Baby, it’s warm outside
Back in the Pacific Northwest (or the “specific northwest” as my little sister used to say) it’s 20 degrees warmer. Makes me feel a little closer to Asha and my other Antipodean friends, I guess, but it’s not very “end of year.” What is end of year? The grids this week! So many old familiar faces, sprinkled with new friends. It’s like coming home to my best family. Let’s see if we can make this enthusiasm last all month. And in the meantime we can start handing out presents like our special (don’t worry, next week is back to normal) Week 400 popular vote badges!
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 the trends we’re seeing. 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 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 #400 Weekly Writing Challenge Staff Picks:
Nonfiction
Meg’s piece, “This Hand I Hold,” is a beautiful illustration of showing and not telling. The POV of her child-self felt authentic, the fear of abandonment and loss was really clear, and the imagery was so vivid that at times it felt like you were watching a movie unfold. She anchors the piece around her father’s hand, and then comes back full circle to her own similar but diverging hand, and using the physical “life line,” reinforces that the hand is also metaphorical for the life path we are dealt.
Rowan’s Roundup: YeahWrite Weekly Writing Challenge #400
Voice, as I’ve said a time or two before, is the way in which an author deliberately breaks the rules of grammar and structure to sound more like themself. Skim back through the nonfiction grid this week and look at the powerful and varied voices. You couldn’t possibly mistake Shannon’s piece for Meg’s, even if they were writing about the same thing. Jan and KJ Hunter brought pieces that sounded like stories they’d told a dozen times at some cocktail party or another, stories that they’d worn in like a good pair of jeans. As an editor, one of the things I have to be the most careful about is not editing a writer’s voice out of a piece I’m working on: always work toward clarity, but be ready to let go of the notion that you can’t start a sentence with “but” or end it with a preposition. One caveat: break those rules DELIBERATELY, not because you don’t know they’re there.
Last week I talked about rhythm. This week let’s focus on pacing. There’s more than one story on the grid that felt like it didn’t quite have room to say everything it wanted to. Either a bunch of exposition was crammed in early, making the story feel “tell-y” or the ending was rushed after a smooth backstory, well-integrated. If you notice this happening to you, take a look at a couple things:
1) Do I genuinely have room in my wordcount for all this story? You might not. You might need to trim your hero’s journey down to a more focused moment.
2) Am I saying things I don’t need to, that I could take out to make room for the story I’m really interested in? For example, it might be relevant to the story that your character’s hair is braided, but not that their tunic is the exact green of grass in the spring in Llywfindor where the creeks bubble up from the mountains in March and the birds make nests out of twigs from the arhin tree and the hair they find on cashmere goats, which are brought in from their winter pastures in the… you get the point.
Congratulations to the Crowd Favorites at YeahWrite #400
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
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