ARE YOU READY?
I know I’m supposed to talk about this week’s winners, and I’ll get to that in a second, but y’all, I am SO excited for our birthday. Birthmonth. We’re making it a whole month, what the heck. Keep an eye on Sunday’s kickoff each week for special news, prompts, and challenges. Remember: next week kicks it all off, in a week with our microprose challenge, and moderation on any grid with at least five entries. So if you’ve been waiting for “the right time” to join us? It might just be now.
This week, though, we’re still handing out the popular vote to our crowd favorite winners. Besides the popular vote, we also have the option of handing out an editorial staff pick to any post on our grids. Our editors comb the grids to find, not just the best writing on this 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. 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- and we’d love to, so keep that great work coming!
On weeks when we don’t award a staff pick, keep an extra close eye on the Roundup. That’s our rundown of trends we see from week to 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 Roundup, 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!
Rowan’s Roundup: YeahWrite Weekly Writing Challenge #363
“Am I responding to the writer or the writing?”
It’s one of the questions I try to ask myself every time I comment, and it’s one of the things I love about this little community of ours. Nonfiction can be deeply, maddeningly personal. And yet, after wrestling an essay about some life-changing event onto the page, it still feels a little, I don’t know, dismissive, when the comments are all “gosh, I’m sorry, how terrible.” Because yeah, you already know that, but what about your writing? How well did you frame your essay? How much of the time and (probably) tears that you put into it really shows in that end product, or are readers just having a response to the event and ignoring what it took to get the event on the page?
Y’all, every time I’m scrolling through the grids and I see a powerful, personal essay and the comments are more than “oh that’s cute” or “babies are the sweetest” or “how scary!” my heart grows three sizes. Y’all are so great at acknowledging both the story and the storyteller’s effort, and you know how rewarding it feels to get real, thoughtful comments. It’s always been one of our goals for the community and as we approach our 7th birthday next month (technically next week!) it’s really really lovely to see how far we’ve come.
One of the easiest things to lose as we try to edit stories down is subject-verb agreement. Probably my favorite example of this, the easiest one to spot, comes from… 50 Shades of Grey. Who knew? Here’s the line:
He’s tall, dressed in a fine gray suit, white shirt, and black tie with unruly dark copper colored hair and intense, bright gray eyes that regard me shrewdly.
As Jenny Trout says… That is one hell of a tie. If you’re not paying attention to which verbs and adjectives go where, your ties will have hair and eyes, your knees will sweat and your pants tremble, and who even knows whose hand will go where? For the sake of your readers and characters, always skim back through and make sure you know who’s doing what to whom in your story, and which adjectives and pronouns belong to which characters and objects. (Hint: this will be important to one of our birthday month prompts!)
That’s it for this week! 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! If you’re more the self-help type, remember to scroll through our writing help section for tips and tricks. Even if a post isn’t directed at your favorite grid, there’s probably a handy hint for you in there anyway!
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 #363
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.
