In-Jokes
In-jokes are one of my favorite things about following a writer. For example, I love it when Stephen King’s characters make cameos in other books. For example, near the end of Tommyknockers, a not-particularly-famous book about finding a spaceship, one character is hallucinating. He drives through the town of Derry, Maine, and “thinks” he sees a clown in the sewer. Which of course is one of the central characters in a much more famous book (and two, soon to be three, movies, NGL I think Skarsgaaaaard knocks it out of the park as Pennywise but is also desperately overused, settle down, director) called IT.
But to get an in-joke right, you’ve got to do it well, or your readers will end up feeling excluded. Recycling a character from another story? You’ve got to give new readers enough information to connect to them in this story, or it’s not an in-joke, it’s just fanfic. In the example above, you didn’t need to know who the clown was, it wasn’t at all important to the story, but readers who had read the other book got a thrilling little aha moment that didn’t exclude anyone who didn’t get it.
That’s the downside to in-jokes, isn’t it? In means that someone is out. Coming into a new community can feel like that, too- like everyone knows each other and knows little secrets. But one of the things I love about our community is that folks are ready to welcome you in, explain those jokes, and learn little secrets about your writing while you learn theirs. Stick around, and you’ll see. For example, I’ll let you in on a secret right now: just about every week Stacie picks the featured image for our voting post… and just about every week I pick the image for the winners’ post, the one you’re reading right now. See if you can pick up on the jokes I make with her images, or the way the winners’ post plays off the voting post each week. There, now you’ve got an in-joke already! Now you’re part of the community, all working together to improve the art and craft of writing, and seeing who can seize the coveted popular vote win!
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. On weeks when we don’t give out a pick, 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 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 three 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 #403
You know what went really well for a lot of folks this week? Writing about the simple, mundane moments in their lives. Something doesn’t have to be the Most Dramatic Thing Ever to make a good story – in fact, even Lisa’s story, which has an incredible backdrop, is ultimately about small, mundane moments: walking across a parking lot; seeing dead leaves; teaching a step aerobics class. Focusing on, and really experiencing and enjoying, small moments can make for big, readable essays.
This month’s prompts felt like they kind of took everyone by surprise. A character trait and a genre? Sure. Why not! It was pretty easy to tell everyone was getting back into the swing of writing after the holidays, though, so let’s deconstruct these prompts a little bit.
Character trait. To really put this prompt front and center, consider having an actual character embody the actual trait, rather than having it mentioned in an offhand way or just using the word for the trait somewhere. Remember, show, don’t tell: if the character trait is “rudeness” have a character fail to observe the social graces in a way that upsets other characters, don’t just say “I don’t want to invite Amal, he’s rude.”
Genre. If a genre’s unfamiliar to you or you haven’t written in it before, it’s a good idea to hit more than one website describing it and look for commonalities in the description. For example, if I was looking up noir, I would go to Wikipedia, but I’d also look it up by just searching for the genre, and I’d find this nifty guide, and this one. Then I’d pick out three or four things that ALL the sites had in common, like “features a crime or investigation,” “has an antihero rather than a hero,” the writing style like “the dame walked into my office like your third grade teacher when you didn’t have a hall pass: one heel click at a time,” and maybe “a not-happy ending even if the crime is solved.” Depending too much on one site, or trying to work every single element of a style in, just isn’t going to work when you’ve only got 750 words. By taking a cross-section of sites you can see what most people think of first when they imagine a genre, and then hit that dead center in your story.
Micro writers, holy smokes, 39 is NOT A LOT OF WORDS, is it? I struggled, and I bet you did too. But one thing you shouldn’t do is just randomly start dropping words. For one thing, you’ll sound. Like Shatner. Don’t. Be Captain. Kirk. Too much. Not good for. Writing. Not enough. Flow. Readers. Lost.
um. So don’t, ok? If you’re going to use sentence fragments – and I’m not here to tell you not to do that – do it mindfully. If you find yourself running out of space, don’t cut words. Cut ideas first. You’re probably trying to do too much if you can’t do it in complete sentences that make sense and have words like “the” and “a” in them.
That’s it for this week! Remember, we don’t always give out a pick on every grid; 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! See you on next week’s grids – opening tomorrow morning at midnight, US Eastern time!
Congratulations to the Crowd Favorites at YeahWrite #403
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
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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.
