Breathing room
My writing partner is thousands of miles away. My editor is in a hot spring. The authors I’m editing are talking amongst themselves. For the first time in weeks I have the breathing room to work on my own projects and I have no idea what I want to do. Maybe I’ll, I don’t know, read something? Well. First I need to re-read the grids and see 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.
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 #427 Weekly Writing Challenge Staff Picks:
Nonfiction
We often say “show, don’t tell” as though it were the be-all and end-all of writing advice. But what we really mean is, show us the important moments. Tell us about the things in-between. Josephine does both this week with Out of My Depth. She tells us “During that summer we went to the lake with a friend and her three school-aged girls.” Certainly she might have shown us things about the friend, but this is basic stuff, the bones beneath the story. She saves showing for “How relaxed she was, kicked back in her chair, legs stretched out before her. / My legs were bunched beneath me, ready to propel me up and out at the first sign of trouble.” In this line, we can see the different approaches to mothering in the story. With this balanced show-and-tell approach, Josephine saves room for the bits of the story that matter to us: the scents and sounds of the day, the fear, and the bittersweet triumph.
YeahWrite #427 Weekly Writing Challenge Staff Picks:
Fiction|Poetry
One of poetry’s main functions is to get readers to look at something familiar in a new light. In “Returning,” Katie compares coming back to a place to several fitting and evocative similes. She says it’s like putting on old clothing and shoes, like the shoreline of a river, like the footprints attached to our soles. She uses the one-word lines thoughtfully, and with an ear for emotional onomatopoeia: “on” hits the phrase “moving on” like a gong, “dislocates” calls attention to the geography that she’s talking about and how coming back is disorienting because we expect places to remain unchanged when we’re not there anymore. Or at least I do whenever I go back and visit the town I was raised in. She wisely breaks the rules of the hay(na)ku to reinforce her point, the inverted one-word lines returning at the end of a stanza. The simplicity of her tone lends an extra weight to the emotion of the poem, proving again that you don’t need flowery language to convey powerful feelings.
Rowan’s Roundup: YeahWrite Weekly Writing Challenge #427
“Let it be a little raw.” I say that a lot. “Don’t edit yourself out of it.” You’ll see that on this week’s grids: the flow of words, the personal stutter of phrasing. The way that writers broke the rules to sound exactly like themselves rather than some grammarian’s version of themselves. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should throw the rules out the window: things like verb tense agreement, making sure your readers know what you’re talking about before you use a pronoun, and killing the occasional darling will make sure that your readers can follow you when you do need to deliberately use that runon sentence or fragment.
What if I told you… line and paragraph breaks are punctuation?
Whatever you put immediately before and after a visual break is going to stick in the reader’s head. Same thing with what’s at the very beginning and end of your story or poem. Pay special attention to what words and phrases you put in these places, because they’re the ones your readers are going to carry with them after they close their browser window or – yeah, someday – book.
That’s it for this week! Remember, we don’t always give out a pick on each 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, and don’t forget, next week’s challenges kick off at midnight tonight!
Congratulations to the Crowd Favorites at YeahWrite #427
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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