Cats, amirite?
When I sat down to write this post, one of the keys on my fancy ergonomic keyboard was stuck. So I pried it up. MISTAKE, Y’ALL. I mean, not a mistake to pry up the key, you should do that periodically and clean out your keyboard. Yes, even if you blow it out regularly with compressed air, just take the keys off one side (careful, the space bar has a weird little spring) and use the compressed air to blow in that direction. And don’t be me: do it more than once a year if you have pets, because HOLY SMOKES I think i evicted an entire cat worth of weird sticky cat and dog hair and just… I’ll be burning it all down and ordering a new keyboard in an act of conspicuous consumption while you check the popular vote, is what I’m saying.
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? All our 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 #395 Weekly Writing Challenge Staff Picks:
Microprose
Micro always appears to be the easiest genre with its short word count and seemingly simple prompts, but it’s deceptively difficult. This month, Sara brought us a complete, stand-alone story that showed us the magic unfolding with the winnowed rice, and drew us into the familiar world of a mother’s worry for her child. By framing the story from the point of view of the mother, she was able to alternate between dialogue, internal monologue and exposition, which allowed the reader to fill in the subtext. Carefully using specific cultural markers was a great way of introducing alternate superstitions to audiences who may not be familiar with them.
Rowan’s Roundup: YeahWrite Weekly Writing Challenge #395
Hey, friends, let’s talk about crossing grids today, okay? A lot of folks seem to consider themselves “essayists” or “fiction writers” or “poets” but not both and never all three. One of the things I love about YeahWrite is how our grids cross-pollinate. If you haven’t tried writing on the grid you usually don’t, this month would be a great time to give it a shot, because it’s one of our NaNoDoMore challenges. But even without NaNo, it’s a good idea: look at this week’s essays, and how they’re informed by the authors’ work for the fiction|poetry grid. Whether it’s innovative language structure, an essay broken into stanzas and circling back, or extracting a plot arc from a vignette, this week’s grid borrows a lot of skills usually used in fiction and poetry, and it’s working. Give it a shot?
When you only have 750 words it doesn’t seem like you’d need to worry about pacing, but you still do!! If all the action is at one end of your story and all the description at the other, it will feel like you’re dragging and rushing alternately. Take a step back after you write and ask yourself if your worldbuilding is evenly distributed with your action.
Y’all, this month’s micro prompt asked for a LOT. I don’t usually feel cramped in a micro over 50 words but I struggled to get down to 64. If you felt like you had plenty of room this month, ask yourself if you put the whole plot in your story. I’m as guilty of this as anyone else (except Christine, you have no idea how many of her stories I’ve handed back with the note “this entire 2 page spread could be condensed to I had a thought and sat still“) but make sure that your microstories are just that: stories. You need characters, a reason to invest in them, a conflict, and a resolution. The trick with micro is that you may have to imply that some of those things happen outside your 64 words, but they do have to happen and the reader needs to know they happened to make a story.
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 #395
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.
