All I can think of is bird jokes and it’s all Stacie’s fault
Well, it’s looking like my little piece of the world is finally about to get some winter, and I’m here for it. Sorry to the folks in Seattle with the sold out grocery stores (seriously, it’s gonna be like, a couple days, settle down, y’all) but I want my snow, my cocoa, my marshmallows, my floofy mittens and cozy hats. Even my dogs and cats like the snow (except the dachshund, but he’s kind of a low rider and snow over a couple finger-widths deep touches him in uncomfy places so I forgive him). If the weather folks are at ALL correct, this time next week I’ll be surrounded by snow p… Y’ALL IT IS SNOWING RIGHT NOW BE RIGHT BACK HANG ON.
Ok I’m back.
LIKE I WAS SAYING, surrounded by snow people as I get ready to tell you who won 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. 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, or over the course of a couple weeks, even. 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? 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!
Rowan’s Roundup: YeahWrite Weekly Writing Challenge #408
While the grid is short (and the nights are long) I’m going to skip a formal roundup in order to steal a piece of advice that I usually give fiction writers: pay attention to the images you put on the page, not just the ones in your head. This is where having a little spare time to get a beta reader really comes in handy. Now that we’re opening the grids two days early, you have an extra chance to avoid lines like “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.” That’s quite a tie, right? Likewise, when we try to write artfully, sometimes we write entirely new and unintended images into our work that, er, don’t quite fit the mood we’re trying to set. So in lieu of a look back through the grid this week, let’s look forward: keep an eye out for this super common mistake, or find a friend and ask them to help!
There are two directions you can write, apropos of a prompt: to, and away. When you write to a prompt, you embrace it, even if it’s not your usual style or genre or setting, and that can be… well… scary. Like the time I had to write a romcom for a competition. I honestly don’t think I’ve consumed a piece of media that could be called romantic comedy literally since Groundhog Day came out (and I hated Groundhog Day, don’t @ me). I was miserable. I looked the genre up on Wikipedia, crowdsourced a bunch of stuff, and had three separate readers trying to tell me if I’d hit the mark. Um. Enough about me and my problems.
When you write away from the prompt, you try to write like you usually do, treating the prompt as an obstacle someone has put between you and the story you want to tell. Don’t like dogs? Put in a diamond and call it the Dog Stone. Hate writing in third person? Fill the story with “I” dialogue. Not into mysteries? Make a character read a book and complain about Agatha Christie. All of these techniques have one thing in common: they ensure that you’re writing squarely in the middle of your comfort zone, incorporating the actual prompt as little as possible. It’s the kind of thing that anthology editors and competition judges notice.
Fortunately, you have an incredibly low-stakes opportunity to practice writing to prompts you’re not necessarily comfortable with, every week, right here. I honestly can’t tell you how valuable that is, and how much it will help you get some solid chops as a writer before you get surprised with romcom in a competition, when there’s money or publication – or both – on the line.
Christine likes to say “count with your eyes.” I count with my finger instead, and my monitor shows it, with little greasy marks where I touch each word on a micro week as I say the number out loud, confirming what my word counter shows. If you don’t count with your eyes (or finger) you’re going to do the thing that literally everyone does at some point which is trust your automatic word counter when it hasn’t caught up to your editing. That’s fatal for stories that need exact word count.
But what do you do when your word count is only a little bit over? I’ll tell you what you shouldn’t do: you shouldn’t suddenly start sounding like Captain Kirk on Star Trek. Micro… hard. Writing… looked easy. Counting … difficult. Eyes dimming. Sense… lost. Taking words out willy-nilly (especially articles) may bring you to the word count limit, but it won’t make your story better – or guarantee that it still makes sense. So take a second to read through and see if there’s an adverb-verb pairing that you can convert to an active verb instead (instead of “she walked softly” how about “she crept”).
Congratulations to the Crowd Favorites at YeahWrite #408
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.
