it? To keep your story from being more than a list, look for two things: theme and contrast. I’m going to pick on Danielle today because there are two fantastic examples of contrast in her story. She sets up the theme in the first sentence, so you know you’re headed for a wedding at the end. Then she lists the events between, contrasting them tightly and directly. First, “I had three weeks’ notice to plan …. but it only took two days for the mailman to deliver my lace dress.” Then, “…fighting over which movies to watch and who got to eat the last gummy shark. They also shared laughter…” See how these contrasts keep the essay from drifting into a bulleted list of events, while still relating back to the theme? The same structure works in longer essays, too, so why not give it a try in one of your own?
As my writing partner and I head into editing the last quarter of our behemoth of a novel, we’ve got a few tools that we keep returning to. One is the timeline: an Excel spreadsheet that has a column at the left counting days. Each cell to the right of a day is one scene or major event in that day. That way we can keep track of what’s going on at a macro level, without having to re-read the book. It’s also useful for discovering things like on Day 17 nothing happened. Nothing. The main character woke up, ate a meal, dithered, had some feelings, stared out the window, and went to bed. When we saw that on the spreadsheet we knew we needed to move some of the events from other days into Day 17, and some of the feelings and worldbuilding out of Day 17.
Try this exercise for even your short stories: can you fill five cells with plot-important events? Or do your five events look like “character wakes up” “character goes outside” “character looks around” “character comes inside” “character remembers something”? If your entire story is a Day 17, consider taking some of the stuff you know about your world and character out of your brain and putting it on the page instead.
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, the Weekend Writing Showcase opens tonight at 6pm Eastern US Time!
Congratulations to the Crowd Favorites at YeahWrite #359
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.
Nonfiction Challenge
Loading InLinkz ...Fiction|Poetry Challenge
Loading InLinkz ...About the author:
Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.
