Spin spin, sugar
I rearranged my office this week. Got the club chair that turned into an oubliette for projects out and moved the spinning wheel in. I used to think I hated spinning, but that was when I only had a drop spindle. If you love a drop spindle, more power to you, but I love the wheel. I love the sound it makes. I love the sensation of capturing twist between my fingers, and I love teasing yarn out of a wad of wool or silk. It goes both slower and faster than you think, spinning, and it’s a little bit like writing that way, isn’t it? When it’s going well you barely notice that you’re doing it, you’re just watching it happen. But when it bogs down you’re picking vegetable matter or extra words out from between your fingers and everything feels uneven. Take heart: uneven yarn smooths out with plying, and uneven stories smooth out with editing. That’s why you should always get a second pair of eyes on your work if you can – or at least take a few hours to distance yourself so you can come back and read like it was someone else’s words. That’s how you’ll spin yarns that take you to the top of the popular vote.
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 #390 Weekly Writing Challenge Staff Picks:
Fiction|Poetry
The brevity of flash fiction lends itself to stories where most of the action takes place off the page. Executing an in-the-head/cerebral story, as opposed to a more shoot-em-up explosion type, is difficult. The tension in the ideas expressed have to be clear and immediate and the stakes have to be introduced early on. Northie did a fantastic job of pulling off an engaging and prescient tale.
Think about what actually happened in “Memento Mori.” Not a lot, honestly. It’s a one-sided conversation. Death is trying to convince someone who is about to commit an attack that their way of killing is cheating. Northie builds interest and tension by giving an example of a respectable way to “set a life on fire.” This forces the reader to wonder what is happening to bring up such an awful story. Northie continues the tension by slowly revealing who is being addressed and the horrific event that will occur after the story ends if Death fails to persuade. The reader is allowed to fill in the terrorist’s backstory and, because of the challenge made in the last line, walk away convinced that the plot is foiled. After all, if Death, the leading expert on the subject, tells you you’re doing it wrong? It’s hard to argue.
Incorporating a particular point of view and an opening line into your writing can require some manoeuvring (ed’s note: y’all, Asha is so Australian sometimes /rbg) of voice and style. By mirroring the second person phrasing of the opening line throughout, Michael allowed the reader to inhabit the point of view of Death. He structured the story so it was a series of imperatives, almost an instruction manual. Not that that’s in my bailiwick or anything. Michael’s careful attention to worldbuilding and dialogue drew together the emotional investment of Touched by an Angel and the wry humour of The Incredibles. Finally, he gave us an unexpected twist at the end of the story that allowed us to empathise with the dispirited (pun intended) Death. Creating emotional investment in characters that lasts beyond 750 words is hard, but Michael really nailed it this week.
YeahWrite #390 Weekly Writing Challenge Staff Picks:
Microprose
Shannon has given us a thoroughly modern – and unexpected – setting for their ghost story by eschewing the common tropes of haunted houses and spooky forests and describing instead an urban landscape. In terms of structure, the first half of the story sets the scene, preparing us for the pivot: “Things are the same forever, but folks’ bodies remember it all.” That’s when the story turns supernatural with an abrupt shift in tense (as a Russian scholar, I would love to read this in a language that handles the habitual tense better than English). Even better, it all takes place in daylight, which is much spookier than creaking floorboards at night. Finally, by playing on a dread that is both rational and irrational, Shannon doubles down on the fear factor. In a way, these ghosts are both living and dead.
Rowan’s Roundup: YeahWrite Weekly Writing Challenge #390
NGL, a full (ish) grid always makes me happy. And this week we had a ton of variety; it was hard to choose! Are the prompts working for y’all? Let us know. Credit where credit’s due: that was editor Nate’s idea, which is only ONE of the reasons he’s my favorite this week.
The hardest thing about a sentence prompt is making the rest of the writing fit with it. Those prompts demand a lot of adaptability from you as a writer. You need to change voice, POV, maybe even tense. Look at some of the innovative ways folks deal with sentence prompts as you work on your own.
This week’s prompt was a doozy: lead UP TO the prompt, in a genre? Whoa.
A couple quick tips on genre writing:
- read
- read
- really, read.
If you haven’t read anything in the genre, you’re not going to write successfully in it. Even if you just take ten minutes to skim a few well known stories and absorb the tropes, it’ll really help. I would say give that a shot next time, but editors Christine and Asha haven’t actually told me what the prompt will be. STILL, it will help you in competitions like our own Super Challenge, right?
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 #390
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 ... 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.
Nate choosing my post for his pick has made my day. And it was a story I wasn’t at all sure about. Go figure? I’ve enjoyed these first line prompts with a twist very much.